When I get back to the apartment in the evening, Aksel isn't home yet. Which is strange. He gets off work at four-thirty, and is usually back by five.

And then I remember. He's still angry with me, isn't he? Maybe that's why he's not back yet. He doesn't want to come home to me.

Aksel is the only person I really know in this city. And now, he's avoiding me.

It's only seven, and I haven't had dinner, but I crawl into bed. Maybe I can sleep my life away.

But as I lie in bed, huddled under the covers, I find that I can't sleep. I close my eyes, trying to breathe evenly, but I can only feel my breaths speeding up in frustration. There is a sharp pain in my head that won't go away. It's been there all day and the paracetamol tablets I bought earlier haven't done much to mitigate it.

After flipping from my side back onto my stomach, I give up on the notion of sleep. Scrambling up, I reach over to grab my phone off the end table. Maybe I should call Aksel. Or text him.

Text, I decide. If he's still angry, he might ignore my call.

Tapping at the screen of my phone, I pull up the text conversation under his name, my fingers tensing to type out a message. To ask him where he is. But I hesitate. And then, instead of typing on the keyboard, I press top left corner of the screen to go back. A spark of rebellion has started burning within me.

Screw texting him. If he doesn't want to talk to me, doesn't even want to come home to see me, I don't want to talk to him either.

That thought sends a wave of pain crashing through me – so sharp, so sudden, that I almost have to blink back tears.

I sit in the dark, my eyes dry and aching, staring at my messages inbox for a while. I have all my old messages in here. I've changed my SIM card, but not my phone. I bought this phone last year in Germany. It still has all the text messages I've received from the people I know back there.

I open one of the most recent conversations – it's the one with Gabi and Tessa. The last messages were about the cucumber faux pas I'd had at Alepa just earlier this week. I tap 'details' to go into a page with their contact details and I stare for a long moment.

I miss my friends. I miss being able to text them and arrange a meet-up within the next hours or so. I miss being back home with them.

Before I think it through, my thumb has landed on the phone-shaped icon beside Gabi's name. The screen changes, and I watch the phone ring.

Gabi picks up after two rings. She answers her phone the usual way, almost absently saying her surname, before she realises it's me. "Emi? Is that you?"

I sit there speechless for a moment - so good it is to hear a friendly German voice. "Hey," I croak. I'm clutching my phone over-tightly. "It's me."

"Is something wrong?" My oldest friend asks, in her usual gentle way. She can always read me so well.

"No. Nothing. Sorry." I frown down at the bedspread, scuffing my toes against the fabric. "I just..."

"There's something wrong," says Gabi, a pinch of steel creeping into her voice. "You wouldn't sound like this if there wasn't. And you wouldn't be calling at this hour."

Shit. "I know it's late. I wasn't thinking. I'll let you––"

"Stop, Emi. Tell me what's wrong."

"It's cold," I say, cradling my phone between both hands, as if the electrical current running through the gadget could warm me up. But external heating doesn't work, when the cold is coming from somewhere deep inside. "I..." All of a sudden, I feel the tears flooding my eyes. My voice starts to wobble. "It's so, so cold. And it's so dark. All the time." I can't seem to say anything else.

Anything else, it feels, would sound like a betrayal. And Finland is a lovely country – it is.

There is a short silence on the other end. Then I hear Gabi's soft, concerned voice, "What's going on over there? Did something happen? Did Aksel do something?"

I swipe angrily at the wetness that is blurring my vision, and sniffle a little. "No," I say, but my voice still isn't back to its usual pitch. Try as I may, I can't seem to stop it from shaking. "Nothing's happened. Aksel's been great. Everything is great."

"I don't believe you. Why are you crying? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I repeat. Gabi doesn't say anything for a moment, but I can feel her disbelief resonating in the silence.

That is what cracks me.

"I just miss Hamburg," I whisper, pressing my palm over my eyes, as if I could forcefully stem the tears this way. "I miss you guys. I don't want to be here anymore. I want to go home." My heart feels heavy, but it feels good to finally say it.

It feels good to speak in German again. It feels good to speak the truth out loud.

Then I feel something shift in the air – not even a noise, but a feeling – something that has me dropping my hand from my face and swivelling around. And, as I do, the first thing I see is Aksel, standing in the doorway, one hand propped against the door frame. No, not propped against – his hand is clutching the frame so tightly that his fingers have gone white from the pressure. But that's not the worst part.

Much worse is the glittering hurt in his ice-blue eyes as he stares at me, almost accusingly, before he turns on his heel and walks away without a word.

***

"I have to go," I gabble into the phone, cutting the call without waiting for a response. Then I drop my phone onto the bed and scramble up after Aksel, who has vanished down the hallway, out of my line of sight.

"Aksel," I call, breaking off abruptly to mutter a curse when I hit my toe against the frame of the bed in my haste. I pause for a moment, my face scrunched up in a grimace, but I press on. I'm not sure what I'm going to say to Aksel when I catch up with him, but I know I need to go after him.

A fissure of worry runs through me as I head out of the bedroom. What if he leaves the apartment? What if he's walked right out again?

