Chapter Text
Isak knows his dad is really gone because the shoes by the front door are wrong. They have been wrong for days now, and that is how he knows this is not temporary. Only his mom’s boots sit on the mat, lined up too carefully, toes pointing straight ahead like they are waiting for inspection. Clean. Intentional. His dad’s sneakers used to be kicked off without thought, one leaning against the wall, the other half under the bench, laces still tied because he never bothered to undo them properly.
Isak still looks for them every time he comes home. It happens before he can stop himself. The door clicks shut, the lock turns, and his eyes drop automatically. For half a second his body expects to see his dad’s shoes. That second stretches, then collapses, and the truth settles in like something heavy pressing against his ribs. He exhales slowly, like breathing wrong might make it worse. He wishes that all the hope he holds onto would just go. Terje Valtersen left, and he is never coming back.
The house sounds different too. It echoes. Not in the way big, empty places echo, but in a sharper way. Every sound feels exposed, like it has nowhere to hide. His footsteps on the wood floor travel farther than they should. The refrigerator hum feels too loud in the quiet kitchen. The stairs creak even when no one is on them, like the house itself is restless.
It does not feel lived in anymore. It feels watched.
He feels watched by her.
The quiet scares him more than the noise ever did. In the silence, there is nothing to distract him from his own thoughts. They circle endlessly, too loud in his head, pressing against his skull. Sometimes he is afraid that if he thinks the wrong thing for too long, she will somehow know. That she will see it on his face. Hear it in his breathing. Sense it the way she seems to sense everything else now.
Isak is not sure what his mom would do if she knew what goes on inside his head. The thought makes his stomach twist. He keeps himself small because small things are easier to overlook. Easier to forgive.
His mom moves through the rooms like she is afraid of making noise, like sound might wake something up. Doors are pushed closed instead of shut. Cups are set down carefully on the counter. The television stays muted, subtitles scrolling across the screen while she stares past them, eyes unfocused, lips moving silently as if she is praying even when no words come out.
The house holds its breath.
So does Isak.
Some days she barely speaks at all. She sits at the kitchen table for hours, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee that goes cold, eyes fixed on nothing in particular. Isak speaks to her softly, and she blinks like she has just realized he is there. Other days she talks too much. Her voice gets tight and urgent, words tumbling out too fast, jumping from one thought to another without stopping. She talks about schedules, about money, about how they need to keep things orderly now. Like structure alone might hold everything together.
She prays out loud now. At first it was just before meals. Her head bowed, hands clasped, voice low and careful. Then before bed, standing in the hallway outside Isak’s room like she is guarding something. Then whenever the quiet presses in too hard and there is nothing else to fill it.
“God gives us strength when we are weak,” she says one morning, stirring a cup of coffee she never drinks. The spoon clinks softly against the ceramic. Over and over. “He tests us so we can grow.”
Isak nods because disagreeing feels dangerous. Because he does not know what happens if he pushes back. Because he is already careful enough.
His dad left without a fight. “That is better.” That is what everyone keeps saying, like quiet endings hurt less. Like the absence of shouting means the absence of damage. He packed while Isak was at school. Isak came home to a house that had already rearranged itself. His dad’s jacket gone from the hook by the door. His shoes missing. The bathroom shelf half empty. He took clothes, books, and his laptop. Practical things. Things that could not be replaced easily. He left behind the ugly lamp he liked, the one with the crooked shade that Isak always complained about. Isak’s dad used to say it reminded him of a hotel in Spain, somewhere warm, somewhere temporary. It still sits in the corner of the living room, unplugged, like it does not know what it is supposed to be without him.
Meals stop happening slowly. At first, dinner is “just late”. His mom says she will start cooking soon, then forgets. Isak waits at the table longer than he should, his stomach tightening as he listens for movement in the kitchen that never comes. Then it is toast. One slice each. Sometimes just for him. Then it is nothing at all. His mom waves him off with a distracted “later” or “I am not hungry” and forgets that later ever comes. The fridge grows emptier by degrees. Milk gone. Butter scraped thin. Bread turning hard at the edges. The same half-used jar of jam sitting untouched for days.
Isak opens the fridge out of habit more than hope. Cold air spills out. Bright light. Empty shelves. He stands there longer than necessary, like staring might change something. Like the food might come back if he looks hard enough.
His mom sits at the kitchen table with her Bible open, pages filled with underlines and notes in different colors. The margins are crowded. Words circled. Passages starred. She looks thinner than she used to. Focused in a way that makes Isak uneasy, like she is holding onto something very tightly.
She must see him looking in the fridge because she says, “We do not need much.” She does not look up. “God will provide.” Her voice is calm. Certain.
Isak does not ask her to expand. Hunger becomes something he learns to carry quietly. It settles into his body like a dull ache that never fully goes away. At school it makes his head feel light, like he stands up too fast even when he is sitting still. His hands shake sometimes, and he keeps them shoved into his pockets so no one will notice.
At night it keeps him awake. His stomach twists and growls in the dark, and he lies there staring at the ceiling, counting hours until morning like that might help. He tells himself he is fine. That this is temporary. That other people have it worse.
He stops staying home.
Isak starts drifting to Jonas’s place without ever deciding to. One night becomes two. Two becomes most of the week. Jonas does not question it. He just hands Isak a controller, shoves his feet off the couch, complains about school like nothing has changed.
