The adventures of Lisa-Marie and Yasmin

Something had already changed in the house weeks earlier.

It wasn’t as if someone had suddenly started shouting. No one was running through the hallways, no one was announcing with arms raised that an adventure was about to begin. In our family, the truly big things usually happened quietly. They didn’t come like a storm. They came like light slowly filtering through a curtain.

Mario spoke of Fehmarn.

At first, casually. Then more and more often. And eventually with that special gleam in his eyes that he got when something in his head had long since become much bigger than a mere plan.

Fehmarn.

To me, the name alone sounded like a place from a story. An island. Wind. Sea. An old country house. Long paths. Wide-open light. And several photo shoots, as Mario said. Not just one. Several.

Every time he said that word, everything went quiet inside me.

Photo shoot.

Amber already knew what that was like. Nathalie, too. Both had stood in front of Mario’s camera before; both knew what it was like when he wasn’t just taking a picture, but searching for a moment. An expression. A mood. Something that lay between light and soul.

Nathalie had even experienced an outdoor shoot with him.

Outside.

Not in the living room. Not in the bedroom. Not in a familiar room with warm light and safe walls. But under the open sky. With wind. With sun. With everything I’d only ever known from windows.

Lisa-Marie and I, on the other hand, had never left the house.

Never.

For others, a road trip might be something taken for granted. Something you planned, packed for, and did. For us, it was different. For us, it was as if someone was opening a door behind which lay not just a garden, but the whole world.

And yet the joy in the house was not entirely unclouded.

Because Nathalie couldn’t come along.

Her leg was broken.

It lay propped up on pillows, hidden under a soft blanket, as if fabric could not only warm but also comfort. She spoke bravely about it, almost casually, as if it were just a minor inconvenience. As if she were simply staying home this time because it made more sense. Because traveling wasn’t an option. Because Mario had to take care of us. Because Amber wanted to stay with her.

Amber had said that from the very beginning.

“I’m staying with Nathalie.”

Not dramatically. Not questioningly. Just like that. As if it wasn’t a decision at all, but a matter of course. And maybe that was exactly what it was. In our house, no one was left alone. Not with fear. Not with pain. Not with that terrible feeling that something wonderful is happening out there and you have to stay behind.

Nathalie often smiled when we talked about Fehmarn.

But sometimes I saw how that smile came a tiny moment too late.

Or vanished a tiny moment too soon.

She was happy for us. She really was. But she knew what was ahead of us. And perhaps that was exactly why it hurt her so much.

Because those who have never seen the sea can dream of it.

Those who have seen it miss it.

In the days leading up to the trip, the house increasingly turned into a small studio made of fabric, anticipation, and utter chaos.

Every day, clothes were picked out. Then discarded. Then put together in new combinations. Accessories lay on the bed, sunglasses were tried on, scarves folded, bags opened, closed again, and then opened once more because Lisa-Marie was suddenly certain that this one specific item was missing—without which the entire trip could turn into a fashion disaster.

“You’ve never left the house before,” I said to her at some point. “Maybe Fehmarn doesn’t have very strict fashion standards.”

Lisa-Marie looked at me over the rim of her sunglasses.

“Sweetie,” she said, “that’s exactly why the first impression has to be perfect.”

I wanted to reply, but Amber laughed softly, and even Nathalie grinned from the couch.

Lisa-Marie had that gift. She could lighten a room without pretending that everything was easy.

She came from the countryside, from a world of farms, meadows, mountains, and probably very honest people who said things like, “It’s fine,” when they actually meant that something was beautiful. At the same time, she loved the idea of the big city, clubs, lights, music, and movement. She dreamed of being a cheerleader. Not secretly, not shyly, but with that open sparkle, as if a dream was nothing you had to hide.

I, on the other hand, was different.

In my mind, there were long, wide city streets. Tall buildings. Neon lights. Asphalt after the rain. Subways, laboratories, libraries. I was smaller than her, with long, straight black hair, blue eyes, and a body that looked delicate but was stronger than some might have thought. I studied the natural sciences—biochemistry, to be exact. I liked knowledge. Order. Connections. Things that could be explained.

