Chapter 1

“Why Ireland?”, I asked Vera as we boarded the plane.

“Dullahan”, she whispered, checking something on her phone.

“Dullahan?”

I blinked. She nodded seriously, leaned over and whispered,

“It is our chance, look!”

She shoved her phone into my face and took the opportunity to snap another ridiculous photo of us. I had given up on forcing her to delete this kind of stuff a long time ago, and nowadays, I only hoped that it would not find its way to some pervy site. Sometimes I was lucky… I sighed and looked at her screen.

“We are onto something…”, she continued, unfazed by my bored expression. “Do you see the search volume? This keyword is fantastic…”

I started to regret the time when I suggested she should find herself a job and start to pay for the room she rented from me. It had been a mistake. Since that fateful evening, we had gone through many ridiculous ideas only because I, in good faith, offered to help her get started.

So we now had a bookstagram that didn’t work, mostly because she was too lazy to finish any book she started. A beauty channel on YouTube that had died out because I was allergic to the cheap makeup she ordered online, and an LGBT TikTok that… She leaned into me even closer and rested her head on my shoulder.

“What are you doing…?”, I whispered, trying to shrug her off.

“We should get some rest”, she mumbled softly and closed her eyes.

Sure, but I am not your pillow, I thought. I had only agreed to the TikTok idea because when she made up her mind about something, it was easier to go along with it than to try to persuade her to shift her fixation. But I definitely wasn’t her girlfriend. And no, the argument that we were a couple because she lived in my flat without paying for anything, and therefore couldn’t be just a roommate, was as ridiculous as it sounded.

But somehow the idea got stuck in her head, and now she treated me as her girlfriend, no matter what I did to discourage it. Why this, and not obsessing about her looks from the “beauty influencer” period, or eating healthy as she had done when she tried to run a Pinterest dedicated to health and fitness, I had no way of knowing.

So we now spent a big chunk of my savings to go to Ireland and become paranormal investigators, only because some keyword tool had shown that we could easily rank for “Duhallan”.

I knew this project would fail, like any other of her other ideas, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her. Against my better judgment, I supported this new path to fame, no matter how unlikely it was. I guess I got used to living with her, and I would miss her a lot if she left.

I sighed and then suddenly remembered that she had planned this trip as a surprise, which meant she hadn’t involved me in the planning. The last time she did that, I forgot to check on her, and we spent the whole night huddling at the bus stop because she booked our hotel on the wrong date.

Sure, it was a surprise, but I didn’t wish to have more surprises like that if I could avoid it. I still remember how bloody cold it was and how ill Vera was afterwards. I really didn’t want to spend all my free time babysitting her and trying to find her something to do when her fever made her head spin every time she looked at the screen, leaving her bored and restless.

I carefully wrestled her phone from her pocket and looked through her arrangements. Of course, I had been right, and needed to rebook our hotel and cancel a few random bus tickets, but it could be worse, I told myself. I put the phone away, closed my eyes, and leaned into her, trying to find a comfortable position on the narrow flight seat.

                                                      —----------------------------

I was confused. Even the airport in a small country like Ireland was huge, noisy and without holding on to Freja’s hand, I would get lost forever and never see daylight again and probably die. But when she led us towards a different exit than I had so carefully planned for and even rehearsed taking it countless times in my head, I felt lost.

I wanted to ask her where we were going, but she looked so confident and self-assured that I didn't dare to question her. She was so cool and good at everything she did that I sometimes felt really jealous and wished I could be like her. But I wasn't. I was useless at almost everything I did.

When all the shops we passed on our way out melted into one continuous flow of light that made me feel like we had activated the warp drive, I braced myself for any possible malfunction of the core. We exited the airport building, and I took a deep breath and looked at the grey, cloudy sky above us. It was raining and I immediately regretted not having an umbrella. It would be so cute to walk with Freja hand in hand under it, sheltering us from the rain. Then we could..

“Are you okay?”, she asked, looking at me concerned.

I blushed and immediately looked down, admiring the droplets of rain hitting the grey pavement, trying not to think where this umbrella scene would lead.

“Shall we eat something?” she wondered, and I looked at her, feeling even more confused than before.

Our bus was supposed to leave soon, and we were far away from the terminal, but Freja looked so confident that I let her take us to a nearby café without a question.

I really wished that this trip would work. I had spent so much time planning it and checking for all the things we could see and do on our way. I really wanted her to take it easy and relax. She always seemed so busy and serious about everything, so trying to make her happy was one of the very few things I could do for her.