Somewhere Else

Chapter 4: Where the Heart is (iii)

Saturday is a busy day. I've arranged to meet Gabi and Tessa, and I make Aksel come along, so he won't be left to his own devices with nothing to do.

"Don't you want to meet them alone?" he asks, even as we're on our way to meet them. "I'll be in the way of your girl talk."

"Well, yeah, I guess we won't be able to talk about you with you there," I tease. I look up at him, but he doesn't smile. "Hey," I say, deliberately walking diagonally so that I bump against him, "I was joking. We don't gossip about you."

He relaxes a bit. "No?" We are walking close together, but he makes no move to grab my hand or any other such thing. "What about what you really think of Finland?"

His words go through me like a shaft of ice. Why is he bringing this up again?

"Aksel–" I begin, but we've already come to the meeting place. Gabi and Tessa are already there. I check the time on my phone screen; they're early. We're right on time.

Their faces light up with the see me, and the two of them rush over to envelop me in a big group hug. I'm smiling so hard that my cheeks hurt. We stand together in a lump, the three of us, not letting go of each other for a long moment.

Then Gabi pulls back and runs her gaze over my face, as if trying to check if I'm fine with her own eyes. "Are you okay?" she asks softly. Her gaze doesn't leave me for a minute as she awaits my answer. I remember, then, that I hadn't sounded okay, the last time I spoke to her.

"I'm good. Everything is great." I grin at her. It's sweet, how concerned she is. I almost feel embarrassed about crying to her and Tessa over the phone; now they're going to think I'm miserable in Finland. It wasn't that big a deal, really. I was just homesick. And now that I'm home, things are coming back into perspective. Life in Helsinki isn't as bad as I made it out to be in recent weeks. I don't know why I was being such a crybaby, so over-sensitive about things.

"Honestly?" Tessa demands. "Tell the truth."

"I am telling the truth," I exclaim. "I was just a little homesick. It was a bad day. I'm fine now." I sneak a peek at Aksel's face, and see that his eyes are downcast and his lips are pressed into a straight line.

"You'd better not be lying," Tessa warns me. Gabi elbows her in the ribs, and Tessa turns to mock-glare at Gabi. "What?"

Gabi just shakes her head. "It's great that you're back," she tells me. "It was really getting on my nerves, having to deal with this one all on my own."

"Hey!" Tessa complains, and I laugh. I've missed my best friends in the world.

"Hei," Gabi says to Aksel, turning to him with a friendly smile. She heads over to shake his hand in greeting, and Tessa does the same. Over the past two years, they've met several times, mostly when Aksel had come to Hamburg to visit me. As far as I can tell, all of them get along quite well – close enough for a greeting hug, if they had wanted to. But Gabi and Tessa have learnt, through past visits, that greeting hugs tend to make Aksel freeze up, and so they've always kept to handshakes with him.

"Moin moin," Aksel says to the both of them.

Gabi laughs, and responds in kind, while Tessa smacks him lightly on the shoulder even as she says to me, "You've taught him well."

I can only laugh. He does this, every single time he comes to Hamburg. I am always a little surprised he remembers this form of greeting. I've only told him about it once, back in Edinburgh long ago. He has remembered it all this while.

"Let's go somewhere," I say then, hopping from foot to foot. It's cold outside. "Where shall we go?"

"What about Starbucks?" Gabi suggests, knowing the only kind of coffee I can stand is the sweetened kind.