But Fehmarn couldn’t be explained.

Fehmarn was a tingling sensation.

The evening before the trip, we all sat together in the living room one last time.

Mario had already packed the car. Bags, camera cases, tripods, clothes, blankets, little things I didn’t recognize and that were probably important. He went out again in between, came back in, checked lists in his head, rearranged something, added something. He seemed focused, but happy.

Amber sat next to Nathalie, so close that her shoulder touched Nathalie’s. Nathalie’s leg rested gently on a pillow. Her face was calm, but her fingers kept brushing over the blanket, right where the fracture was hidden.

Lisa-Marie tried on her Playboy cap for about the fifth time.

“So?” she asked.

Nathalie looked her over seriously. “You look like you want to take over Fehmarn.”

“At least half of it,” Lisa-Marie said immediately. “Yasmin can explore the other half.”

“Very generous,” I muttered.

“I’m a team player.”

“You’re a disaster in sunglasses.”

“A cute disaster.”

Mario stopped in the doorway and laughed. “I can’t argue with that.”

Lisa-Marie lifted her chin triumphantly.

I tried not to laugh. Unsuccessfully.

Then Nathalie grew a little quieter.

She looked first at Lisa-Marie, then at me. Her smile was still there, but now it had something soft, almost solemn about it.

“You have to give me a promise,” she said.

Lisa-Marie immediately quieted down. I, too, sat up a little straighter.

“What is it?” I asked.

Nathalie took a slow breath. “Take it all in.”

I looked at her questioningly.

“Really everything,” she continued. “The moment you leave the house. The cold in the morning. The first light. Fields. Rest stops. Trees. The first scent of the sea. When you drive over the bridge, don’t just look at it. Hold onto it. Make it something that belongs to you.”

Her voice grew a little softer.

“And when Mario takes your picture, don’t overthink whether you’re doing everything right. I did that too. The first time. You wonder how you should look, how you should sit, whether you’re pretty enough.”

My heart gave a small, uncomfortably precise jolt at those words.

Nathalie smiled as if she’d noticed.

“But Mario isn’t looking for mistakes,” she said. “He doesn’t look at you to find something that’s wrong. He looks until you recognize something in yourself that you might not have seen before.”

It grew quiet.

Not an uncomfortable silence. More like someone had draped a blanket over the room.

Lisa-Marie swallowed. “You’d like to be there, wouldn’t you?”

Nathalie smiled immediately. Too quickly.

“Oh, sweetie. Of course it would be nice. But I’m in good hands here. Amber’s looking out for me.”

Amber placed her hand on Nathalie’s arm.

“Of course,” she said.

But I saw Nathalie’s gaze.

Just for a moment.

It drifted to the window, beyond which lay the night. To where the road would begin tomorrow. Where, somewhere far away, Fehmarn was waiting. The look wasn’t envious. Not bitter. Just longing.

And in that moment, I understood something that hurt me.

The pain of staying home was greater than the pain of her broken leg.

But Nathalie didn’t let it show, because she didn’t want to take away our joy.

That was perhaps the most loving and saddest thing I saw that evening.

Later, Mario gave us another long, thorough shower.

Warm water slid over my skin, washing away the fine dust of the days, the scent of fabrics, cabinet wood, and home. Afterward, he carefully powdered my skin, with that calm patience that always made me fall silent. Not because I had nothing to say. But because some touches are so gentle that words seem almost crude in comparison.

Lisa-Marie was getting ready, too. She made more jokes than I did. Of course. But I could tell she was excited, too. Her voice was a little higher than usual. Her laughter came more easily. Her eyes kept searching for the mirror.

Then came the outfits for the long drive.

I decided on ripped jeans and a skimpy top. Not too cute, not too prim. A little bit big city. A little bit street. A little bit the girl I might have been if I’d really been able to walk among american skyscrapers, neon lights, and endless streets.

