She Stayed at His Birthday Party After Meeting the Woman He Was Also Dating
He introduced her as his friend, then handed her the birthday cake.
Aino stood outside a small apartment near Kallio in Helsinki with a box of cinnamon buns in her hands and a birthday message already typed on her phone.
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She had spent twenty minutes deciding whether to knock.
Then the door opened.
Mika looked surprised to see her.
Not happy. Not unhappy either.
Just surprised.
Aino? What are you doing here?
She held up the box.
You said you were having people over.
I did.
So I came.
There was a pause that lasted long enough for Aino to notice the woman standing behind him.
The woman was barefoot, wearing one of Mika’s grey sweatshirts.
She smiled politely.
Hi.
Aino smiled back.
Hi.
That was the moment everything became embarrassing.
Not because Mika had another woman in his apartment. Helsinki was full of apartments, people, complicated relationships and adults who had decided they were too old for unnecessary drama. What made it worse was that Aino had spent the previous three months believing she and Mika were slowly becoming something.
Apparently, they were becoming something only in her head.
Three months earlier, they had met at a small coffee shop near Hakaniemi Market after matching on a dating app. Mika had suggested coffee because, in his words, dinner felt too serious for two people who had only exchanged messages for four days.
Aino liked that.
He was thirty-two, worked in software support and complained about Helsinki rent with the same tired humor everyone around them seemed to have. She was twenty-nine and worked at a design agency where half the office had become obsessed with remote work, oat milk and pretending they were not checking Slack after dinner.
Their first date lasted four hours.
The second lasted six.
By the fourth, Mika had started keeping her toothbrush in his bathroom.
That should have meant something.
At least, that was what Aino thought.
They did not call each other boyfriend and girlfriend. They never had the conversation. Whenever a friend asked, Aino would shrug.
We are seeing each other.
Mika said the same thing.
They cooked salmon together. They watched episodes of The Bear until nearly two in the morning. He sent her stupid Instagram reels during work. She knew where he kept the spare batteries and which supermarket had the cheapest blueberries.
Once, when Aino was sick, Mika took a tram across the city with soup and medicine.
Another time, she helped him move a bookshelf because he had ordered the wrong size and refused to admit it until the instructions were already on the floor.
It felt like a relationship.
It just had no name.
That had never bothered Aino until the birthday party.
She looked past Mika into the apartment.
There were eight people inside.
Someone had music playing from a phone connected to a speaker. A half-empty bottle of sparkling wine sat on the kitchen counter. There were paper plates, a bowl of salted peanuts and a cake that had clearly been made by someone who knew what they were doing.
The woman in the sweatshirt came closer.
I am Sanna.
Aino nodded.
I am Aino.
Mika looked between them.
Aino is a friend from work.
It was such a small sentence.
It hurt anyway.
She looked at him.
From work?
His face changed.
A friend. I meant a friend. We have known each other for a while.
Aino stared at him.
He had never worked with her.
He had never worked anywhere near her.
She had never even met anyone from his office.
The room suddenly felt too warm.
Aino brought cinnamon buns, Mika said.
Someone behind him laughed.
Good. Put them in the kitchen.
She almost laughed too.
That was the strange part.
The whole thing was so ridiculous that laughing seemed easier than getting angry.
She put the box on the counter.
Then she stayed.
That decision confused her for months afterward.
She could have left.
She should probably have left.
Instead, she sat on the edge of a sofa beside a man she had never met and watched Mika move around his own birthday party as if nothing had happened.
At one point, Sanna sat beside her.
You are quiet.
Aino looked at her.
I am usually quiet at birthday parties.
Sanna smiled.
Not like this.
There was something in the way she said it that made Aino look at her properly.
Sanna, how long have you known Mika?
Sanna hesitated.
Since February.
Aino looked toward the kitchen.
It was October.
February?
Yes.
The room suddenly became very small.
Sanna noticed her expression.
Did I say something wrong?
Aino shook her head.
No.
She wanted to ask a hundred questions.
