I Invited My Neighbour In for Dinner While My Boyfriend Was Away

Sanna had been standing in front of her bathroom mirror for eleven minutes when somebody knocked on her door.

She was wearing a black silk slip she had bought three months earlier and never worn for anyone. Her hair was still damp from the shower, and one side of her face was red because she had spent too long pressing a cold towel against a spot near her jaw. The apartment smelled of coconut body lotion and the salmon soup she had reheated for dinner and barely touched.

She checked her phone again.

Nothing from Mikko.

At thirty-four, Sanna had become very good at pretending that waiting for a message did not count as waiting for a man.

The knock came again.

Your bathroom is flooding into my kitchen.

She recognised the voice immediately.

It belonged to Elias, the man in apartment 4B, who had moved into the building in Helsinki six weeks earlier. He was thirty-seven, tall, usually dressed in dark sweaters, and possessed the irritating habit of looking directly at people when they spoke to him.

Sanna opened the door.

Elias stood there holding a yellow cleaning cloth. His trousers were wet below the knees.

I was going to ask whether you had a bucket, he said. Then I remembered that people who have been ignoring their leaking taps for three days probably do not have their lives together enough to own a bucket.

She stared at him.

You have been listening to my bathroom for three days?

I have been listening to water dripping through my kitchen ceiling for three days.

She laughed before she could stop herself.

That was the first mistake.

The second was letting him inside.

The tap had been dripping since Monday. She had meant to call the landlord, but Monday had become Tuesday, Tuesday had become Wednesday, and by Thursday evening she had decided she would deal with it after work. Her workday had ended two hours earlier, but she had spent those two hours sitting on her bed, scrolling through pictures of places she could not afford to visit.

Elias crouched beneath the sink while Sanna held the phone flashlight over his shoulder.

Could you move it a little to the left?

She moved it to the right.

The other left.

You could say please.

Please stop trying to blind me while I am working.

She smiled down at him.

He looked up at precisely the wrong moment.

For a second, neither of them said anything.

There was nothing extraordinary about his face. He had a small scar near his eyebrow, a crooked nose that suggested an old injury, and a few silver hairs around his temples. His hands were broad, with short nails and a pale mark around one finger where a wedding ring had once sat.

Sanna noticed the mark.

She also noticed that he had noticed her noticing it.

You can stop looking at my hand now, he said.

Her cheeks warmed.

I was looking at the pipe.

Of course.

You are very annoying.

That is what my ex-wife said.

He returned to the tap.

Sanna wondered why he had mentioned his ex-wife so casually. She wondered whether he was still sad about her. She wondered whether the mark meant anything to him anymore.

Most of all, she wondered why she was suddenly aware of how close his shoulder was to her knee.

She had been dating Mikko for almost two years. He lived in Espoo and worked in finance. He was handsome, reliable when he wanted to be, and very good at making plans that never quite happened.

They had discussed moving in together. They had discussed children, holidays, and whether they would eventually buy a house. They had even discussed which part of Helsinki they might live in, although Mikko had always spoken as if the decision belonged to him.

For the last four months, they had barely discussed anything that mattered.

Their conversations had become practical. Who would call whom? When would they see each other? Why had she sounded upset during their last phone call? Why was he making such a big deal out of a harmless joke?

The sex had become practical too, a familiar routine that ended with Mikko reaching for his phone while Sanna lay beside him, staring at the ceiling.

She had told herself that this was what long relationships became.

She had not told herself that she was lonely.

Elias tightened something beneath the sink, turned the tap, and waited.

The dripping stopped.

There, he said. You owe me dinner.

You fixed a tap.

You have no idea how difficult that tap was.

I can transfer you five euros.

He looked at her.

Five euros? I have sacrificed my evening.

Would you prefer a certificate?

He stood up, and she realised that she was standing too close to him.

Neither moved immediately.

Dinner would be better, he said.

His voice had changed slightly. It was quieter now.

Sanna could have stepped back. She could have thanked him, closed the door, and returned to the life she had arranged so carefully around a man who barely noticed when she was unhappy.

Instead, she heard herself say, I have soup.

Elias looked at the kitchen.

That sounds like a threat.

She laughed again.

Twenty minutes later, they were sitting at her small dining table, eating salmon soup from mismatched bowls. Outside, Helsinki had settled into the blue darkness of an autumn evening. A tram rattled along the street below, and somebody in the neighbouring apartment was playing music loudly enough for the bass to travel through the walls.

Elias told her that he worked as an architect. He had moved back to Helsinki after his marriage ended, partly because his mother was getting older and partly because he had become tired of living in a house where every room reminded him of a decision he could no longer explain.

Sanna told him that she worked in marketing for a company that sold home furnishings. She liked the work, although she had recently begun to suspect that she was spending most of her life helping people decorate homes they were happier in than she was in her own.

That sounds depressing, he said.

It pays the rent.

That is not the same thing.

