After hearing about the Culture Shock Syndrome from Frederik, I've been visiting a lot of travel sites and expat forums, reading up on how people cope with moving to a whole new country, assimilating into a culture they haven't grown up in. There are tons of articles and blog entries on how other immigrants have dealt with the negative feelings that have slowly piled up, when the novelty of moving to a brand new place fades.

It's more common than I'd ever realised. This sense of feeling like a fish out of water, feeling like one will never fit into the new environment, never properly master the local language and customs. Even, in the more extreme cases, transferring the negative feelings building up in themselves onto the unfamiliar things around them. As it turns out, it's not just me. Other people have felt this way, too.

According to an article I've been reading, there are four stages of culture shock. The first is the honeymoon period, when one feels extreme enthusiasm and fascination with all the differences in the new country. Slowly, though, the disillusionment starts to set in as one faces frustrations in settling down in the new environment. This is the rejection phase, marked by criticism, resentment, and anger.

The Rejection period, the author writes, can be triggered by the realisation that, as an outsider in a new culture, language or misunderstandings of cultural cues can often make the simplest task seem like a daunting challenge.

Reading this makes tears spring into my eyes.

Finally, here it is, put into words. Everything I've been feeling since I've begun the slow, painstaking process of trying to assimilate into Finnish culture. It feels good to read words that are so relatable, that hit you so hard you sit back, gasping from the unexpected balm to your soul.

The third stage of the Culture Shock Syndrome, the article goes on to describe, is called the regression and isolation phase. This is the period when one becomes highly critical of their surroundings, and even begins to idealise the culture from which they've come. I find myself smiling wryly as I read the description of the symptoms. I fit every single one perfectly.

The last stage – the most important stage – is the adjustment and adaptation phase. This is when one finally manages to resolve the negative feelings within them and begins to settle down in their new environment.

This is the stage I need to reach.

I haven't tried to settle down in Helsinki the way I should have. I've spent so much time bemoaning my own foreignness here, but I've been going about it the wrong way. It's like Aksel said at first – I need to adjust my attitude, so that I can properly make Helsinki my home. I need to make myself stop associating the unfamiliar with negative feelings, and instead start seeing everything as an adventure again. Just like I did, when I first arrived, so eager to embrace everything about the country that was meant to be my new home.

I've made plans for when Aksel leaves for Midsummer. When Gabi and Tessa come to visit, I'm going to go out and explore Helsinki with them. I'm going to get to know Helsinki all over again. It doesn't matter where – what matters is that I want to see Helsinki in a new light. I want to fall in love with this city, to come to terms with my place in it. To come to terms with the fact that this is home now.For the first time, I feel a weak flicker of hope spark to life. I can get over this. I can make everything right again.

Now that I've read through the logical breakdown of everything I've been feeling, I can take the steps to overcome it. I may never truly belong in Helsinki – just like I've never truly belonged in Hamburg. But Hamburg, despite everything, is still my home. And maybe one day, Helsinki has the potential to become that, too.

But while I know what I want to do in Helsinki now, I'm getting increasingly unsure of my place with Aksel. I sometimes catch him looking at me, in one of the rare times we happen to be in the same room at the same time, and when I look over to meet his gaze, I can see for a moment the dark longing in his eyes, before he cuts the eye contact and leaves the room. In bed, he stays on his side and I stay on mine, even though I want desperately to reach out to him and make him look at me again. I want to feel his arms around me again. But at the same time, I remember the way he turned away from my kiss, the way he doesn't look at me anymore, and something curls up deep within me.

Two days before he leaves on his trip with the others, Aksel speaks to me for the first time in over a week.

"Have you booked your flight home?"

On my way into the kitchen, I turn around to look at him, and see that he's standing by the dining table, his hand placed flat on the wooden surface. I cough a little to clear my throat before replying. "No."

"Why not?" There is a barely-there tendril of hope in his eyes as he looks at me, as if he's secretly willing me to say what he wants to hear.

I don't know what he wants to hear.

I shrug, feeling uncomfortable under his scrutiny. "Gabi and Tessa are visiting next week," I say. "I have to show them around."

He stills. "I didn't know that."

I shrug again. "Yeah, well. It's a last-minute decision." He hasn't been talking to me since they finalised their travel plans.

"When were you going to tell me?"

"I..." I bite my lip as a pang of guilt assails me. Because I hadn't been planning on telling him. What would it matter to him, anyway? He'll be away with his friends.