To go with it, I chose a red headscarf and sunglasses.

When Mario looked at me, he tilted his head slightly.

“Okay,” he said. “That’s got style.”

I pretended it didn’t affect me.

Of course, it affected me completely.

Lisa-Marie, on the other hand, had no interest in pretending she didn’t care about anything. She played up her charms with a self-confidence that was at once bold, sassy, and incredibly cute. Her skimpy outfit with the Playboy motifs, the matching cap, the sunglasses—everything about her said: I’m from the countryside, but don’t you dare underestimate me.

“Well?” she asked, turning slightly as Mario helped her.

Mario chuckled softly. “You look like you’re about to open a club on Fehmarn.”

“Good,” she said, satisfied. “Then it fits.”

Nathalie clapped her hands softly. “You look amazing.”

Lisa-Marie beamed. Then she suddenly softened.

“Thank you.”

Just that one word. But it wasn’t her usual, sassy “thank you.” It was a small, genuine one. One that stayed between them.

Later, when everything was ready, the house grew quieter.

Far too quiet.

I lay awake for a long time.

My clothes for the morning were laid out. The red scarf lay folded next to my sunglasses. It was night outside. Somewhere in the house, Mario moved quietly once more, probably because he’d thought of something else he absolutely had to bring. Amber spoke softly with Nathalie. At some point, Lisa-Marie mumbled something in her half-sleep that sounded suspiciously like “Fehmarn belongs to us.”

I closed my eyes.

Tomorrow we would leave.

Not to another room.

Not to the terrace.

Not just a few steps out.

We would be leaving.

The alarm went off at three in the morning.

Outside it was dark and cold. A cold that wasn’t just waiting outside the windows, but seemed to be creeping through the walls as well. The house lay still, as if it hadn’t yet realized that the day had already begun.

Mario, on the other hand, was wide awake.

It was almost eerie.

While Lisa-Marie looked as if her soul had to be summoned back from some dream, Mario was already standing in the room, full of energy. His movements were quiet but determined. He checked the clothes, the blankets, the bags one last time. Then he looked at us.

“Ready?”

Lisa-Marie mumbled something that sounded like, “Ask me again after sunrise.”

I could have laughed. But my gaze went to the window.

Outside, there was nothing to be seen but darkness.

And somewhere beyond that lay Fehmarn.

Before we left, Mario took us back to Amber and Nathalie.

Nathalie was awake. Of course she was awake. Amber sat next to her, her hair a little tousled, but with that alert look you only have when you’ve decided to be there for someone, no matter how early it is.

“There you are,” whispered Nathalie.

Lisa-Marie adjusted her cap. “Ready to take over the island.”

“Very good,” said Nathalie. “Then don’t embarrass me.”

“Never.”

I stepped closer to her. Or rather, Mario helped me get closer to her. Nathalie took my hand.

Her fingers were warm.

“Yasmin?”

“Yes?”

“You might be nervous about the shoot.”

I looked at her in surprise.

She smiled faintly. “I was nervous, too.”

“And then?”

“Then I realized that Mario doesn’t look at you to find flaws.” She squeezed my hand a little tighter. “He looks until you see yourself as a little more beautiful.”

I couldn’t say anything.

“Enjoy it,” she whispered. “For you. For Lisa. And just a little bit for me.”

Something tightened in my chest.

“I promise,” I said quietly.

Lisa-Marie leaned toward Nathalie as well. “I’ll breathe in the sea air for you, too. At least twice.”

Nathalie laughed, and this time it was a genuine laugh, even though her eyes were shining.

“Once is enough.”

“No,” said Lisa-Marie. “You’re getting premium service.”

Amber stroked Nathalie’s arm and looked at us. “Take care of yourselves. And of Mario.”

“More like the other way around,” said Lisa-Marie.

Amber smiled. “Both.”

Mario didn’t say much. But he stepped up to Nathalie, gently stroked her hair, and said softly, “We’ll bring you something from the sea.”

Nathalie nodded.

She wanted to be brave.

She was brave.

