The bait episode drops at 6 AM and by noon, the world is on fire. 3.2 million downloads in six hours and it’s topping every major podcast chart in Europe, trending on social media in fourteen countries. I've been watching the numbers climb from Sofie's kitchen table since sunrise, and even I, who helped to plan this whole fucking thing, can feel the dread sluicing through my insides at the scale of it.
She's stopped looking at her phone. I told her to stop at two hundred unread messages. It's sitting on top of the fridge where she can't reach it without a chair, which she tells me is patronizing but I did anyway, because the alternative was watching her spiral while broadcasters from Norway called at 7:15 AM and she forgot her own name.
In fairness, my mouth was on her at the time. It can’t seem to stay off her. I think the sex is our way of coping. We don’t have to talk when we’re fucking, we just let our bodies express what we still can’t say. I more or less admitted how she makes me feel, on the rooftop. She bewitches me, and it terrifies me, and I hate it, but it’s something I must accept because I’m also in love with her.
I can’t seem to say I love her. Not out loud. Not yet. It feels too dangerous.
If this goes wrong, and something happens, and I lose her… I will lose the only thing I’ve ever loved this much. And if I don’t name it love, then I can’t lose it.
It’s fucked up, I know. But so am I.
—Lars
COMING SOON!