2. Ned

T he stifling Arizona heat was getting to me, but it shouldn't have. I'd grown up here, and it was embarrassing that when I got out of my car I almost passed out, burning my hand on the sleek, hot body work as I tried to steady myself.

I wasn't good with the heat. I wasn't good with a lot of things. I went to the gym. Ate well. Worked hard. Played when the urge came on. I'd played tennis with my dad that morning, in fact. My parents lived up in Flagstaff. They had a small house nestled in the cool, leafy shade, far away from the red Phoenix dust and overwhelming, unbreathable air. As if to emphasise the point, I once again lifted the hem of my T-shirt and wiped my face, leaving a rusty smear across the fabric. I still needed to fill my car up with gas and get more water.

This was my life. Work. Drive. Sleep. Drive. Work. I didn't like work. I liked the cool inside my car. I liked my air-conditioned condo…on a normal day.

This hadn't been a normal day. And all because of that damn email.

You see, a lifetime ago—well, what seemed like a lifetime ago, but I'd been, what…seventeen?—I'd gone on an exchange year. It felt like it had all taken place on a different planet, which it shouldn't because, I, Ned Anderson, was one true, full-blooded Viking. My parents were from Sweden, not that there was much Swedish left in them, apart from the stupid traditions and the Swedish flag they displayed on their porch. They'd moved to Arizona before I'd been conceived. So I was born here, and Mom and Dad were as American as pie and Twinkies. We'd visited Sweden when I was a child, happy vacations spent running around barefoot in the grass, swimming in lakes, eating weird flavours of ice cream, and scratching mosquito bites.

The exchange year had been my idea, thinking I needed to do something cool before college. A year abroad to get my head screwed on straight. Or not straight, as it'd had a lot to do with coming out to my best friend, who told his parents, who told my parents, and then everyone at school knew, and suddenly I was some kind of pariah and my whole social circle had fucked off to God knew where.

I'd refused to complete my final year and finish high school. So Sweden it was, and being who I was (read: loser and king of impulsive, bad ideas), I'd called my Aunt Violet. She'd enrolled me at the local school and made up her guest room, and before I knew it, my tearful parents had sent me on my way to the high Nordics.

It was not as farfetched as it might seem. I had a Swedish passport—dual nationality—and I half-heartedly spoke the lingo, thanks to Mom and Dad. I also had something I knew how to use. Charm. Teenage gusto. I suppose I'd been brave—braver than I was now.

School Reunion! the subject line declared in bold capitals. Who the heck SHOUTED in emails these days? But maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, since the organiser was Pernilla, who'd always been an attention-getter deluxe.

My first thought had been HELL, NO! But then…

The year before Sweden, I'd been walking on burning embers, struggling to even breathe, and I wasn't talking about the stifling Arizona heat. The year in Sweden, it was the first time in my life I felt free, felt like I could function, as if the cool air and open landscape with the constant breeze and the stench from Aunt Violet's cattle and…and…

I wanted to cry, give the guy behind the counter hell as I paid for my gas and another oversize bottle of water, because that email was forcing me to look back. To remember .

I'd been happy, free of all the expectations and burdens and a future I hadn't wanted. A college degree. A job. Yeah, Mom and Dad had worried about my safety and sanity—everyone had been concerned, and not in a supportive way.

That year had changed everything. Not only had I fucked off to the other side of the world, but Mom and Dad had gone through some kind of mid-life crisis without me there. They'd quit their jobs, sold my childhood home, and moved to Flagstaff, where they opened a Scandinavian-style yoga retreat. Definitely not my kind of thing, but it was miles better than having to return to the place that had filled me with nothing but anxiety.

The fact that I moved back to Phoenix makes zero sense, but I did. I enrolled in classes, graduated, found a job, a nice place to live. Became a full-fledged adult with new friends and carved myself out a little life—a life that had never quite been enough, because here I was, still yearning for the way I'd felt ten years ago.

I knew how pathetic it was, but there had been something magical back then, something I'd lost growing up. Perhaps it was just that bravado and impulsiveness of my youth. Perhaps I thought more about things now. Or maybe it was down to one simple truth.

I wasn't happy.

I earned enough money to support myself, having worked my way up from a lowly assistant to one of the main recruiters for a large consultancy firm. I knew what I was doing, but it was a dead-end job. There was no way forward within the company. I could've used the tools at my disposal to find a better position years ago. Why hadn't I?

I didn't really understand that myself, because I was worth more than this. Monday to Friday, up at the crack of dawn, in bed by midnight. I went out with my friends, occasionally got laid, and then I'd go back home to my bed, feeling empty and weirded out. I had no idea how to be happy. Because people were supposed to be happy, right?

There was nothing joyful between my four walls at home. No bright sparks to be found in my cubicle at work. I drove a piece of junk that had seen better days, and I kept wondering if things would ever change, but nothing ever did .

My dad suggested I go enroll for some community college, get a fancy degree. I couldn't think of anything worse. Perhaps I was lazy. Perhaps I was just…slow. My friends told me I was stuck in my ways, that I'd become a grumpy old man at the tender age of twenty-eight, but I didn't feel old.

I just felt tired. Sad.

That email was haunting me, as cheerful responses kept it at the top of my inbox, names I vaguely remembered, faces flashing before me to go with the names—people who would have aged in the ten years since I'd last seen them.

Most of them had been friends. Some had kept in touch for a while afterward—one had even visited me here—and some had found me on social media, but apart from that, I hadn't spoken to any of them for years.

Part of me yearned to go book a ticket. The other part recoiled in fear. Returning to the person you'd once been never went well. I knew that.

The weeks passed like dredging mud, the email still sitting there with my fingers refusing to do my bidding. I didn't want to respond, couldn't, and was doubting my sanity, stressing over something as harmless as an invite. I wasn't usually this riddled with anxiety, and there was an easy solution to all the mess festering in my head.

Delete.

I still couldn't make myself do it.

So when I went to see HR over a totally different matter, the words just slipped out of my mouth. Can I take a couple of days' leave? I regretted them as soon as I'd said them, but I didn't take them back.

The phone call to Aunt Violet was curt and awkward. She tsked and ticked me off for not having visited in ten years but finished by saying of course I was welcome. I'd half hoped she'd tell me to get lost and refuse to entertain my idea of a weekend visit.

Halfway around the world for a couple of days? What was I thinking? Not only would I be stupidly jet-lagged, but add a couple of strong Swedish beers and I'd be gone with the wind, spilling truths, being stupid…

Having fun ?

I wasn't sure I remembered how to have fun.

I couldn't even remember how I booked the ticket, but it was sitting in my inbox having an anxiety party with the school reunion invite.

I hated myself.

So I dealt with it the same way as usual. Got myself laid by a stranger who fucked me vigorously while I stared at his bedroom wall and wondered if I'd gone completely mad.

I probably had.

Then suddenly, it was a Thursday morning in June, and my weird-ass self was wandering through the threadbare carpets of Phoenix airport, obligatory coffee in hand and my rucksack slung over my shoulder. I hadn't bothered bringing a suit. It was a high school reunion in a godforsaken small town where most people were full-time farmers. I was pretty sure my check shirt and slacks were up to the job. My shoes were polished and my hair fell just the right way around my shoulders—a little bit too long, the way I liked it.

I looked fine.

I didn't feel fine, though. I felt like a walking meme for regrettable life choices. Even my parents had expressed doubt at my seemingly rash decision to spend an obscene amount of money on a weekend trip to Scandinavia.

I wholeheartedly agreed with them and wanted to scream as the plane hurtled down the runway, but by then, it was too late.

Far too late.