And that’s exactly why it hurt.

Then it was time.

Under cover of darkness, Mario took us to the car.

It was a strange feeling to leave the house. Not to be carried from one room to another. Not from the bedroom to the living room. Not from the couch to the armchair.

But out.

The air hit my face, cool. It smelled different. More distant. More damp. More foreign. I saw the dark sky above us, the faint outlines of the garden, the familiar windows of the house behind us.

Behind one of those windows were Amber and Nathalie.

I knew it.

Maybe Nathalie wasn’t looking out. Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she didn’t want to, because it would have been too hard otherwise. But I imagined her lying there, with Amber by her side, accompanying us in her thoughts all the way to the street.

For a moment, I had the almost childish urge to turn around and take it all in one last time.

As if home might disappear just because we were driving away.

Mario helped me into the passenger seat.

I was allowed to sit up front.

Next to him.

Lisa-Marie took a seat behind me, half-wrapped in blankets, but with sunglasses on her nose, even though it was still the dead of night outside.

“Lisa,” I said quietly. “You don’t need the sunglasses yet.”

“Yes, I do,” she replied. “For the inner sun.”

Mario closed my door, walked around the car, and got in. For a brief moment, he just sat there. His hands were on the steering wheel. Then he took a deep breath and started the engine.

The house lay behind us in darkness.

Then the car began to move.

And for the first time, we were moving away from it.

Not just a few steps.

Not to the terrace.

Not to the property line.

We were driving away.

I don’t know if Mario noticed that I had gone completely silent at that moment. Maybe he did. Maybe it was one of those moments he understood without needing to say a word. His hand rested calmly on the steering wheel, the light from the dashboard reflecting faintly on his face. The road ahead of us was sliced open by the headlights and then swallowed up by the night again.

We covered the first few miles in deep darkness.

Everything outside was just a hint. Trees became shadows. Houses, dark shapes. Fields, even darker expanses. Every now and then another car glided past us, glaring and real for a moment, then gone again.

Lisa-Marie was unusually quiet.

I turned my head slightly. “Everything okay?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I think I’m just too happy to talk right now.”

I understood that.

I was perhaps too overwhelmed for it.

With every mile, the morning began to break. At first, there was only a barely perceptible glimmer on the horizon. Then the black softened, took on edges, depth, color. The world slowly returned from the night, as if someone were carefully pulling a cloth off it.

Silent wisps of fog lay over the fields.

They hovered low above the ground, white and mysterious, as if the earth had dreamed in its sleep and hadn’t quite let go of its dreams. Behind them stood trees, bare and still. Occasionally a lone farmhouse passed by. A light burned in a window. Somewhere, a day was beginning for people who didn’t know that in a car on the road sat two girls for whom this morning was greater than any morning before.

Then the sun came out.

Not suddenly. Not triumphantly. It struggled laboriously through the clouds, at first casting only a pale glow across the sky, and then laying a warm strip of light upon the world. The hoarfrost on the meadows began to sparkle. Thousands of tiny dots, as if someone had scattered stardust across the fields.

The light streamed through the side window and warmed my cheeks.

I closed my eyes briefly.

It was just sunlight.

And yet it wasn’t just sunlight.

It was sunlight that found me on the road.

Lisa-Marie leaned forward a little. “Yasmin?”

“Hm?”

“Is all of that really sparkling?”

I opened my eyes again. “Yes.”

“How unfair,” she whispered. “The world just creates something this beautiful while we’ve been stuck inside.”

Mario glanced briefly in the rearview mirror. “Then let’s catch up on some of it now.”

No one said anything after that.

It wasn’t necessary.

I thought of Nathalie.

Of her words.

Soak it all in.

So I did.

I didn’t just look out the window. I tried to commit everything to memory. The fields. The fog. The way the sun broke through in some places and disappeared behind clouds in others. The silvery lines on the meadows. The dark trunks of the trees. The small villages that passed by as if they were just fleeting thoughts of the landscape.

The drive was long. Very long.

