Ping.
Without taking my eyes off the view of the ceiling I'm currently enjoying, I groan. My phone is at the far end of the room, on the TV console where it is being charged.
"It's too far away," I lament.
"Ignore you," Priscilla says. She's in a similar position – lying flat on her back in bed, staring up at the ceiling.
It's a weekday night and we are both still fully dressed from class. "I need to lie down for a moment," Priscilla had said, the moment we'd walk in through the apartment door. Then she had dropped her bag on the floor and flopped onto her bed.
Having no self-control of my own, I had plugged my dying phone in and followed suit.
"I should get up anyway," I say, then correct myself. "I wanted to get started on apartment-hunting."
Priscilla groans. "And I wanted to help you." She corrects herself, "I'm still going to help. Just give me a... moment..." I twist my neck around to look over and see that her eyes are closed.
Grinning to myself, I sit up. It takes another moment, but I finally get to my feet and stumble over to the TV console.
I glance down at my phone, already reaching to unplug it, when I notice the name on the screen and freeze. After a split second of breathlessness that lasts forever, time rushes back and my heart begins rattling in its cage.
Aksel.
Do I open it? Delete it? Ignore it?
What's the etiquette on exes these days? I haven't had to deal with one in far too long.
My thumb hovers over the screen, then swipes quickly, a movement born of its own mind. The message enlarged onto the screen.
Did you get back to Germany safely?
I stare at the words for a long beat – so long that my phone starts to feel like a leaden weight sitting in my palm. Lumi hasn't told him.
I cannot fathom why. Maybe she's trying to protect him. Or maybe this is what she meant when she said she doesn't want to be caught between me and Aksel.
Even though – why would she be? She isn't even my friend.
Or maybe she's biding her time, waiting for exactly what I accused her of.
But even as I think that, a part of my mind is already dismissing it. She had been sincere that day at the café. She had always been the warmest to me out of all Aksel's friends.
"Who is that?" Priscilla asks, her voice breaking through my runaway thoughts.
I don't turn back to look at her. "Just some spam text," I manage, impressed with the way my voice comes out all smooth and calm.
I click the phone screen off and slide it into my back pocket, then turn around to face her. "Can I borrow your computer? I don't have my laptop with me."
It's still back in Aksel's apartment, I have realised. What am I going to do about that?
"I don't have a computer, only a laptop," Priscilla says. "But sure. We can use it." But she doesn't move.
I laugh at her. "It's fine. I can do it on my own. Just tell me where it is."
"No," Priscilla groans, "I want to help!"
"Then get up!"
"All right, let's get started." Priscilla sits up, then lets out a creaky groan and flops back down onto her bed. "Hold on – I need a moment. Let's get started in ten minutes."
"Fine, fine." With a loud, exaggerated sigh, I let myself fall back onto my bed. But even through my laughter, I can feel my phone poking into me, burning a hole through the pocket of my jeans.
***
"I've been thinking about what you said," I tell Priscilla later that weekend. I'm swinging my legs as I look out at the bay, even though the back of my shoes are hitting the stone wall we're seated on every midswing.
"What I said?" Priscilla repeats each word slowly, as if taking time to form the shape of each word will jog her memory. She probably doesn't remember her throwaway remark from earlier in the week.
Not like me. Especially after the run-in with Lumi at the café, I've been turning it over and over in my mind.
"About how I sound like I don't like Finns a lot," I prompt Priscilla.
She thinks for a moment, then lets out a breathy, "Oh." She drags the word out. Then she turns to me, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel weird about it."
But I wave her away. "It's okay. I've been thinking about it and I realised that you're right."
"About what? So you really don't like Finns?"
"No!" I say indignantly, but I see that she's smiling mischievously at me. She already knows I have nothing against the people of Finland.
Mostly.
Now that I've become more conscious of my speech patterns, I'm noticing that I do tend to make sarcastic remarks about the Finns. It's not that I dislike them. I suspect it's a defensive reaction to my insecurity around them.
It was the same with Aksel. I was always feeling inadequate in some way, as if I didn't belong with him, simply by virtue of not being born Finnish. I had sometimes felt unreasonably angry at him – not because of anything he had done, but because he was a constant reminder of how badly I was fitting into life in Finland. How badly I fit into his life.
I bite my lip and kick my legs out again. One of the shoelaces, which I tend to keep tucked behind the tongue of the shoe, has fallen out and is swinging in time with the momentum of my movement.
"I think..." I'm still thinking as I say this, so my words come out slightly slower than they would have if I had already had something in mind. I don't know where, exactly, I'm going with this. "I think that it's a defence mechanism. You know? Because I don't fit in here at all. So instead of waiting for the Finns to make fun of me, I make fun of them first."
Priscilla is looking out at the glistening water of the bay as well, silent as she digests my admission. Just when I think she's not going to speak, she says, "That makes sense." She pauses. "A whole lot of sense, actually."
"Right?" I'm almost smug.
"I think we might all do that, sometimes," she says. "Gives me something to think about."
"Oh, come on," I laugh. "You're, like, the biggest fan of Finnish culture."
