In this Bed of Snowflakes we Lie Read online

  In this Bed of Snowflakes We Lie

  Sophia Soames

  Contents

  In this Bed of Snowflakes We Lie

  Synopsis

  Please note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Sophia Soames

  Come join my Facebook reader’s group

  Copyright © 2019 Sophia Soames

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  ISBN 9781701471290

  Cover Artwork Copyright ©2019 Miriam Latu Instagram@om_hundre_ar_er_allting

  The people in the cover images are Models and should not be connected to the Characters in the book. Any resemblance is incidental. Cover photography by Joelle Cowley. Model George Cowley.

  All photos and fonts are licenced and/or free for commercial use by Sophia Soames, for distribution via electronic media and/or print. Final copy and promotional rights included.

  Cover design by Aurelia Morris

  Graphics: Christmas snowflake by ProSymbols from the Noun Project

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the Author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  References to real people, events, organisations, establishments, or locations are intended to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organisations or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  The Author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the products mentioned in this work.

  Edited by Ann Attwood Editing and Proofreading services

  Promotional, beta and proofreading services by Jill Wexler at LesCourt Author Services

  Proofreading by Anni @AnniBee and Katie Jaarsveld.

  Formatting by Leslie Copeland, LesCourt Author Services

  This book contains material that is intended for a mature adult audience. It contains graphic language, explicit sexual content and adult situations.

  Find Sophia Soames on Social Media @sophiasoames

  Find Sophia’s readers group on Facebook, Sophia Soames’ Little Harbour

  Synopsis

  Oskar Høiland hides from life. It just makes things easier that way, not having to face all the fears and drama of living. He avoids other people, because Oskar has grown up fearing the snide remarks and the quick glances that strip him of the tiny scraps of confidence he still has left. He is just going to keep existing. Work hard to complete his medical degree and perhaps watch a few more series on Netflix in peace and quiet over Christmas.

  Erik Nøst Hansen should be an almost fully-fledged adult. He should be able to sort out the mess that festers in his head and stop lying. It’s just hard. And it’s bloody terrifying to even acknowledge the thoughts that swirl around in his head at night when he can’t sleep. He also needs to figure out how to talk to the boy downstairs. The one with the golden curls and the crooked smile. The boy who is completely monopolising Erik’s messed-up heart.

  A story of falling in love and being brave. A Christmas tale with a difference, set in the university dorms of central Oslo, where lies are uncovered, snowflakes are falling all over the place, and beds are made to lie in. There is a slightly unconventional family. A mess of animal onesies. Too much food and a very Merry Christmas.

  For L and M

  This story takes place in Norway, where University dorms are mixed and students are housed together with no importance placed on gender, what they study or which year they are in. You apply for housing and simply get offered the first vacant room on the list.

  You are not expected to share rooms, but can apply for a single room, a double for a couple, or a family apartment for students bringing a family.

  This story mentions several Norwegian brand names and food items, like Gløgg, a spiced mulled wine, and Julebrus, a festive soft drink. Brunost is a popular sweet whey cheese. Scandinavians are great bakers, and a traditional Christmas feast will include several kinds of home-made biscuits, pastries, sweets and bakery items.

  No trigger warnings, apart from a high risk of cravings for gingerbread biscuits.

  Oskar Høiland counts himself as lucky, having ended up in Dorm 212:A. Very lucky. He is well aware how easily fate could have placed him in another dorm on campus, one of those party dorms full of pretty popular girls and successful confident sporty types with opinions and attitudes, and... well, let’s just say he thanks his lucky stars or guardian angel or whoever intervened and chose this dorm for his stint at medical school.

  This ground floor dorm, with its yellow washed-out curtains and chipped furniture and the grey lino that covers the floor. The ten-bedroomed, shared corridor with the soul-destroying dull common room and kitchen, where cabinets with years of scrawny scribbled names and torn-off labels have served students claiming space as their own, trying to protect their food and belongings from thieving desperate hands. Well, mostly from fellow poor lazy students who wouldn’t think twice about stealing a handful of pasta or a tin of chopped tomatoes from their cohabiting humans.

  Oskar should hate it, but instead, he kind of effortlessly exists with the rest of the misfits who usually inhabit the quiet peacefulness that is 212:A, despite his noodles regularly going missing—and he hasn’t seen his favourite coffee mug for weeks. The university dorms are mostly old and tired and in desperate need of refurbishment, but they are central to the city and cheap, and Oskar was lucky to land himself a room—let alone this one. At least this one is quiet and peaceful, and mostly free from drama—usually, that is.

