Accidents Happen

Breathing each other’s lies
Holding this in mind
That if we fall
We all fall
And we fall long…

System of a Down, “Attack”

Prologue
Devastation, part one:

Wednesday afternoon. It is around 1 pm on a very ordinary Wednesday afternoon. I’m sitting in a deserted lunchroom before the window. Sunlight streams through the window, illuminating the polished table and the cup of coffee sitting next to my hand. I’m leafing idly through a newspaper. It’s yesterday’s newspaper and I’m not really paying attention to it. I’m mostly lost in thought – last weekend is fresh in my mind, each moment lined out in stark and vivid colours and sounds and smells. I mull over each said word, over each expression on her face. What could I have done different? What would have gone differently if things had not fallen out this way?

I don’t regret what I did to him.

I do regret what I did to her, though.

That is why I am keeping my distance.

I don’t have my cell phone anymore anyway, but even if I had, I wouldn’t call her. I did my piece and she’ll probably never want to see my face again anyway. I did what I set out to do, but victory hasn’t really sunk in yet I guess. All I can see is her hurt and her rage and how she ran.

She’ll get over it, though, she’s a strong girl. If she’s anything like /her/, she will.

Thus I am sitting. Thus I am thinking.

But then I see. What my eyes glanced over earlier, not seeing, not catching on, I suddenly see now. Outlined in black, her name. And the date.

Realization hits on a Wednesday afternoon around 1 pm. I stifle a scream and stand up. My chair falls over, clattering loudly on the stone floor under my feet. The waitress looks up from the counter and shoots me a quizzical look. I feel hot coffee soaking my jeans in that one instant where the world dies around me.

My teeth sink into my balled fist and I blindly take a few steps back. The next moment I’m on the floor and crying in the middle of a deserted lunchroom and the waitress helps me up. “Are you okay, miss?” she asks me. I see dark brown eyes through a haze of tears and I want to punch her for her compassion, I want to kill her because she is alive and here with me.

“No, no,” I stammer, fighting myself out of her arms and out of the lunchroom. No words, no thoughts, no nothing, just horror. And realization.

What have I done.

What have I done.

Oh sweet God, what the /fuck/ have I done?

Part One:

Marit and Reese

Accidents happen in the dark…

Chapter 1: Mist

“Christ, the fog is so thick you can chew on it,” Reese remarked. He leaned back lazily in his chair and smiled at the girl sitting next to him.

Marit shot him a short look before she turned her eyes back to the road. “Tell me about it.” Her hands clenched around the steering wheel. She tried not to notice how slippery the wheel was and how tensed up she felt; she hated driving in the fog. “I bet you’re glad that you’re not the one behind the wheel.”

“So are you. I don’t think you want somebody without a license in your precious little car... especially not when the weather’s like this.” There was a hint of laughter in his voice but Marit did not look at him this time. She checked her rear view mirror to see whether there might be somebody behind them, tailing the back light of her car. There wasn’t anyone. It seemed like the whole world had been depopulated in the time it took them to get their groceries this afternoon. The gray sheen that covered the world seemed completely impenetrable. Sounds were muffled and the dampness was everywhere.

“True, true,” Marit admitted absently. “I’ll be glad when we’re home, though.”

“Definitely. You’re doing great, girl,” said Reese encouragingly. “Thanks for taking me along. At least this way I got to shop for the whole week and I don’t have to walk home with all those groceries. Or take the bus or something. I hate that.”

“No problem.” She was driving at a snail’s pace and it annoyed her to bits, but she simply did not dare to go any faster. She usually was a kind of reckless driver, but not in these circumstances. Not when the world around her was clouded in such a white-grayish blanket of nothingness. “Gah, I hate fog,” she said for what must have been the fifth time this journey. She peered over her steering wheel and noticed the familiar turn in the road that heralded their sortie to the apartment park where they lived.

Reese was a tenant in the flat where she and Robin shared their apartment. He was befriended with the both of them; initially he had been just an acquaintance from Marit's University, and later he had become a fast friend with Robin and Marit both. Like her, Reese was still studying. He was lazier about it than she, though. He would be going into his sixth year of study now, while she was busy graduating for her master’s degree this year – which would be her fourth.