She grimaces. "I'm a complete fan girl, aren't I? Sometimes I even wish I had been born here." She sounds wistful as she says this.
Her words, although meant differently, strike a chord in me. "You're not going to believe this," I say, "but I've felt exactly the same way."
Priscilla turns her head so quickly, I can hear the crick in her neck. She grimaces again, putting a hand to the side of her throat, but the astonishment on her face wins over any pain she might be feeling. "Are you serious?"
I shrug, looking back at the water. It feels a little silly to admit this, even if it's to someone who understands. "Yeah. At some point, I wanted really badly to have been born here. To be Finnish. It would have made life here much easier."
Maybe then, things with Aksel would have gone differently.
"I still wish that, sometimes," Priscilla admits. "Mostly when I'm struggling with some Finnish grammar." She giggles, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye as if sharing a secret. "Do you, still?"
I have to think about the question. "I don't know," I say finally. "My reason for wishing to be Finnish is kind of moot now."
Priscilla stares at me blankly for a moment, before her confusion clears. "Oh," she breathes out.
I blow out a long breath of air. "Yeah. It doesn't really matter now. I don't even know if I'll stay here after the course ends."
We sit in silence after that. I can almost feel my words slowly sinking into the ground.
Then Priscilla speaks again. "I'm sorry, though," she says, "that what I said bothered you so much. I honestly didn't mean it as a form of criticism."
It's my turn to grimace. "No, it's not your fault. It just hit me hard, because... I hate the idea that people might think I'm racist against the Finns or something."
Priscilla laughs. "You can't be racist against Finns – it's a nationality, not a race."
I roll my eyes. "You know what I mean."
"They are mostly white, though," she muses.
"I know, right?" Distracted for a moment from my original topic, I turn to her. "We're in the capital city, but it's so..." I flounder, for lack of a better word.
"White," Priscilla completes my sentence, laughing again. "It's true. It's not as diverse as a lot of other capital cities I've seen. In New Zealand, our capital city Auckland has people of all cultures and races."
"In Germany as well," I agree. "Even when I was back in Hamburg – which isn't the capital – I immediately felt more... relieved. You know? It's so much more diverse there, the way I'm used to. It makes me feel better. Over here, it feels like I stand out like a sore thumb."
Priscilla ponders this. "Yeah," she says slowly. "I can see what you mean. I've never been to Hamburg, but if I compare it with Auckland – or Wellington – I can imagine the difference is something like what you mean."
"Maybe that's why they're not as used to foreigners." I shrug. "The way they stare... It drives me crazy sometimes."
"Is it really that bad?" Priscilla asks wonderingly. She gives her head a quick shake, the abrupt action reminiscent of a salad toss, as if she's flicking the idea from one side of her mind to the other for it to make sense. "I don't feel like I get noticed for being a foreigner all that much."
"But that's because..." I purse up my lips, wondering how to put this delicately. "That's because you look like you belong."
Priscilla laughs. She shakes her head, and her mess of blonde hair flies around her face. "Are you kidding? They know I'm not Finnish."
I smile, a little self-deprecatingly. "You look more Finnish than I do," I quip. "I feel like a rare animal in a zoo sometimes. People stare at me like I shouldn't be here."
Priscilla shakes her head again, but this time at me. "Okay, you know what? I know what the problem is." Then she hops off the ledge and tugs at my elbow. "Come on, get down. We're going to do something about your attitude."
"What attitude?" I ask, but I push myself off my rocky seat. Priscilla is already running ahead, away from the bay towards the main walking path.
She waits until I am almost upon her before she speaks.
"Okay, Emi," she declares then, planting her hands on her hips. "Today, we're going to practise walking."
I stifle a giggle at the way she's acting, like a teacher marching into a preschool classroom to lay down the rules. "Walking?"
"Yes, walking."
Grabbing my arm, she manoeuvres me so that we're standing side by side. I let her move me like a puppet, too curious to put up any resistance.
"Look – it's all about the attitude. If you walk like you belong–" she takes a couple of confident steps here, and stops to beckon to me. I follow after her, habitually tucking my head down as I move. Priscilla makes an impatient noise, and gestures for me to try again. "No! Not like this. Walk like you own the streets, dammit!"
There aren't many people around, but the few who are within earshot are turning to look at us. I feel a flush creep up my neck, but I resolutely ignore them. Priscilla doesn't even notice the states she's attracting.
"Come on!" She urges me again.
Rolling my eyes, I turn to walk back to my original position. Then I strut towards her, deliberately exaggerating every movement, until she is in stitches by the time I reach her. I'm laughing too, leaning down, a little out of breath, "Happy now?"
Priscilla grabs my hand and straightens, her eyes still sparkling. "Exactly. Just like that."
I let out a laugh of disbelief. "But that's crazy."
"Okay, maybe tone it down a little... But, look, you're no longer worrying about what people are thinking of you now, are you?" She sounds unreasonably smug as she grins at me.
I bite my bottom lip to stop an answering smile from springing to life. But she's right. I'm standing in the middle of Helsinki with a friend, laughing and having fun – and I'm no longer that bothered about whether people are still staring.