"At least you're not going back to Hamburg," he mutters.

"Gabi and Tessa have been asking if I want to go with them when they fly back. They're here for a week, so they leave on Saturday."

I can tell by the way he goes silent that he's disappointed with my answer.

I forge on, wanting to break the stillness that has come over him somehow. "But I probably won't. The airfare is expensive at this time. Anyway, I have plans – I want to..." I trail off, because he's not listening anymore.

His countenance has darkened. He turns away, his arms coming up to cross over his chest in a defensive move. "It's okay. I'll pay for the flight."

"Why, do you want me to go that badly? What if I don't come back?" I'm trying to joke, but it comes out sounding overly serious. Neither of us are laughing or even smiling at all.

"Is that something you want?" Aksel asks, very seriously. "To not come back?"

"Aksel," I say, wanting to go over to him, to wrap my arms around him like I would've in the past, to bury my face in his chest and pour out everything I've been feeling to him. But his face is so stoic, his voice so still. I don't know if he will pull me closer or push me away.

And so I stay put, clenching my fist and digging my nails into my palm to physically restrain myself from stumbling into his arms. "I was joking."

"Were you?" The flat look in his eyes twists my heart.

"Aksel," I say, taking a small step forward but not quite going to him, "It was a joke. I'm starting to get used to living here, you know. I'm going to explore Helsinki on my own while you're gone. I want to rediscover it again, the way we did when I just got here."

A corner of his mouth lifts sardonically, as if this is amusing to him. He angles his body away from me, but doesn't quite leave. He pauses, and I'm waiting for him to say something. When he does, it comes in the form of, "Maybe you shouldn't."

I stare at him. "What?"

It's his turn to shrug. "Maybe you shouldn't bother. Maybe you should go back to Hamburg."

It takes me a long moment to wrap my mind around what he's insinuating. "You mean..." My tongue feels thick in my mouth now as I push out the words, "You don't want me to stay here?"

He casts his gaze downward. "I'm tired, Emilie."

This isn't the first time he's said this to me. I'm slowly realising he doesn't mean physical fatigue.

I take a deep breath, because it's starting to feel to me like the room has become a giant vacuum. I'm starting to feel light-headed. "What are you saying?"

When he doesn't reply, I take a step towards him, my hand reaching out for him but falling just short. I let it drift back to my side. "Talk to me. Please. I'm tired of this silence between us."

"I'm saying..." When he looks back up, my heart stutters – because I see that his eyes are a little red around the rim now. "I know you've been struggling. But have you ever thought of what it's like for me?"

My lips part in confusion.

"I've been trying my best to be here for you since you moved here. I know it's hard to adapt. And I've tried to be understanding. I've tried to do my best for you. But maybe it's not about what you want anymore," he says, his watery stare flaying me. "Maybe it's about what I want. Maybe I'm sick of feeling like I have to hide who I am, hide everything Finnish about myself from you, so that you won't get reminded of how different we are. Maybe I want to be with a girl who can accept me and my culture, who doesn't hate everything that makes me me."

I feel like he has slugged me right in the chest. He couldn't have shocked me more if he had. The air has gone out of my lungs at the conviction behind his words. This is something he has thought about. Maybe this is revenge for what I said to him that day in the kitchen.

"I don't..." But I can't get the rest of the sentence out.

"You hate that I'm Finnish," he says. "We're so different that being here with me makes you feel even more like you don't belong."

He has hit the nail right on the head with that last one, but he doesn't understand. It's not him or his culture that made me lash out the way I have been. It's me.

I hate that I'm not Finnish, that I didn't grow up by his side, didn't grow up surrounded by all the things familiar to him. I hate that I didn't grow up speaking his language. I hate that no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I want to, I will never be able to fully understand him in the way that other Finnish girls – girls like Lumi – will understand him, because I am not Finnish.

"I don't hate..."

He shakes his head, rejecting my statement even before I'm finished saying it.

"Maybe I was just kidding myself all this time." He is looking down onto the ground, almost talking to himself. "You have so many issues with your identity. I thought I could fix them. I thought I could show you that you belong somewhere. With me." He inhales deeply; slowly. "But maybe you don't."

He's talking so much all of a sudden, words that I haven't heard from him for the past two weeks. Now, they are coming out of his mouth so fast, I can barely keep up.