  Because, tonight, whilst 212:A is visually quiet, 212:B is hosting the Christmas party of the century, blasting rap music through the walls to the point that the ceilings are shaking and the lamp on Oskar’s desk is wobbling around with every beat. There must be at least a hundred people jumping up and down in time to the music upstairs, and even Oskar’s super-expensive noise-cancelling headphones are doing a lousy job of attempting to drown out what sounds like a disco warzone upstairs.

  Upstairs.

  Because the dorm upstairs is the stuff of Oskar’s nightmares. The ten bedrooms in 212:B are occupied by a bunch of seriously cool dudes. Tough hard-faced males who dress like the guys on MTV. Slick effortlessly handsome guys with bandanas and hoodies and attitudes and winning smiles, and they honestly scare the shit out of Oskar.

  He doesn’t think he’s the only one though, because Naomi, who barely leaves the dorm as it is, squeaks in panic if one of them passes her in the hallway, Madeleine hasn’t even attempted to get to know any of them, which is so unlike her, since she’s one of these people who talks to anyone and knows everyone. Even Freddie, the confident fourth year who doesn’t give a crap what people think about him, the guy who dyes his ha
ir every colour of the rainbow and champions the right to love whomever you love, avoids them like the plague. He keeps calling them the plastic boys upstairs, saying that they are all so slick and shiny that he wouldn’t need lube to get it on with them.

  Not that he wants to shag the little hipster-boys, Freddie will snigger and do his amateur dramatics with his signature eye-roll and hand on his hip, shudder at the thought of the shiny humans with questionable attitudes inhabiting the floor above. The party lads. The dorm where the sexual partners seem to come and go, where half-dressed humans do the walk of shame, sneaking down the concrete stairs in the early hours of the weekend mornings, with a giggle and a wave as Oskar leaves for his morning run.

  Well, right now, there seem to be hundreds of willing sexual partners upstairs if you go by the sounds coming from the stairwell outside—squeals and pants and laughter from people getting busy.

  Everyone is up to it, in the stairwell, the balcony. There are even people making out in the bicycle shelter outside Oskar’s window. He slams the curtains shut. Everyone is getting laid tonight.

  Well, except for Oskar. No one ever shags Oskar. Because Oskar is not like everyone else.

  He doesn’t know how to speak to people, and it’s not for lack of trying. He’s just not very good at it, and these days, he just doesn’t really want to. People never like him, and to be honest, he rarely likes people back. It’s just the way it is. He never made friends at school, and the ones he thought were his friends always ended up laughing behind his back. Not that he remembers why, apart from that he never wore the right clothes, or rode the right bike or had the trainers you were supposed to have. And people were cruel. Kids. Teenagers. Grown-ups. He was always happier on his own, in the safety of his childhood room, with his books and films and music.

  Things haven’t changed much now that he is well into his twenties. People still disappoint him, so he chooses his own company. Solitude suits him, and 212:A is all about solitude.

  The dorm is, as always, deserted on a Friday night, the doors to the bedrooms all closed, except for Naomi’s down by the end. There’s this unspoken rule with the doors. Open door means come talk to me. Closed door means leave me alone. People follow the rules down here, despite being a mixed bag of first to fourth years and a few mature students thrown into the mix. Oskar follows the rules too, and leaves his door permanently closed. Not that anyone will come and see him, which is just the way he likes it.

  He needs to check on Naomi though, especially with the commotion going on upstairs which he knows will trigger her anxieties. He knows where he will find her straight away, the acrid smell from the bleach making his nostrils twitch.

  The common room is pristine, the twinkling lights over the windows casting a little Christmas cheer over the otherwise bleak room, the sofa deserted and the chairs around the kitchen table neatly stacked upside down on top of the table. The floor is gleaming with water, and Naomi is on all fours, scrubbing imaginary stains from the lino. There is nothing there, Oskar knows, because they all keep the kitchen immaculate, most of them knee-deep-in-murky-medicine students and already professionally damaged from growing bacteria on Agar plates in Lab-work class during their first term.

  Oskar would happily eat his morning porridge straight off the floor. Seriously. There is not a single bacterium worth its name living a healthy existence anywhere near 212:A.

  He knows what Naomi is doing though. He has become good at reading her by now, having lived here for over a year. She’s freaked out. Terrified. Anxious as hell. Which results in epic, unstoppable cleaning frenzies until either she exhausts herself, or someone manages to calm her enough to make her stop, hides her away and soothes her racing mind until the world is a quieter, kinder place, where she can make her thoughts slow down long enough to keep her safe.

  “Naomi.”

  He keeps his voice calm and soft, sitting down carefully on his haunches next to her, silently swearing as he feels the bleachy water penetrating his socks. Damn.