She turned onto the parking lot and found to her surprise that there was a white van standing in what was usually her parking spot. The flat didn’t really have fixed parking spots for the tenants, but it usually turned out that most people had their favorite spots. This person was either new, or was an asshole for not respecting that unwritten rule. “Well, looks like we’re here,” she said to Reese, turning to exit the car. As she got out, she got a glimpse of the side of the van. “Rent-a-van” it said. “The cheapest solution to all your transport issues!!” Well then, not an inconsiderate asshole. Someone was either moving in or out, it seemed.

She didn’t give it a second thought until she and Reese opened the trunk of Marit’s old VW Polo to get their groceries out. It was then that a voice piped up out of the mist and like a wraith, a white-clad girl appeared next to them. “Hello!” she said to their backs.

“Hi!” Marit and Reese chorused, both turning around.

The girl took an abrupt step back as if she had not expected an actual answer from the two of them. Her eyes lingered on Marit's face for a few heartbeats as if she recognized her, but then she gave a short nod.

Marit grinned at her and wondered if she had to know this girl. “Whoa, you startled me. Is that moving van yours?”

The girl nodded. Standing close to them and not shrouded in mists, she looked a lot less ethereal and ghostly. She had dark hair and long-lashed light gray eyes. She was wearing a white fluffy coat and light blue jeans, which might have explained her initial obscuring. “Yes, it’s mine. I’m just moving in. Apartment 43. Do you live here as well?”

Marit nodded and found that she was smiling back at the girl. “Yes, I live at 45 actually.”

“I’m at 34,” Reese added. “Looks like we’ll all be neighbours, then. Marit will be your next door neighbour, and I’ll be living directly beneath you.”

“Nice!” the girl said. She broadened her friendly smile some more. “I’m June Marshal,” she said. “Nice to meet you, neighbours.”

“Marit Sharainen,” answered Marit, shaking the girl’s hand a moment before Reese could. She shot him an apologetic grin, but he did not see. He smiled his most charming grin; one that she knew very well. He always smiled like that when he was flirting. Was Reese taken with her? Oh, now that would be something to tease him with! “Reese Tanner,” he told June. “Makes me wonder though; /are/ you born in June?”

Her smile lessened a little. /Nice going there Reese,/ Marit cringed inwards a little.

“Actually, I was born on the first of July,” June said with the air of someone who has told a story many, many times before. “My mother thought I’d be born in June though, and thus named me so. She never realized that being born after midnight would mean that I was born in a new month. When the nurses told her, she refused to change the name though.” She laughed lightly. “In a way, I am glad. It would have /really/ sucked if I would have indeed have had my birthday in June as well.”

“Always look on the bright side of life, right?” Marit smiled. She set down her grocery bags on the ground; they were chafing her hands. She had definitely shopped well; she and Robin would have food for the next week. “Do you need any help with moving in? If you want to, Reese and I could bring our food upstairs and then help you carry your stuff inside.”

“Oh, that would be great,” June said, her gray eyes lighting up with relief. “That is really nice of you! I have a few things that I was dreading to bring up there myself. My cousin was free this morning and helped me moving out, but she had to work early this afternoon and thus couldn’t help me move into the new house. I was already worrying on how to do this.”

“Give us a tic, and then we’ll be right back!” Marit nodded. She turned to Reese and he picked up his own bags of groceries. They made their way into the flat and before the door of the elevator had even closed behind them, Reese’s delighted laughter filled the small space. “Man, she’s hot!”

“I wouldn’t say that exactly, but she sure seems like a nice girl,” Marit mused. “Then again, you dig brunettes don’t you? Maybe we could invite her one of these days, watch a movie or have a drink with her. Then I can play matchmaker for you guys.” She grinned mischievously at Reese, who gave her a playful poke in between the grocery bags.

“Leave it to Marit to want to play matchmaker, neh?” he said. “Well, inviting her seems like a good idea. If Robin’s cool with it, of course.”

“He’s always cool with having girls over,” said Marit. “Duh.”

“Especially when they’re pretty like this June girl,” Reese added.