"You never told me you felt this way," is the only thing I manage to push out. I'm standing dumbly, my own tears pooling at the corners of my eyes. I make no effort to wipe them off. "You're such a hypocrite."

He doesn't expect this in the middle of his tirade. "A hypocrite?"

"You kept telling me to tell you how I felt," I say, "But you never told me how you felt. I wanted to talk, but you wouldn't." I draw in a shuddering breath. "We haven't talked in weeks. But that's not on me. It's on you."

He's silent.

"Is this what you've been thinking about this whole time?" I ask. It sounds a lot like premeditation. He hasn't given me a chance to argue my side – he's just been turning over his own thoughts in his mind.

How unfair.

He gives a sharp jerk of his head. Yes. All those nights I've been lying on the other side of the bed, he has been thinking about how we are not meant to be.

I swallow a sob. I don't know why, but that makes me feel... stupid. I had no idea he thought this way.

"Life would be easier, you know?" he continues, his voice soft now. It's like all the fight has gone out of him. "If we weren't so different. If we didn't have to deal with this."

"Life is a struggle," I reply, choking on the words. "Love is a struggle."

"Some more than others."

"So you don't think we are worth fighting for?"

"I think," he says slowly, "Maybe we have to know when to give up."

"Don't you think you're giving up too easily?" My tears have turned to anger now. I am still upset, but now I am angry, too. I've been willing to try, to make new friends, to get used to life here. But this whole time, he has already given up. "You'll give up on us just like that?"

"Not 'just like that'," he corrects, and for a moment I see the heart-wrenching pain in his eyes. This is hurting him too. "But you have to see that there isn't an us anymore. We haven't been us for weeks – or maybe even months. Now, it's just you against me, my culture versus yours." He lets out a weary sigh. "I can't do it anymore. I don't want to be pitted against you like this."

He's right, and it is breaking my heart. It has felt like a battle in the recent weeks, especially since I have started rejecting his customs to try to hold onto own identity. "This is about our different cultures?"

"Hasn't it always been about that?" His response is eerily quiet. "If I were..." He stops, probably realising that no matter what, there wouldn't be someone from a single culture that would fit in with my hybridity. "Or if you were Finnish..."

"So I'm not Finnish enough for you?" I whisper. "You want a Finnish girl – someone who can really understand you?"

"That's not..." he starts to say, before I interrupt him.

"Someone like Lumi?"

That stopped him right in his tracks. "Lumi?" I could tell from his tone of disbelief that it had never occurred to him. "What the fuck?"

I purse my lips. "She's Finnish." And she used to be into you. But I don't say that last part.

"She's my friend," Aksel says, the ring of complete astonishment still in his voice. "What have you been thinking?"

I feel stupid now. "Nothing," I mutter. "Never mind."

"There's never been anything between me and Lumi," he says.

I realise, in the ensuing pause, that I'm waiting for him to say, and there never will be, but he doesn't. And that, somehow, makes me feel worse.

"But that doesn't matter now, does it?" is what he does say.

"What do you mean?" But I know what's coming.

"I know," His voice lowers now. "It's hard for you here. I know you want to go home all the time."

I am silent, because he isn't wrong.

"So... go. There's nothing keeping you here, in a country you can't stand, if we break up."

"But..." I whisper, my words feeling like they're stuck in my throat. I'd wanted to go back to Hamburg, yes – but not if I have to trade in our relationship for it. "I don't want to break up. I love you, Aksel."

My last statement is a desperate, impassioned plea. But I look into his eyes and see no answering recognition in them. Now, his eyes are just a rigid icy blue. There is a chill spreading in my chest. I can't reach him anymore. He is standing right in front of me, but he is so far away now.

"Maybe that's not enough anymore," he says softly.

"You don't love me anymore?" I ask in a small voice that sounds like it's coming from far away.

I see him swallow, but he doesn't say anything.

The room is spinning. I no longer know who the stranger standing in front of me is. The only thing I know with any certainty is that if I make another sound, it will come out as a soul-wrenching scream.

After a choked beat, it seems like the fight he's having within himself has a clear winner. He takes a step forward, then changes his mind and stays put. I see his hands clench.

"I do love you, Emilie." He says this in the breath of a whisper. If I hadn't stopped breathing for a split second, I wouldn't have heard it. "But I can't live like this anymore."

He stands there for a moment more, but, seeing as I'm not about to say anything else, turns and walks away without another word.