Somewhere Else

Chapter 14: Where It All Started (ii)

"Fuck!" I hear his growl of disbelief. And then footsteps. And then silence.

I let out a shaky breath I wasn't aware I was holding in. Great. Here I am again, saying one of those sarcastic things that Priscilla has warned me about. Then again, it's not entirely my fault. He was the one who had started the Spanish Inquisition.

I blink hard, reaching into the cupboard and smoothing over the fabric under my fingers, just for the sake of finding something to do. I have an empty bag stuffed at the back of this shelf – I remember putting it there when I first moved in – but it's too far back to reach until I shift all the stacks of clothes out of the way. I am busy doing just that when I hear footsteps sound again.

There is a clatter by the door, then the clearing of a throat. I glance over my shoulder.

Aksel is back. He leans against the door frame, hands stuffed into his pockets, fuming at me.

"What you said made no sense," he says. "We're both from the EU. There's no immigration procedure involved."

I straighten to my full height so I can scowl at him with suitable furiosity, even if I'm still shorter than him by over twenty centimetres. "I was trying to make a point."

"The point is that it doesn't make sense."

"That's not my point!"

We glare at each other for a long moment.

Aksel looks away first. In the quiet, I hear him take in a slow, measured breath. Then he asks, "What was your point?"

I don't know anymore. All I know is that I would rather be here, arguing with him, than not see him ever again. Feeling a chill come over me, I turn away and wrap my arms around myself.

I miss him.

He's standing less than two metres away from me, but I miss him.

"What was your point?" Aksel repeats, when I don't say anything for a long while. "I'm listening, if you want to tell me." There is something in the way he pushes out the last sentence that brings a sort of desperation to his tone.

I bend down to start sorting out my clothes.

"Are you going to ignore me?" Aksel presses on from behind me.

"I don't know," I say. "I don't know why you're asking so many questions. You don't own the whole of Helsinki – I can stay here if I want to. It was you who kept wanting me to go back to Hamburg."

I feel, more than hear, the stillness that settles over him.

"Anyway," I tack on as an afterthought, "we're not together anymore. I don't have to explain my actions to you."

In the ensuing silence, I wonder inwardly if it's possible that my little speech is hurting him more than it has hurt me.

"Okay," he says finally. "Fine. You're right. It's none of my business."

Without saying another word, I return to packing. It takes me over an hour to bundle up as many stacks of clothes I can fit into the bag, and to stuff in necessities like my laptop and it's charger. Aksel stays by the doorway watching the entire time.

"You can go do something else, you know," I tell him at one point. "You don't need to waste your time here. I know where everything is."

He just shrugs, making no move to leave. I decide to ignore his presence after that.

When my bag is stuffed full to the brim, I turn to look at the pile of things I've stacked up in one corner. Things like some stuffed toys I've brought along, a series of books, an external CD player for my laptop – things important enough for me to have brought along to a new life, but that aren't important enough to fit into my bag now.

"You can have those," I tell Aksel, whose gaze is also currently drawn to the stack. "Or you can throw them away if you don't want them."

"You don't need them anymore?"

"I mean..." I purse up my lips, then shake my head. "I don't have the space. It doesn't matter. They're not that important, anyway."

"I'll keep them for you," he says. "You can come back for them whenever you want."

I privately doubt that I'll ever return to this apartment after this one time, but I just nod. "All right. But if they take up too much space, just throw them away. I won't mind."

"They're yours," he says. "Or I could..." Here he clears his throat, "I could bring them over to your place, so you won't have to travel here." He pauses. "If that's more convenient for you."

I give him a small smile, acknowledging his generosity. "Before that, I would first need to have a place of my own. I feel like I'm imposing on her already – I don't want to bring a ton of stuff into her apartment."

He shifts, taking his hands out of his pockets, then changing his mind and sliding them back in. "Do you need help finding a place? I can ask around."

I start to shake my head, but he hurries on, "It's sometimes good to have a local help you out... I could look into cheaper rentals or better neighbourhoods for you."

"Thanks," I say softly, looking down at the floor. My feet are turned in, toes carving out the shape of a loose triangle, as if that can help make this whole situation less painful. "But I'm fine. I've already found some potential apartments. I just finished looking at one, in fact."

"How was it?"

I wrinkle my nose and shrug half-heartedly. "It's nice, but..." Way out of my price range. "Smaller than expected, for the price they were asking," I summarise. "I'm probably going to continue looking for something else."

Aksel is silent, then he says, "You can always ask me if you need help."

I swallow. How easy it would be to rely on him again.

"It really is fine," I say, looking up at him now. "I appreciate it, really, but this is something I want to do on my own. I've been too dependent on you since coming here, and it made me feel..."

He stays silent, watching me as I search in my head for the words.

"It made me feel useless," I conclude. "I felt bad about myself because I couldn't get anything done on my own."

I think for a moment that he's going to argue, but after a few false starts of visibly biting back his words, he says, "Okay. I can understand that."

We're both standing, each waiting for the other to do or say something. Eventually, I clear my throat and take a few steps backwards. "I guess I should go now."

He is silent for the longest time. My mind leaps at the thought that he might ask me to stay.

I wonder what I would say if he does.

But I don't have to make that decision, because he finally nods and says, "Take care, Emilie."