“I hope she likes rose wine,” Marit wondered. “I have this whole unopened bottle and nobody to drink it with so far. Robin doesn’t like it and you always drink beer anyway. Could be an idea.” She nodded to herself as the elevator doors opened and Reese left the elevator. “See you downstairs,” she told him.

It didn’t take them long to re-join their new neighbour in the parking lot and to help her out with her moving. June did not have all that much furniture and the elevator pretty much took care of the rest of the whole process.

During their work, Marit learnt that June was a little bit over three years older than she was, that she was an University dropout (“I quit because I had other things on my mind. I’m planning to sign up again next year to go the last stretch for my Bachelor’s, though,” she had added) who Majored in English Literature, and that June was Rotterdammer born and bred. “I’m from the north of the city though,” she explained. “Lived there pretty much my whole life, until I found this apartment.”

“It’s crappy, but the location is fine and the rent is decent enough,” Reese agreed, while he lowered a stack of boxes into the elevator. He hit the button for the third floor. “Well, for Rotterdam then anyway. My parents nearly fainted when I told them what my apartment is worth.”

“Where are you from then, Reese?” June asked. She was balancing her keyboard and mouse on top of her monitor in her arms and managing not to drop any of the items despite all the wires that were wound around her hands and underarms.

“Dordrecht,” Reese said. “Hardly the most attractive city in the country. Nobody wants to live there.”

“I thought it was actually pretty central?”

He smirked. “In that area, yes. But that’s like cooking better than McDonalds. Besides the vicinity of Breda there’s nothing there. Unless you want to count Rotterdam, and /that/ is where everybody wants to go anyway.”

June nodded and then turned to Marit. “And where are you from? From your name I’d guess that you aren’t from around here but you speak accentless.”

“I’m a quarter Finnish, actually,” Marit confessed. “Hence the blond hair and the pale skin, I suppose. My grandmother married a Finnish guy. He turned out to be my grandfather, so now I’m blessed with an exotic name.”

When they had stacked up June’s furniture, boxes and assorted other items in her new apartment (which looked smaller and less well-kept than Marit’s own, by the way), June invited Reese and Marit in for a drink. “All I have to do is hook up the coffeepot and I can make us a cup. It’s the least I can do for your neighbourly friendliness.”

They gratefully accepted her offer and sat down among the boxes and the worn green leather couch that looked like it had belonged to Junes grandmother. June puttered about her small kitchen and opened a box that said KITCHEN in a hasty scrawl to make them the promised drink. “I’m afraid that I don’t have any milk or sugar yet. I drink my coffee black, so it wasn’t really high on my priority list to get with the move and all.”

“That’s okay,” Marit said, “Both Reese and I drink it black.”

She had the coffee done in a few minutes and handed both of them a mug of steaming coffee. “Gah, I’ll have to redecorate this whole place all over again,” June commented, glancing about the walls that had once been white and had now changed into an indistinct shade of yellowish gray.

“What are you planning to do about the house?” Marit asked, warming her fingers on her mug.

June shrugged. “I’m not sure apart from cleaning and some neat basic white paint. That already would liven up the place. What have you done with your place?”

“It’s still pretty much the same as when I moved in, I fear,” Marit laughed. “Which is to say that it’s all very bright yellow and red; my roommate had just decorated the whole place when I moved in. When she graduated and left the apartment last May and my boyfriend moved in we really didn’t have any energy to do something about it. So the house is too bright for my taste, but not really overly enough to do a major make-over.”

June blinked. Her grey eyes flicked to Reese for a moment and then back at Marit again. “Oh, call me stupid but I assumed that Reese was your boyfriend.” She grinned apologetically. “You guys aren’t involved?”

Marit chuckled as she saw Reese shake his head. “Nope,” Reese answered. “Robin got to her before I could, I guess. And I don’t think we would have worked out in the long run anyway. Not like the two of them do, really. Marit and me, we’re just buddies.”

“Aw, that is nice of you to say,” Marit smiled at her friend. She turned back to June who seemed to sit up a little straighter all of a sudden. “What is it?” she asked. “You know my boyfriend?”