  “Staphylococcus bacteria breeds easily when we have the heating on so high all through the day. It’s all over the floor. I can sense it. It’s everywhere. “

  She barely acknowledges him, scrubbing the floor with increased frenzy, her jet-black hair bunched into a messy topknot with a few loose strands stuck to her forehead.

  “It smells like a swimming pool in here. With all the bleach on the floor there will not be a single Staphylococcus bacterium left alive. I promise. Remember, I passed Bacterial Infections at one hundred per cent last term. I know my shit.”

  “I know you did, you pass everything one hundred per cent. You don’t even have to try. You just turn up and the tutors give you full marks. Just like that.” Naomi is huffing and puffing with every word, letting her sponge sweep across the floor in front of her, splashing bleachy water over her jumper.

  “Naomi, you need to wear gloves. Please, let me just sort out your hands and I will let you get back to cleaning.”

  “Need to finish it. Need to keep busy to drown out the noise,” she mutters, still not looking up from the floor. “I used to be normal. I used to party all the time, go out, have a good time. I used to have a boyfriend…” She scrubs even harder.

  He knows this story. The one that they don’t mention if they know what is good for them, and for Naomi, who will go into a screaming fit of obscenities at the bare mention of her ex. Some asshat called Haakon, who apparently ruined Naomi’s life and took her sanity away with him when he fucked off to Australia or wherever he now parks his arse at night and makes the world a dark place around him. All according to Naomi.

  “Can’t stop. Hands. Oh no. My hands.”

  Her hands are an angry red. Not only does her obsessive handwashing aggravate her dermatitis, but the creases on her already-mangled hands are seeping with tiny streaks of red as she holds them up in front of her.

  Oskar has done this before. Not only is dermatology something he has studied, but he understands Naomi. He gets what she does. Understands how she feels. Fuck, he’s pretty much like her himself. Just that he spits out his obsessions through his frankly ridiculous perfectionism in his studies, the daily runs that, honestly, he needs to rein in, his passionate quirk for keeping his room in a constant state of despair and the unquestionable fact that Oskar Høiland is a fucking loser.

  A nerd of the first degree. A friendless, partnerless idiot, who at the ancient age of twenty-two hasn’t managed to get laid. Or get kissed. Or been anywhere close to getting any of the sort for that matter. He hasn’t even held anyone’s hand for God’s sake. Well, apart from Naomi’s as he slowly leads her through the sloshy water on the floor to the sink so he can carefully rinse her hands under the warm water from the tap.

  “Just let me take care of your hands, Naomi, just breathe with me.”

  Her breath is ragged and frenzied, her eyes closed as she winces with pain. This is not the first time she has fucked up her hands with bleach. Completely lost in her need to follow her instincts to notice the skin cracking between her fingers. Too full of her anxious thoughts to realise she should stop. He understands. He knows. This is not the first time. It won’t be the last.

  The cupboard marked ‘Oskar’ is next to them, and he reaches out with his free hand, rummaging around between the packets to find the tube of cream he left there for times like this. Thick gloopy ointment that he carefully slathers over her broken skin. Soft movements of his hands over hers.

  “Let’s sit,” he whispers, and walks her carefully back towards the sofa, sinking back down on his haunches as she sits, her hands still cradled in his.

  The movement of his hands seems to calm her, letting his fingers softly massage the cream into her damaged skin, hopefully soothing the angry red that is still visible under the layers of Vaseline and calming oils.

  “Just stay here. I just need to open the front door for a few minutes, so I can create a draught. Get some of the fumes out of the air.”

  To be honest,
the fumes are making him feel dizzy. The stress of the noise from upstairs is not helping and there is a bunch of people smoking outside the window that he’s just slammed closed after getting a mouthful of tobacco carried inside with the cold waft of air.

  All they need right now is a little peace and quiet. Just a little break. A moment of silence so he can get Naomi under control. He feels like banging on a few doors to get some backup and help. Not that Ingvild or Madeleine would help clean up Naomi’s mess. They would just roll their eyes and bitch about their socks getting ruined. Speaking of which, Oskar takes his soaked excuse for socks off his feet and throws them in the bin. His jeans are already rolled up around his ankles, and his bare feet angry from bleach and water as he tiptoes down the hall to get the front door open.

  He wedges it open against the wall, placing the brick—that someone must have left outside years ago for that sole purpose—in front of the door, shivering in his t-shirt and bare feet against the icy December wind that is relentlessly hitting him as he hops back inside over the threshold. He should grab a jumper. He should go wash his feet. Instead, he grabs the dry mop from the cleaning cupboard and starts to slosh the water around, leaving Naomi on the sofa with her now bare feet up underneath her, her wet socks in a puddle on the floor and her hands resting gently on her lap.