I stumble into the living room and find him sitting on the couch, bent over, staring blankly at the rug under his feet. I walk slowly towards the couch, feeling my heart thump as I approach him. He doesn't look up, not even when I slide into a sitting position on the couch.

"Aksel," I whisper, ridiculously afraid that I've ruined something between us.

He doesn't look at me. He's back to ignoring me, it seems.

"Aksel," I whisper his name again, feeling the tears begin to clog up my throat, "Please talk to me."

Slowly, he turns to look at me. "You hate it here." He says this matter-of-factly. But there's a break in his voice that tells me how much this pains him to say.

"No," I rush to deny it. "I was just... letting off some steam."

He doesn't respond to that.

I reach out to touch him, but then retract my hand before I do. Instead, I fold my arms across my chest, shrinking back into myself. "Aksel." I can't seem to stop saying his name. "I don't hate it here. I'm just... a little homesick."

It is more than an understatement, and Aksel knows it too.

He remains silent, head bent, staring broodingly into space. He doesn't even seem to be seeing the rug anymore. His elbows are propped up on his knees, and his fingers are locked together. After a long time, he murmurs, so softly I almost don't catch it, "I know. I know you miss Germany."

I close my eyes briefly. Of course he's noticed, even though I haven't said as much to him. It's all too obvious. He's the one who lives with me, sees me every day. He knows me the best.

"I know you miss home." At the sound of his voice, my eyes fly open. I try to catch his eye now, but he isn't looking at me now. I don't like it. He always, always looks at me – even back in Edinburgh, before we really started getting to know each other. He has always been staring at me, watching me. "I know it's hard for you here. The language is too different.

I can't deny that. But I hate how my inability to assimilate are hurting him now. I lean in towards him, "Aksel... I'm trying. I will try. I want to belong here with you."

He finally lifts his head to look at me. "Is this what that was all about?" he asks quietly. "All the books, taking notes, trying to be Finnish. You felt too foreign here, so you were trying too hard to fit in? To feel like you belong, in a way you never felt like you belonged in Germany?"

I stare at him. How does he do this? How does he manage to guess exactly how I'm feeling every single time?

He keeps watching me, searching my eyes, waiting for an answer. It's my turn to look down, away. I don't want to answer that. It is so embarrassing. It is my ultimate weakness, isn't it? The unbearable desire to fit in. To belong.

"Emilie," he begins again, when the silence has lasted a while. "Why didn't you tell me?"

I bite my lip. "It's embarrassing," I mumble to my hands.

"Don't keep things like this to yourself."

But how can I tell him? In Helsinki, I am not his equal. And I want us to be equals, not have a therapist-patient relationship. There are some things I don't want to tell him. There are some things I have to work through on my own.

"You don't understand," I whisper.

"So make me understand." This comes out in a burst of heightened volume, as some of his frustration leaks into his voice. He pauses, then lowers his voice again. "I can't understand if you don't tell me anything."

"You won't understand either way," I mumble. I am still not looking at him. I don't dare to. I know he is still staring at me, focusing on me with those big blue eyes, those eyes that seem to look right into me. Those eyes that strip all me bare, until all that's left are the mess of insecurities within. I swallow, chipping at my nail polish with a restless finger. "You've never had this problem. It doesn't matter where you go in Europe. Even when you don't look local, you still always look like you belong. Whereas I..."

"You belong anywhere you want."

"Easy for you to say," I murmur, feeling my lips thin into a wry smile. "It's easy for you to say, when you are fully European."

"Emilie..." He sounds frustrated again. "You are European, too. And even if you didn't have a drop of European blood, you belong anywhere you want. You don't have to become anything to fit in. It's a matter of changing your mindset."

I look up. He is frowning at me, his eyes bright in his face. I see the conviction in his gaze, and know that he really means what he's saying. He really thinks it's as easy as that – change my perspective, and everything will magically fall into place.

"Do you really think that will work?" My voice comes out more heated than I plan for it to be. This is a sore spot for me. This is why I haven't wanted to discuss it with him. He just doesn't understand how different it is for someone who doesn't look the way he does. "Even if I change my mindset, I can't change how other people look at me. Even if I believe that I belong, there are always people who will think otherwise."

"And who cares about them?"

"I do!" I burst out, springing up from the sofa in my agitated state. I realise then how aggressive my stance has become. I take a deep, deliberate breath and lower my voice. "I care. We live in a society, if you haven't realised. In a community. Other people's opinions matter. Growing up, our identities are shaped by the feedback we get from the people around us. So – yes! I care what people think of me."

Aksel is suddenly silent.

"It sucks," I say. "Don't you understand that? It sucks. It's so unfair. I have to prove that I belong here, be it through my mannerisms or the language I use, when all you have to do is exist and people accept your identity. It's never been the same for me. I'm always the immigrant child. I have to fight for people to accept me."

Neither of us say anything for a while after that. I'm still filled with self-righteous indignation, while Aksel is quiet – thinking. Maybe he's finally starting to understand where I'm coming from. It's something he's never had to think about, because people always treat him differently from the way they treat me.