She looked at him over her spoon.

You always talk like you have figured everything out?

No. I talk like someone who has made enough mistakes to recognise a few of them.

He said it without pride.

Something in her softened.

They talked about ordinary things. Bad landlords. Expensive groceries. The strange loneliness of having a phone full of people you could contact but nobody you particularly wanted to call. Elias told her about the first apartment he had rented after his divorce, where the refrigerator made a noise like an old man clearing his throat.

Sanna told him about Mikko, although she did not intend to.

She mentioned that he had cancelled their dinner plans that evening because a colleague was visiting from London. She said it lightly, as if she found the situation amusing.

Elias did not laugh.

Does he know you are upset?

I am not upset.

All right.

His agreement irritated her more than an argument would have.

You do not know anything about us.

You are right.

Then why are you looking at me like that?

Like what?

Like you feel sorry for me.

He put down his spoon.

I do not feel sorry for you, Sanna. I think you are lonely. That is different.

The words landed harder than she expected.

She stood up and began clearing the table, even though both bowls were nearly empty.

You have known me for six weeks.

I know.

You do not get to decide what my life is.

I am not deciding anything for you.

She carried his bowl to the sink.

He followed her into the kitchen, leaving enough space between them that she could have walked away without brushing against him.

I should go, he said.

She turned.

He was looking at her with an expression she could not quite read. He was not smiling now. He was not trying to be charming. He looked like a man who had recognised a door opening and was deciding whether he should walk through it.

Sanna thought of Mikko. She thought of the message she had been waiting for, the message that might arrive at midnight with a casual apology and an invitation to see each other on Sunday.

She thought of how easily she had learned to accept small amounts of attention as proof that she was loved.

Then she looked at Elias.

Would you like coffee? she asked.

He stayed.

She made coffee even though neither of them really wanted it. They drank it standing beside the kitchen counter, talking about nothing. When Elias laughed, he leaned his head back slightly, and she found herself watching his mouth.

She hated how obvious her desire felt inside her own body.

She hated that she had spent so long pretending not to want anything.

At some point, she reached for the mug beside his hand. Their fingers touched.

It was an insignificant contact, the sort of thing that happened every day between people who shared a table or passed something in a crowded room.

Neither of them withdrew immediately.

Elias looked at her hand.

Tell me if you want me to leave, he said.

She looked at him for a long moment.

I do not want you to leave.

He set his mug down.

Are you sure?

The question was gentle, but it gave her nowhere to hide.

She could have said that she was confused. She could have said that she had a boyfriend. She could have blamed the loneliness, the wine she had not even drunk, or the strange intimacy of a Thursday evening with a man who had fixed her leaking tap.

Instead, she stepped closer.

I am sure I do not want you to leave tonight.

He studied her face, giving her time to change her mind.

Then she reached up and touched the scar near his eyebrow.

His eyes lowered to her mouth.

When he kissed her, it was not the dramatic kind of kiss she had imagined during the long, unremarkable evenings of her relationship with Mikko. It was hesitant at first, almost a question. His hand rested lightly against her waist, and she could feel him waiting for her to decide what happened next.

She kissed him again.

The second kiss lasted longer.

She felt the warmth of his palm through the thin fabric of her dress. She felt her own nervousness begin to loosen, replaced by a desire she had not allowed herself to acknowledge for months. When he brushed a strand of hair away from her face, she closed her eyes.

Nobody was asking her to explain why she was tired. Nobody was making her prove that she was worth the time being given to her.

For once, she was not planning what to say next.

She was simply there.

When they finally separated, Elias rested his forehead against hers.

This is complicated, he whispered.

She laughed softly, although her hands were still holding his sweater.

You should have thought about that before fixing my tap.

He smiled.

I was thinking about the tap.

Liar.

He kissed her again.

They moved slowly through the apartment, stopping once when his phone vibrated on the kitchen counter. Neither looked at it. She took his hand and led him towards the bedroom, where the unmade bed and the discarded towel from her shower were still waiting.

The door remained open behind them.

The city continued outside. A tram passed. Someone shouted in the street. A neighbour dropped something heavy on the floor above her.

The ordinary world did not stop because two people had decided, for one evening, to stop pretending that they were not attracted to each other.

They spent the night together.

There were awkward moments. Sanna knocked her water glass off the bedside table while trying to reach for it. Elias apologised when his cold feet touched hers, which made her laugh so hard that she had to hide her face against his shoulder. At one point, they stopped kissing to argue about whether the window should be open.

It was not perfect.

That was part of what made it feel real.

Later, with the room dark and the heating making its familiar clicking sound, Sanna lay against him and listened to his breathing. She felt his fingers move slowly along her arm, not asking for anything, simply touching her because he wanted to.

Are you going to regret this? he asked.

She considered lying.

I do not know.

He nodded against the pillow.

Fair enough.

Are you?

I do not know either.

She turned towards him.

