It was a terrible, horrible day. Amber had never felt cold like it. It was the kind of cold that quickly seeped through all clothing, past skin and flesh, and buried itself deep within bones.
She’d never really understood the meaning of cold until now. The bizarre part was, it wasn’t even that cold out. She’d checked the temperature before she left, and the weather station in Emilia’s kitchen said the same thing—average temperatures for that time of year, like a cool London day.
But she hadn’t factored in two things: wind chill and the fact that Swedish cold was a different kind of cold. She’d always thought people who said that were crazy. A temperature was a temperature, it shouldn’t matter where you were.
She now knew that wasn’t the case.
Geography mattered.
Like when her friend Rebecca had gone to New York completely ill-prepared. She’d seen the weather report and thought she had packed appropriately. Apparently, it was a different humidity level in New York to what it was in London, and she’d promptly gone shopping and bought several more layers.
Amber had never really understood that story. Until today.
Now she knew about different types of cold. Walking around that barren, icy lake had been one of the worst experiences of her life.
She didn’t say anything because Emilia clearly adored the lake, and walking. Since Emilia was having a good time, Amber knew she had to put up with things and pretend she was, too.
The entire way around the lake she had been reminding herself of the contract. She needed to keep Emilia happy to get the contract signed. She could cope with some frostbite as long as it meant that Emilia felt they were two peas in a pod and could work together.
She’d also been promising herself a hot shower the moment they returned. But now that she stood under the hot water, she was disappointed to find that it wasn’t helping as much as she’d hoped. Several hours out in the cold had plunged her body temperature down so far that she wondered if she would ever feel warm again.
She imagined that she must have looked truly pathetic, sitting on the floor of the shower with her knees to her chest, hot water falling down her face.
She shivered, partly from the chill and partly from the memory of Emilia’s constant need to identify every plant or bird call. And her subsequent need to look interested when she was really wondering if she could die from being bitterly cold.
She leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. Emilia had occasionally drifted into more personal topics, once asking if she were seeing any ‘boys’. She hadn’t been asked that since she was a child and a friend of her parents or older relatives had grilled her. Why adults thought it was appropriate to ask young adults and children that question was completely beyond Amber. It turned them into pseudo-sexual beings at a young age and often made them feel as if they needed to be seeing boys to be somehow complete to an adult’s eyes.
It didn’t help that Amber had known she was bisexual, though more interested in girls than boys, since she first heard the word at six years old. She’d kept an open mind as she’d grown up, but the desire for all genders had always remained. She’d dated her first girl when she was only fourteen, her first boy when she was sixteen. Since then, she’d favoured women but had been in relationships with both.
She’d been open about her sexuality all her life. Living in London meant that she knew she was surrounded by people like her. She read Honey Magazine cover to cover every month and frequently saw first-hand how large and vibrant her community was.
Yet she’d frozen when Emilia had asked. It was a usual, though childishly phrased, question. Rather than correcting Emilia and explaining that she was bisexual, she had simply shaken her head and remained quiet.
Guilt weighed her down. She had promised herself to never live in the closet. It was sheer dumb luck that she lived in a time and a country where being gay was accepted by the majority. She felt she owed it to those who didn’t have that privilege to live an out lifestyle.
And she’d always done so. Until today.
She really didn’t know how sweet, naïve Emilia would respond to having a bisexual woman staying in her home. Would she even know what bisexuality was? Amber had met a few people who thought you were either gay or straight. She wouldn’t be surprised if Emilia’s understanding was as simplistic.
She felt awful. She hadn’t lied, but she had deliberately withheld information which pretty much was the same thing. Trying to tell herself that it was a business arrangement and it wasn’t relevant didn’t help. Passing for straight in order to get a contract was about as low as Amber thought she could go.
Now, on top of the stress of trying to keep her job, and the pressure of trying to make Emilia like her, she knew she had to tell the truth. It would eat at her if she didn’t admit her sexuality to Emilia.
She couldn’t live a lie.
She knew she was blowing things out of proportion. It had just been an innocent question, but it was an important one for Amber. One that she had been asked time and time again over the course of her life.
It was a question that she always dreaded. It meant that she was always in a state of coming out, usually to complete strangers or business acquaintances, having to admit her sexual preferences to people she hardly knew. But she did it. Time and time again, she did it, because she felt it was important to do so and to be honest.
She knew that she, unlike so many others, could do it. Simply because she was born in the UK rather than one of the many countries around the world where she could be imprisoned or even killed for admitting such a thing.
Not that she ran up to anyone on the street and announced she was bisexual. No, she wasn’t in the habit of shouting it from the rooftops, but it was surprising how often the topic came up in everyday conversation.
Now the topic had come up, and she’d lied by omission. She needed to correct that matter. Her moral compass simply wouldn’t allow her to ignore it.
Suddenly, the warm water ran cold. Amber screeched and crawled out of the shower. She sat on the bathroom floor, looking up at the traitorous showerhead.
“Damn you,” she muttered. “And damn Sweden, snow, cold weather, and Bronwyn Walker.” She stood up, grabbed the towel from the back of the door, and swung it around her body.
She realised that she’d not damned Emilia, who was at the centre of all of her current issues. Somehow that felt wrong. Her anger was still laser-focused on Bronwyn. Bronwyn was cruel and calculating. Emilia was just bumbling around in her own little world, none the wiser to anything that went on around her.
Amber looked at her phone. It was essentially just a clock now. No connectivity meant half her apps refused to work, and she always streamed entertainment so not a single song or television program was saved to the device.
It was half an hour until Emilia had said dinner would be ready. She needed to hustle if she was going to get over there and try to help out. She looked out of the window, seeing snow starting to fall again. Getting from the guesthouse to the main house only took a few seconds, but it was longer than she currently wanted to be in the cold air.
“Bloody winter,” she mumbled.