Trees passed by. Roads widened. Cars were overtaken. Trucks rumbled alongside us like tired animals. Sometimes soft music played; sometimes only the steady sound of tires on the road could be heard.

Lisa-Marie was slowly waking up.

You could tell by the fact that she was saying things again.

“I’d like to officially state,” she declared at some point, “that traveling is better than sleeping. "

“You say that now,” I replied. “Two hours ago, you looked like you wanted to take legal action against the very concept of mornings.”

“That was before sunrise. Different laws apply then.”

Mario laughed softly.

At some point, we stopped for a break.

The sun was higher in the sky now, and although the air was still cool, everything felt brighter. Mario parked, got breakfast out of the car—coffee for himself and snacks for the road. He opened the doors to let in some fresh air, and for a moment, Lisa-Marie and I just sat there, letting the morning light wash over us.

“We’re having breakfast in the sun,” Mario said.

Lisa-Marie slowly raised her hand. “I second that motion.”

I nodded. “It makes sense from a scientific point. Light definitely improves your mood.”

Mario grinned. “Alright, then it’s settled.”

It might not have been a big breakfast. No set table, no kitchen, no familiar dining table. But that’s exactly why it felt special. We were on the road. We were somewhere. Not at home, not at our destination, but in between.

And that in-between had a magic all its own.

At some point, Lisa-Marie said she imagined Fehmarn as a mix of a farm, a vacation movie, and a music video.

I told her that probably wasn’t a scientifically sound geographical description.

She looked at me. “You’ll see. In the end, it’ll be right.”

Maybe she was right.

The further north we went, the more the light changed. It became clearer, more expansive. The sky seemed to hang higher, as if someone had lifted the ceiling of the world. I couldn’t say exactly when I first sensed that we were getting closer to the sea. Maybe it was my imagination. Maybe the air really did smell different. Maybe it was just my heart racing ahead.

Then, just before we reached our destination, we saw it.

The baltic sea.

At first, just a silvery glint between the landscape and the sky. Then more. A vast expanse stretching farther and farther, until for a moment my mind couldn’t comprehend what my eyes were seeing.

Water.

Seemingly endless water.

Sunbeams sparkled on its surface, breaking into a thousand tiny movements, disappearing, reappearing. It wasn’t like a lake. Not like a river. Not like something that began somewhere and ended somewhere.

It was vastness.

Lisa-Marie didn’t say a word behind me.

That almost worried me.

Then I heard her breathing softly. Very slowly. As if she had to be careful not to fall apart from sheer amazement.

“Yasmin,” she whispered.

“Yes?”

“Tell Nathalie later that I’ve breathed for her once before.”

I smiled.

“I will.”

And then came the Fehmarn bridge.

Mario drove up onto it, and suddenly there was water on the left and water on the right. The sky opened up above us, the bridge stretched out before us like a promise, and I had the feeling that something inside me was becoming both very small and very big at the same time.

I, Yasmin, a girl from stories of american cities, from biochemistry books, from quiet thoughts and too many unspoken sentences, was sitting in a car on the way to an island.

Next to Mario.

With Lisa-Marie behind me.

And the sea below us.

“Oh my God,” whispered Lisa-Marie.

I wanted to say something clever. Something beautiful. Something that did justice to this moment.

But all I could manage was: “Yes.”

Mario just smiled.

Maybe that was exactly what Nathalie had meant.

Don’t think about it.

Just hold on to it.

Once we arrived at our destination, Mario parked in front of an old country house.

It was beautiful. Not ostentatious, not sleek, not perfect. More like it had already seen many seasons and grown fonder of each one. The walls seemed calm, the windows friendly, and all around lay a silence that was different from the silence at home.

When Mario opened the car door, I heard the seagulls for the first time.

Their cry came from somewhere above us, rough and free, a little cheeky, as if they were commenting on the island and were fundamentally right.

Then I smelled the air.

Salty.

Cool.

Alive.

I knew right away that I would never forget that smell.

