Somewhere Else

Chapter 11: The Only Way Is Out (i)

Tatiana takes one look at the sorry picture I make on her doorstep and starts laughing. "You didn't bring luggage but you brought wine?"

I flush. "I came straight from the airport," I mumble. "I didn't have time to bring anything, just this cheap wine. I don't know what the practice is over here when you visit someone, so I thought..." Then I clamp my lips shut as I realise I'm blabbering.

Tatiana ushers me in, shutting the door behind me. "It's fine," she says, taking the bottle of wine out of my hands so that I can take off my shoes at the door. "It was a joke. It's just really cute that you thought to bring something."

"Yeah, well. I didn't want to be rude." I try to smile at her. And all of a sudden, I find myself crying into my hands.

Tatiana surveys me. "Shit," she says. She sets down the bottle, then envelops me in a huge hug. "I'm sorry. This isn't an appropriate time to be making jokes."

"It's all right," I try to mumble, but the tears are getting in the way. I laugh a little. How pathetic am I? A guy all but tells me he doesn't want me in his life anymore, and I turn into a sobbing mess in someone else's living room.

"No wonder he didn't want to be with me anymore," I say, half-laughing, even though the wobble in my voice ruins it. "I am a mess when I'm in Finland."

"Bullshit." Tatiana rubs my back. Even though I can't see her face, I can hear the heat she's put into that one word. "You're one of the strongest people I know. You're still you, no matter where you are."

"I'm really not," I say. A strong person would have been able to assimilate into life in Finland with no issue at all. She would have been able to learn the language and make new friends without falling into a pit of self-hatred. Without making the love of her life hate her.

"You are," Tatiana insists. She pulls away to look me straight in the face. "You are strong, Emi. You left everything you knew behind to come to a foreign country so that you could follow your heart. I know how hard it is – you have to start your life all over again. You have to learn a new language and new habits. It takes a strong person to do all of that."

I've started sniffling, but I'm listening to her. I've never thought of myself in that way, especially not since I've come to Finland. The only things I've noticed about myself since coming to Finland are all the failures. Failure to make new friends. Failure to learn the language. Failure to get used to the culture here. Failure, failure, failure.

Tatiana isn't done with her pep talk. "Even now," she says, "you're still here. You're still thinking of trying. You haven't given up yet. That's strong."

I sink back onto the sofa a few steps behind me. It's soft and bouncy, made out of cotton-covered cushions. It feels like just the sort of thing Tatiana would own. "You're wrong," I mumble. "I'm not trying anymore. There's no point. He said..."

My eyes are wet again as I remember Aksel's last text. Yes. What an innocent word. And, in this context, what a heartbreaking one.

"I've seen Aksel with you, Emi," Tatiana says, almost a word-for-word re-enactment of Gabi at the airport. "He loves you so much, it's hard to imagine him truly meaning that."

Through the long, emotionally-worded texts I've sent her before I even got on the train to Tampere, Tatiana has gotten the basic gist of what happened with Aksel. Somewhere in the history of our message log lies a screenshot of Aksel's cold last words to me – words I don't want to revisit. I only kept the picture long enough to send it to Tatiana, so that I wouldn't have to explain everything from the start. Even so, she doesn't know how bad it has gotten over the past month. She doesn't know the whole story.