"You think I don't understand," Aksel begins finally, "But I do." I open my mouth and, seeing that, he corrects himself. "I may not fully understand what you go through or what you've had to go through all your life, but I see the way people treat you too. I know it's different from how they treat me."

I'm starting to feel mollified by his words, until he comes to his next point.

"But – Emilie – it's not always as bad as you think it is. Not everyone thinks you don't belong, you know. Sometimes, I think..." And here he hesitates. Then he shrugs, a little flick of his shoulder as if to spur himself on, and continues down the path he's started on. "I think you're a little too sensitive to this. And sometimes people are just tired or in a bad mood or – something – and they might not be as friendly towards you. It doesn't mean they don't think you shouldn't be here. Sometimes it's not all about your identity issues."

My temper flares. He still doesn't understand. "I know," I snap. "How selfish do you think I am? I know it's not always about me."

Aksel looks directly at me now. "You're amazing in lots of ways, but you can be quite self-absorbed sometimes, you know."

My mouth falls open, even though I'm not sure at which – his criticism of my character or that endorsement of my strengths. "I..."

And then I see it in his eyes. In the barely discernible frown on his face.

I change tack mid-sentence. "I hurt you last night," I realise.

His lips twist at the reminder of last night as he looks away again. "No," he says. "It was stupid. Forget it."

"No, listen." I want to explain; I want him to know that it's not him – it's not that I didn't want him. I scoot back down onto the sofa beside him and press the top of my arm against his, as if trying to box him in so that he has nowhere to run.  "Last night was just... I was preoccupied. I was stressed. I'm sorry."

"It's–" Aksel starts and stops. And it's dawning on me that, despite the way he pushes me to talk about my feelings, he has trouble talking about his.

"Communication is a two-way street, you know," I say. "You want me to tell you how I feel, but that also means you should tell me how you feel."

He is silent for a minute or two. "It made me feel like shit," he says finally, baldly. "Just what every guy wants to feel – his girlfriend zoning out while he's..."

I feel a pang. "I'm sorry."

"Just tell me, next time," he says. "If you're feeling too upset. I won't make you do anything you don't want to."

"But I wanted to," I say, looking up at him earnestly. "I wanted..."

Aksel stares at me and exhales deeply. Then he reaches over me, gathering me into his arms and pressing my face close to his chest. He bends his head; I feel the warmth of his lips against the top of my head. He speaks so quietly that I have to strain to hear it when he murmurs, "It's okay. Don't force yourself."

I'm so lucky, aren't I? I'm so lucky to have found someone like him. Someone who takes care of me, someone who cares enough to put my needs above his own. I ought to be grateful, to cherish what we have. I ought to be head-over-heels happy with him in Helsinki.

I lie quietly against him, listening to the sound of his beating heart. Slowly, I feel my breathing calm to match the speed of his heartbeat. I close my eyes. It feels good to lean against him like this, and not think about anything else. As if he and I are the only people in the world.

"You calm me down." I'm whispering the words, even before I am aware of doing so. "You make me feel like I belong somewhere."

"You belong anywhere you want," he says quietly. "You belong here with me."

I press my lips into a small smile, but I don't reply.

"Emilie," he starts, but I interrupt him. I've had enough of this topic for a while.

"Why do you always call me by my whole name? All my other friends call me Emi."

He is silent for a while, thinking. Finally, he says, "I don't know. I like saying your name. Emilie. Emi feels too short somehow."

I chuckle. "It's okay," I say, "I like hearing you say my name." It feels different when he says it. And not just because of his accent.

"Emilie," he repeats, obligingly.

I lift my head off his chest to look up at him. He is looking at me with a mixture of helpless worry and tenderness in his eyes. But it's his expression that makes my heart stutter. Even though we have cleared the air about last night, I've still hurt him with my careless words to Gabi.

But we still haven't addressed that elephant in the room. "I don't want you to think I hate Finland," I say.

I don't hate Finland. How could I? It is the country he comes from, after all. I ought to love Finland. I owe everything to it.

Aksel's hold on me loosens just a fraction. I grab onto him, not wanting him to pull away.

"I know you're having a hard time adjusting," is all he acknowledges.

"Yeah."

I feel rather than see him shrug. "I get it. You miss Hamburg. It's normal."

"I don't want to hurt you," I say. "I don't want you to think–"

He leans forward and silences me with a kiss. When he pulls away, I see the small smile on his lips. "Don't worry. I know." His gaze dips for a moment, like something has just occurred to him.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

He doesn't reply, only fishes out his phone and starts tapping on the touchscreen. Disgruntled at being ignored, I settle back onto the sofa.

Until he thrusts out the phone at me. Caught off guard at first, I can only blink at it.

He's on the Finnair website. I zoom in immediately on the destination he has selected.

"So, I was thinking," he says, when I don't say anything, "that we could go to Hamburg next weekend. For a visit."

I finally find my voice. "Really?" I whisper. My heart – a part of me that has been frozen in an awkward pause for over a month now – has stuttered back to life at his words. "I get to go home?"

Something flickers in his eyes, even though he's smiling at me. "Yeah," he says. "You get to go home."