Jonas’s house smells like laundry detergent and home-cooked meals. There is always noise. Someone moving around upstairs. The TV is too loud. A door slamming somewhere. It feels solid. Predictable. Like it is lived in. Nothing like his empty home
Jonas’s mom notices the hunger before Isak says anything. “You barely ate today,” she says one evening, already putting more food on his plate.
“I’m fine,” Isak says automatically.
She gives him a look that says she does not believe him and does not need him to explain. She just sits back down and keeps talking about her day like this is normal.
Isak eats slowly. Carefully. Like the food might disappear if he moves too fast.
On the nights he cannot stay over at Jonas’s, or when there is no food at home, Isak figures it out himself. He learns where to go, who to ask, and how to survive without drawing attention to himself. He learns where the food bank is. Learns the hours. Learns how to stand in line without making eye contact, how to keep his face neutral when volunteers smile at him with something that looks like pity. He tells himself this is temporary. He stuffs cans into his backpack. Soup. Beans. Crackers. Things that will last.
He eats quietly in his room with the lights off, listening for his mom’s footsteps. He hates the secrecy. Hates that he feels embarrassed even though he knows he should not.
Sometimes she notices. “You should not rely on worldly solutions,” she says once, voice gentle but firm. “Faith means trusting.”
Isak nods and swallows the rest of his food too fast.
His phone buzzes constantly. Bible verses. His mom sends them at random times. Early morning. Late at night. During class.
Mom:
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.
Do not be conformed to this world.
Guard your heart.
Isak reads them and locks his phone without replying. At school, everything feels heavier than it used to. Teachers talk. Friends joke. Life keeps moving, and Isak feels like he missed a step everyone else took without thinking. Jonas nudges him in the hallway one day.
“You good?”
“Yeah,” Isak says. The lie comes easily. Too easily.
___
The only time Isak’s head goes quiet is when he is drinking.
It is late, and the party inside is too loud to breathe in properly, so they are all standing outside instead. Mahdi leans against the fence, cigarette glowing between his fingers. Magnus sits on the steps with a bottle balanced loosely in his hand. Jonas is somewhere between them, laughing too loudly at something Isak does not quite catch.
Cold air bites at Isak’s cheeks. Music thumps faintly through the walls behind them, bass vibrating through the ground.
Isak stands with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket, shoulders hunched against the cold. He is dressed the way he always is. Dark jeans worn soft at the knees. A hoodie pulled up under a thin jacket that is not quite warm enough. Everything he wears is practical, familiar, easy to disappear in. Nothing too bright. Nothing that asks to be noticed.
Jonas’s red Obey snapback sits low on his head, brim pulled down just enough to shadow his eyes. It is not his. Everyone knows that. Jonas tossed it to him earlier without thinking, and Isak put it on without asking. It smells faintly like smoke and laundry detergent, like someone else’s house. Like safety he did not earn but is allowed to borrow.
Blond hair sticks out unevenly beneath the cap, lighter where the streetlight catches it. His hazel eyes stay sharp and watchful, flicking between faces and movements even when he is pretending to relax. He nudges the brim up with the heel of his hand, then lets it fall back into place. His face looks pale in the cold light, all angles and tension held just under the surface. He looks younger than he feels and older than he should, like someone who has learned how to stay alert without being seen.
Someone passes around bottles of Tuborg, green can cold against Isak’s fingers. It tastes metallic and flat, like most cheap beer, and he drinks it anyway. The alcohol softens the edges. It dulls the noise in his head, the constant awareness of himself. His chest feels lighter. His shoulders drop. For a little while, it is easier to forget that he is always bracing for something.
They laugh. Someone shoves Magnus. Mahdi says something stupid and Jonas loses it, head tipping back, eyes bright. Isak laughs too, because that part comes naturally. Because he knows how to do this. Because this version of him passes.
Until they start talking about girls.
“That ’98 girl was so hot,” Magnus says, shaking his head like he is impressed by his own memory. “I would absolutely ruin my life for her.” Mahdi snorts, and Jonas adds, crudely, “I would literally lick her open.
The three boys laugh, but the sound makes Isak’s stomach turn. The thought of wanting to touch her, let alone think about her the way they are, fills him with a sudden wave of repulsion. He feels sick, like he might throw up if he thinks about it for too long. He has never felt that way about girls, not even once, and the fact that everyone else seems to feel it so easily makes something tight and a panicked coil in his chest. He wants to feel what they feel, wants it to come naturally, wants to understand what he is missing. Because when he lets his thoughts drift, when he is not careful, they go there. They go somewhere else. To someone else. To the wrong place. To things he does not allow himself to finish thinking about.
Stop. You cannot think like that.
He must have been lost in his own head, because the next thing he notices is that all three of them are looking at him. It is not intentional. It never is. There is just a pause in the conversation, a brief glance in his direction, waiting for him to fill the space the way he always does. Jonas’s eyes linger a fraction longer than the others, sharp enough that Isak knows he could read him if he let his expression slip.
So Isak laughs, that practiced laugh he uses in moments like this, the one that sounds right enough not to draw attention. He nods along and pretends to care, even as something twists uncomfortably inside him. He tells himself he is just late to it, that everyone moves at their own pace, that he is simply not interested yet. Whatever feels wrong will sort itself out if he ignores it long enough. He will not be like that.
The lie settles heavy in his chest, and his body reacts before his mind can catch up. He takes a large gulp of beer. He needs to clear his thoughts.