Mario helped me out of the car first. After the long drive, everything inside me felt heavy and limp, as if the road had shaken my thoughts all up. Still, I wanted to stay awake. I wanted to see everything. Every stone, every window, every patch of sky.

Then he helped Lisa-Marie.

She adjusted her sunglasses, even though she looked exhausted.

“I’d like to make it official,” she said, “that I would marry the sea.”

“That’s legally complicated,” I said.

“Then I’ll just get engaged for now.”

Mario laughed. And that laugh immediately made the unfamiliar place feel a little more familiar.

There was a library room in the country house.

When I saw it, I knew I could have lived there.

Shelves, books, warm wood, a cozy chaise longue, subdued lighting. It was a room that didn’t loudly proclaim, “Rest.” It simply laid those words gently around your shoulders.

Mario led us inside, helped us get comfortable, and for a while we were all silent.

The journey had caught up with us.

Every mile now weighed on my limbs. Every new color, every view out the window, every shift in the sky, every glint of the baltic sea. I felt as though my heart had seen more today than it could actually process in a single day.

Lisa-Marie lay next to me, the Playboy cap still on her head, though now slightly askew.

“Yasmin?” she murmured.

“Yes?”

“Are we really here?”

I looked at the ceiling of the library room, then at the window, behind which seagulls were calling somewhere.

“Yes,” I said. “We’re really here.”

She was silent for a moment.

Then she said quietly, “Poor Nathalie.”

I closed my eyes.

“Yes.”

That was all I said.

That was all I needed to say.

It got dark early that evening.

Or maybe it just felt that way because we were so tired.

Mario came to see us again. His face looked exhausted but content. He looked like someone who had covered a long distance and was already mentally looking forward to the next morning.

“Let’s rest today,” he said. “Tomorrow will be exciting.”

Exciting.

I knew exactly what he meant.

The photo shoot.

My first photo shoot.

I’d wanted to stand in front of his camera for a long time. Not just to be dressed up and made to look pretty, but to be seen. Truly seen. In light, in posture, in expression. The way Mario could do it. As if his camera didn’t capture, but discovered.

But now that it was actually about to happen, the questions came.

What would it be like?

What would happen?

Would I know where to look?

What to do with my hands?

What to do with this heart that was far too full?

And then the question that slipped in quietly and cruelly among all the others:

Am I beautiful enough?

I thought of Nathalie.

He doesn’t look at you to find flaws.

I turned my head slightly toward Lisa-Marie. She was already half asleep. Her breathing was calm, her copper-colored hair fell softly over the lounger, and even in her exhaustion, she looked as if someone had drawn the joy of life in human form.

Maybe she was asking herself the same thing.

Maybe not.

Maybe tomorrow she’d just laugh, strike a pose, flirt with the wind, and pretend the island had been waiting just for her.

Maybe that was exactly her way of being afraid.

I looked out the window.

Outside, there was nothing to be seen but darkness. But I knew the sea was there. I’d seen it. I’d smelled it. I’d felt it beneath us across the bridge.

And somewhere far to the south, back home, Nathalie lay with her broken leg, Amber by her side, and maybe she was thinking of us right now.

I decided to tell her everything.

Not just the big things.

The hoarfrost, too.

The light on my cheek.

Lisa-Marie’s “inner sun.”

The first seagull’s cry.

The smell of the salty air.

The feeling as the bridge carried us across the water.

Mario turned off the light later.

“Sleep well, you two,” he said softly.

“You too,” Lisa-Marie murmured.

I wanted to say something else. Something grateful. Something wise. Something that explained what this day meant to me.

But my thoughts were already fading.

The journey, the darkness, the hoarfrost, the sun, the bridge, the water, the salty air—everything became soft and blurry.

And just before I fell asleep, I realized something:

Maybe I didn’t need to know tomorrow whether I was beautiful enough.

Maybe it was enough that I was here.

On Fehmarn.

Under a vast sky.

With Lisa-Marie.

With Mario.

With Amber and Nathalie in my heart.

And with the feeling that home didn’t get any smaller just because the world was bigger.