That is a terrible answer.

It is an honest one.

She smiled into the darkness.

For the first time in months, she fell asleep without checking her phone.

At 6:42 the following morning, the phone began vibrating on the floor.

Mikko had sent three messages.

The first asked whether she was awake. The second said he had been thinking about her. The third said he missed her and wanted to see her that weekend.

Sanna read the messages twice.

Beside her, Elias was asleep on his stomach, one arm tucked beneath the pillow. In daylight, he looked older than he had the previous evening. There was a faint crease across his cheek from the pillowcase, and his hair stood up at the back.

She had never seen anything so ordinary look so intimate.

She sat up and pulled the sheet around herself.

Her first feeling was guilt. Her second was relief. The third was anger, although she could not have explained exactly whom she was angry with.

She was angry with herself for allowing things to get this far. She was angry with Mikko for making her feel invisible, although she knew that did not excuse what she had done. She was angry with the part of herself that wanted to turn one night with Elias into evidence that her entire relationship had been a mistake.

Life was rarely that simple.

She had loved Mikko once. She still cared about him. There were photographs of them together in her phone, including one from a summer trip to Turku where they were laughing so hard that neither could keep their eyes open.

Those moments had been real too.

She could not erase them simply because something had changed.

Elias stirred.

What time is it?

Too early.

That is not a time.

It is the only answer I have.

He smiled sleepily and reached for her hand.

For a few seconds, she let him hold it.

Then she looked at her phone again.

I need to tell you something, she said.

He opened his eyes.

She explained Mikko, the relationship, and the fact that she had not ended it before inviting Elias into her bed. She told him she did not know what she wanted yet, and that she would understand if he did not want to see her again.

He listened without interrupting.

When she finished, he sat up and rubbed his face.

I wish you had told me yesterday.

I know.

I am not going to pretend I do not like you.

She looked down at their hands.

I like you too.

That does not make this fair to anybody.

She had no answer.

He dressed quietly. Before leaving, he picked up his phone from the kitchen counter and checked the time. He looked as though he wanted to say something else, but he settled for asking whether the tap was still working.

She almost laughed.

It is working perfectly.

Good.

He paused at the door.

Call your landlord anyway. I am an architect, not a plumber.

She smiled despite herself.

Then he left.

For the rest of the morning, Sanna moved through her apartment as if somebody had changed the furniture while she slept. She washed the bowls, folded the blanket, and opened the windows to let in the cold Helsinki air. She found his yellow cleaning cloth beneath the sink and placed it beside the door.

At 10:15, she called Mikko.

He answered cheerfully, asking whether she had slept well.

The question nearly broke her.

She told him that they needed to talk. He went quiet, then asked whether she was ending things because he had cancelled dinner.

She said it was not just about dinner.

He asked whether there was somebody else.

She looked at the cloth beside the door.

Yes, she said.

There was a long silence.

Then Mikko asked whether she had slept with him.

She could have softened the truth. She could have said that she had made a mistake, that she was confused, that the relationship had been falling apart for months and she had simply acted on what was already broken.

Instead, she told him the truth.

When the call ended, she sat at the kitchen table until her coffee went cold.

She did not feel brave. She did not feel free. She felt like a person who had made a choice and could no longer return to the moment before it.

At noon, Elias sent her a message asking whether the landlord had been informed about the tap.

She laughed at the screen.

Then she typed a reply, deleted it, and typed another.

She did not ask him to come over. She did not ask him whether the previous night had meant anything to him. She knew she had no right to demand certainty from someone she had met only weeks earlier, especially when she had brought so much uncertainty into his life.

She told him that she had spoken to Mikko.

He replied a few minutes later.

I hope you told him the truth.

She stared at the message.

I did.

His response came quickly.

Then at least you can decide what happens next without pretending nothing happened.

She placed the phone face down.

For the next few days, she did not see Elias. They exchanged occasional messages about the building, the weather, and a parcel that had been delivered to the wrong apartment. The conversations were polite enough to make her miss him more than she expected.

She began to understand that wanting someone did not mean they owed her a place in their life.

On Sunday evening, she received another message.

I am making dinner. There will be enough for two, but I am not asking you to come because you owe me anything.

She read it several times.

She wanted to go. She also wanted to stay home, to let the weekend pass without making another decision she would have to explain to herself later.

In the end, she put on her coat.

She stood outside apartment 4B with her hand raised to knock, thinking about Mikko, about Elias, and about the person she had been before Thursday night. She thought about the possibility that she had ruined something good. She thought about the possibility that she had finally admitted something that had been true for a long time.

Behind the door, she heard a chair scrape across the floor.

She could still turn around.

She could go home, make tea, and tell herself that one night did not have to change anything. She could also knock and accept that whatever happened next would be hers to live with.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

She did not check it.

For once, Sanna allowed the next moment to belong to her.

She knocked.

And whatever came after that would have to begin with the truth.