Page 88 of The Bodyguard

“It doesn’t have to be like this, Lena.”

“It can’t be any other way.”

I thought I’d stayed here to try and fix what was broken within this family, but now I know I stayed because I needed to see why I had to leave. Nothing here will ever change, but I can. I will. I have…

Twenty-One

Jonah

Crouching down, I reach inside the hen house and feel around to see what the egg count is this morning. Six. Not bad. Enough to make myself a decent omelette for breakfast, along with the tomatoes I picked earlier. I didn’t realise how much I was going to like growing my own food; spending time on my own in this ordinary little terraced cottage on a pretty cobbled street in Simrishamn, Sweden. Yeah. I came home. Well, sort of. I was born on the other side of the country, never visited Simrishamn before. But I chose to live here because nobody knows me, here. Nobody cares who I used to be, or what I used to do, I’m just Jonah. The new guy who hands out freshly laid eggs to his neighbours when he has some to spare. The guy who fixes their internet when it goes down or tunes their new TVs in; is invited to barbecues and for drinks in the local bar down on the marina, which is literally at the bottom of the street. And I love it here. I love the change of pace, the peace and quiet, the fact I can keep chickens in my modest back yard and grow tomato plants in a tiny greenhouse by the back door. I love everything about my life. Except one thing. But it’s the one thing I can’t have.

Lena Nielsen.

Placing the eggs down on the countertop in my compact kitchen, I reach for a bowl from the cupboard above, and a whisk from the utensil jar next to the stove top. Cracking three eggs into the bowl I put it to one side and chop up a couple of tomatoes, taking a second to breathe in that distinctive smell of homegrown-on-the-vine. Adding a dash of oil to a pan I quickly whisk up the eggs and pour them in, before throwing in the tomatoes. As I cook I glance out of the window that looks out over my back yard; at the two chickens clucking away in their run, pecking at the food I gave them earlier. And I smile. I could get used to this life.

“Shit!”

I look down into the pan, pulling it off the heat as I realise I must’ve drifted off for a little longer than I should’ve done there. I almost burnt the omelette.

Tipping it out onto a plate I take it back outside, sit down at the small wooden table on the tiny patio by the hen house and as I eat I watch my chickens and think about how different everything is now.

When Nielsen’s private jet had landed in the UK, on our return from Germany, Lena was ushered away with her father, before I had any chance to take her to one side; to tell her this wasn’t over. That I didn’t want it to be over. Except, it was. It had to be. I knew that the second I watched her disappear down the stairs without a backward glance. I knew it for definite the second her brother approached me; told me how grateful the Nielsen family was to me for saving Mikkel’s life. And I could see it in his eyes, how grateful he really was, but there was something else there. Something unspoken, and yet, it was louder than anything I’d heard before.

Stay away from Lena.

We’re not going to kill you now, as long as you stay away from Lena.

And at first I thought, fuck it. I’m fighting that shit, I love her. I fucking love her, and I’ve been through too much to sit back and watch her walk away, but then reality kicked in. A harsh, stark reality that even I couldn’t fight. We never belonged together. We come from two vastly different worlds and she will never choose to leave hers. I’m not sure she’ll ever be able to.

Glancing down at my plate I notice I’ve barely touched my omelette. I’m not really hungry anymore, and I sigh quietly, get up, and go back inside.

I wash up, leave the dishes on the drainer and grab my jacket before heading out of the house and down to the marina.

“Hey, Jonah!”

I stop and turn around, smiling as I see a familiar face coming out of the café on the corner. Hanna Andersson. She lives a few doors down from me, moved into the street two years ago after leaving Stockholm for a simpler life. She’s an artist, which is kind of obvious looking at her today, with her paint-splattered T-shirt and a thin paintbrush stuck in her piled-up hair.

“Hey, Hanna!”

“You got anything planned for today?” she asks, taking a sip of her take-out coffee.

“No. Just another quiet one.”

She cocks her head slightly, one hand on her hip, the other clutching her coffee. “Don’t you get bored? I mean, you’re so young to take early retirement.”

Yeah. The lies are still coming, although, this is more of a little white one. I mean, I can’t tell her what I really was: what I did, so I told her I used to be in the police force. That an injury forced me into early retirement, and she didn’t question why I didn’t just take a desk job, so I left it there.

“I like the slower pace.” I smile. So does she. She’s incredibly laid back, and that’s what drew me to her, she’s become a good friend. One of the few I have, but that’s deliberate. The less people I let close to me, the less I have to lie.

“Anyway, I should be going. I’m starting a new painting today, and I need to work fast on this one. I’m organising a show in Stockholm next month and this is the final piece… Hey! You should come.”

I frown. “To your show?”

“Why not? If you want to, that is. Unless you find art shows tedious, I know some people do…”

“I’d love to come.”

“You would? Great!”

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