Margaret's Story: How to heal a broken heart
It was an usually cold day for late June and Margaret couldn't stand being cooped up in her 4th floor apartment all alone any longer, while her beach bag lay by the door, gathering dust.
"Fucking Denmark!" She said to no one in particular. "Why did I let that girl talk me into moving here after all?"
Margaret had just gone through a whirlwind romance and an even more devastating break up with a girl she'd met only six months earlier. It was quite unlike her to just drop everything and follow her heart, or any other nefarious regions of her body. She was always so guarded with her emotions.
I could be lying by the lake right now on my semester break, instead of being here in this frozen fucking tundra, with no one at all to hold me.
She sighed and began to shake as she slumped against the door to her apartment with a thud.
"Instead, I'm here, all alone, I don't speak the goddamned language, I don't know anyone, and I hate this place!" She screamed the last bit and began to sniffle.. "I... I don't even like girls," she whimpered.
With a loud knock the door began to open.
Margaret jumped to her feet, startled, her heart beginning to race. She'd heard that Odense was one of the safest places in Denmark for single ladies and college students to live, so she never expected a break in.
"Is... is everything alright? I heard a noise..."
Oh thank the gods,
she thought to herself (and possibly mumbled out loud), i
t's just Bjørn, my downstairs neighbor.
Bjørn was a classically tall, Danish man in his early 20's, with waist-length, sandy blond hair and incredible light-hazel eyes. He was the kind of man you would expect to see in an underwear catalog, perhaps modeling shorts. But he would never agree to that. He was also a shy man, never admitting to his handsome physique and never even the type to realize when a lady was interested in him.
Margaret's heart skipped a beat. She realized that her mascara was running down her face, and that her hair, normally smoothed out in a tight pony-tail, was half pulled out and matted over the side of her face. She silently cursed herself for making such a big deal over a little "regnvejr" as the Danes called it—a rainy day.
Margaret stammered over her words. "It's fine... I mean, nothing, is good, I mean... "
Bjørn took her hand and pressed it to his chest. "You've been crying, Margaret. I do not like to see a pretty American girl to cry." He always spoke in somewhat broken English when they talked, but at least he made the effort. No one else on this god-forsaken rock of an island could be bothered. She managed a half-hearted smile at his comment.
"No, it's really nothing, Bjørn. But thank you for checking on me." She wiped away the last few tears with her flannel sleeve. No one here wore things like this. "No one wears colored jackets or jeans," she thought as she looked at her smudged arm. "I just don't fit in here." She sighed to herself.
"I do not believing you for a one minute!" He smiled and started to casually enter the apartment as he had done many times before, to help fix her stopped-up sink, or eject a particularly grotesque spider.
"I cannot standing to see you so ked... I mean so sad." He looked at her with a glance that made her lower lip tremble and her knees liquefy.
How many times
, she thought to herself,
did I just want to throw myself at him?
She gasped audibly (much to his surprise) and thought,
well there's nothing holding me back anymore.
Margaret grinned and licked her lips. Now that she was done with Ida, now she was going to have a little fun before her student visa expired.
Might as well make the most of Denmark, before going back home.
"Bjørn, there is something you could do to help me feel better." She looked at his eager face and batted her eyelashes. "But first, you should take off your shirt. It's such a warm summer day, for Denmark, isn't it?"
He looked a little confused but nodded in agreement. "I think you have it right. We have it very warm today, even with regnvejr, er rainy day." He wasn't even lying or just trying to make her feel better. Fifteen degrees Celsius and rain was a perfectly warm, Danish summer day. He sheepishly pulled off his thermal Arctic Fox sweater and revealed a black, skin tight t-shirt, which clung to every single one of his rippling muscles. "You have it right." He continued. "I feel more cold now."
Margaret took the sweater from his hand and tossed it over the lone chair in the one-room efficiency apartment.
I certainly won't miss this small, shitty apartment when I'm home,
she thought to herself. Apartments just weren't as roomy as they were back in the states. And forget about having company over.
No!
she mused,
I can't wait to have a place again where I can have a table and a couch.
She quickly dismissed the thought from her head and turned back to her confused, yet ever so "Danishly" polite guest. "I'd offer you a cup of coffee, but Ida took her machine back."
"It is okay." He gave her a rugged smile. "I can prefer water."
"Well that could also be a bit of a problem..." Her voice trailed off. "Ida took all the cups as well."
Margaret did her best to look confident, but she was obviously shaken. The break up had taken her by surprise. She'd come home from her Interpersonal Relations course at the University to find a hastily written note, a key and nearly everything gone. Not that any of it was hers to begin with, but she was starting to feel like it was. It was only three days since Ida walked out of her life, but already it had started to feel like an eternity. Before she knew it, her lower lip was trembling again. It would not be long until she was in tears.
Suddenly his strong arms were engulfing her, completely surrounding the whole of her body as if she weren't there at all. This tall, quiet, muscular man held her closely without saying anything for many moments.
Before she could speak or sigh, she was silenced with a soft kiss. His body pressed firmly into hers as they embraced. Margaret found herself kissing him back, with growing need as the seconds passed.
"I had been wanted to do that for quite some time, Margaret. But I thought you were lesbian." He smiled boyishly at her, a slight blush on his cheeks.