June swallowed a large sip of coffee and then shook her head. She relaxed a little, but it seemed almost forced. When her eyes met Marit’s, she seemed reassuring enough however. “I don’t think so. Perhaps I’ve heard of him.”

“It could be, he’s from Northern Rotterdam as well. Robin Aldaine? He would be your age, come to think of it.”

Again June’s body went rigid, but this time it was because she apparently misswallowed her coffee. She doubled over and coughed deeply, her pale complexion abruptly turning a dark red.

“Are you okay?” Marit asked when the coughing subsided.

“Yeah,” June said. She looked up with a weak smile. “Sorry about that; coffee should not go in the windpipe, I should know that by now.”

Reese was already standing by the sink, filling his own empty coffee mug with water. “Here you go,” he said gently, handing June his cup. “It must burn like all fuck in your throat,” he added less gently.

June accepted his mug and drank deeply, coughing only twice more before she raked her dark hair out of her face, easily regaining her composure again. “Whoa, that was quite the coughing fit.”

“You’d almost think that Robin’s name rings a bell,” Marit said lightly and sipped from her coffee.

“It does, but not quite like that,” June offered with a smile. Her red color was already fading again. “I know his name, but I never met him.”

It was then that Marit’s cell phone rang. The cheerful melody echoed loudly in the still mostly empty living room, filling it with a sharp sound for a moment. Marit checked her display and grinned. “Speaking of the devil!” she commented before she picked up. “Hi sweetheart,” she greeted him.

“Hey love,” his voice reached her. “Hey, I’m staying over with the guys after practice to have a beer; the weather’s shitty anyway. Is that okay with you?”

Again. “You don’t have to ask me what to do, Robb,” she told him, swallowing her annoyance. Another Friday night without him. Not that they’d had anything planned, but still… “If you want to stay and hang out with the boys that’s cool with me. Do you want me to leave some dinner for you?”

“No, that’s fine,” he said warmly. “I’ll just have a burger or something. Love you hun, I’ll give you a call when I’m coming home.”

“Okay. Bye then!” Marit disconnected and looked at the two others. “Well then, it seems that I have food over tonight. You guys want to join me some dinner? I’m going to make pasta.”

“Ah, Marit’s pasta!” Reese drawled. “How could I refuse?”

“I’d love to,” June added. “If the pasta is as great as Reese claims it seems like I’m in for a treat.”

“Oh, definitely. Robin’s a fool for missing out on that one!” Reese grinned.

Marit felt her cheeks heat up with a flush of both embarrassment and happiness. “Oh, now you’re setting expectations I can never meet, Reese.”

“How long have you and Robin been together, Marit?” June asked curiously. Her slender fingers were wrapped around the now empty mug and she leaned a bit forward, apparently interested in the question.

“Since early February,” Marit said, remembering that beautiful skiing holiday and how they had kissed in that whirlwind of lantern-illuminated snowflakes. “It’s all gone really fast between him and me. We kissed in February and he moved in with me in May.”

“That’s indeed pretty fast. But hey, you just do whatever feels right. That’s the way it works with love, right?” June mused.

“Right.”

“My sweetheart and I moved in within months of meeting, as well. It started out with my toothbrush, and before I knew all my stuff was lying over at her place.” Her face lit up at the memory, although the expression in her eyes was bittersweet.

“I take it that you two are not together anymore?” Reese asked. To his credit, he did phrase it carefully, but Marit thought that he might be just a tiny bit too eager to get the answer to this question.

“You could say that I guess.”

Her tone of voice was so dismissive that Marit did not feel the need for elaboration and apparently neither did Reese, because after a short silence the conversation moved to other things, safer subjects. They stayed in June’s apartment for a short while longer before they moved to next door, where Marit and Robin shared their apartment. Marit installed Reese and June at the kitchen table and went to make dinner. Slicing up onions and mushrooms, Marit smiled as she heard June and Reese banter lightly as if they’d never done anything else.

She listened to June’s laughter filling her kitchen and smiled. This felt right. Sometimes she would meet someone and there would be this instant click between her and that person, as if they had known each other for ages already and the conversation was just picking up where they’d left it off earlier. It just felt right; it felt good to be together.

Such meetings were rare, and such people were to be treasured. And so Marit did.