The Winners (Beartown, #3)

by Fredrik Backman

She never says he died, she says he left her, and somehow that shows that she’s the worst loser in a town full of them.

It’s Teemu who finds Ramona, because he’s the first person who misses her.

When we are little we grieve for the person we have lost, but when we’re older we grieve even more for ourselves. He wept for her loneliness, but also his own.

“Everyone I know with any sense has two families, the one they were given and the one they chose. You can’t do anything about the first, but you can damn well take responsibility for the second!”

So, early in the morning when the storm finally sweeps past he sits on the edge of her bed and wishes he had told her that she was right. We have two families. She was the one he chose.

He takes a cigarette from the packet on the bedside table and smokes with her one last time. He suddenly starts laughing, because she looks so angry, even when she’s dead. If she’s in any sort of Heaven now, Vidar is also there, and his little brother will be getting one hell of a telling-off for daring to die before her, he thinks.

“Bloody hell. Bloody hell, Teemu. Are you okay?” Peter asks. Teemu doesn’t know what to say, because he’s never been asked that by a grown man before. “Mmm.”

Teemu does as he says, which feels strange, not just because Ramona is sitting next to him and is dead, but because he has never in the whole of his life had anyone come and get him.

It’s funny the way the potential for violence works, Peter thinks, you can’t see it on someone, you just feel it in their presence.

There are no new lives, just different versions of the old one.

Never underestimate a dad who’s trying to be forgiven, he’s capable of anything.

but there and then they give Benji the very finest gift you can give someone who always used to be special: they treat him as if he isn’t special at all.

The two young women trample over the memories and two invisible little girls pad after them. Because they’re always walking behind us: the children we were before the worst that has happened happened.

Not the way you long for the future, for the summer, or for a holiday, but the way you long to get back to yourself. To how it was “in our day,” even though that time never really existed except in our filtered memories. You long to be the person you think you were, during some sort of youth when you tell yourself that life was uncomplicated, or the man you imagine you could have been if only you had the chance to do everything again. Not longing for that is difficult for most people, and for some it is all but impossible.

She’s always wished she loved something so unthinkingly, it looks like such a wonderful little bubble to live in, that belief that you’re part of something much bigger than yourself.

Benji nods seriously. “I’ve never seen anyone play hockey like you, my friend. I can’t bear having to live the rest of my life wondering how good you could have been if you hadn’t given up.”

Benji blows the horn cheerily, Amat watches the rear lights as they vanish toward the town. It’s one of the first ice-cold days of the year and one of the last truly happy ones. Amat starts playing hockey again this evening, he never gives up, but Benji will never find out how good he can be.

They know that the extent of grief isn’t measured by what you’ve lost but by who you are.

“If I liked guys, I could really fucking fall for you. You know that, right?” Of course he knows. But Benji still grins, that damn smile that’s as much a bird’s as a bear’s. Then he says: “You’re already in love with me. You just haven’t realized it yet.” Big City laughs. Benji too. Their laughter sings across the forest, over the lake, all the way to the island.

She holds his arm as if she’s scared it’s the last time. “You can do whatever you want to, as long as you never hurt yourself. Promise me that.” His heart is beating slower now, his blood is calm, as if it might actually be possible: to make peace with everything. “If I fancied girls I might have fallen in love with you,” he says.

But so is Benji.

She lets someone play with the number 16 again. For one single game. Alicia gets up from the bench in the locker room and leads her team out and storms the ice, and Zackell watches her and for a single moment forgets that it isn’t him.