Instead, she asked the one that mattered.
Are you two together?
Sanna looked confused.
I thought you were.
The answer landed harder than any accusation could have.
For several seconds, neither woman spoke.
Then Sanna whispered.
Wait.
She looked toward the kitchen.
Are you Aino?
Aino nodded.
Sanna closed her eyes.
Oh.
That one word said enough.
Aino stood up.
She went to the bathroom, locked the door and stared at herself in the mirror.
Her phone had twelve unread messages.
One was from her friend Elina.
How is the birthday thing?
Aino typed.
Interesting.
She deleted it.
She typed again.
I think I have made a terrible mistake.
Then she deleted that too.
The truth was worse.
She had not made one mistake.
She had made a series of small decisions because each one felt harmless.
She had ignored the fact that Mika never let her post pictures of them together.
She had ignored the way he became vague whenever she asked about weekends.
She had ignored the dating red flags because none of them looked serious by themselves.
He was not cruel.
He did not disappear for weeks.
He did not shout.
He did not insult her.
He brought soup when she was sick.
That was what made everything harder.
When Aino came out of the bathroom, Mika was waiting in the hallway.
Can we talk?
She nodded.
They stepped into the stairwell.
The smell of cold concrete and wet coats filled the air.
I never lied to you, he said.
Aino almost smiled.
That is technically true.
I told you I was not looking for anything serious.
You also kept a toothbrush for me.
That does not mean we were together.
You met my sister.
She lives in Espoo. You invited me.
You spent Christmas Eve with my family.
You asked me to come.
Aino stared at him.
You slept beside me almost every night for three months.
He looked down.
I liked being with you.
That sentence hurt more than she expected.
Not because it was cruel.
Because it was probably honest.
Aino folded her arms.
What about Sanna?
He rubbed his forehead.
I have been seeing her too.
Since February?
He nodded.
Sometimes.
Sometimes.
He looked uncomfortable.
I did not know what we were.
Aino laughed once.
It came out wrong.
Neither did I.
They stood there listening to footsteps above them.
Finally, Mika said something that made her angrier than everything else.
I thought you were okay with keeping it casual.
Aino looked at him.
I was okay with not having a label. I was not okay with having no rules.
He had nothing to say.
Back inside, the party continued.
Someone opened another bottle.
A song everyone knew came on.
People laughed in the kitchen.
Life had the nerve to continue.
Aino picked up her coat.
Before she left, Sanna came over.
Can I say something?
Aino nodded.
Saying yes to someone without asking what yes means is dangerous.
Aino looked at her.
You knew about me?
Sanna shook her head.
No.
That answer changed something.
For the first time that night, Aino did not feel angry at her.
She hugged her.
It was awkward.
Two women who had never met were standing in a hallway because the same man had somehow convinced both of them that uncertainty was a form of freedom.
Outside, Helsinki was cold enough to make her eyes water.
She walked toward the tram stop near Helsinginkatu.
Her phone buzzed.
Mika.
She did not open the message.
Another buzz.
Elina.
This time she answered.
Come get me.
Twenty-five minutes later, they were sitting in a nearly empty bar, sharing fries that had gone cold before they finished them.
Elina listened without interrupting.
When Aino finally finished, she expected anger.
Instead, Elina asked a question.
Do you still love him?
Aino stared at the table.
She hated that she did not know.
The next morning, Mika sent another message.
Then another.
By lunchtime, he had sent seven.
He said he wanted to explain.
He said he had been confused.
He said he never meant to hurt her.
He said he missed her.
The final message was shorter.
Can we start again, but this time properly?
Aino read it three times.
She did not answer.
Not that day.
Two weeks later, she saw Mika outside a grocery store near Hakaniemi. He was carrying a paper bag and wearing the same grey coat she had once bought him because he kept complaining about the cold.
They saw each other.
Neither moved.
Then Mika smiled.
Not the guilty smile.
Not the apologetic one.
The old one.
The one that had made her stay too long.
Aino almost smiled back.
Almost.
She kept walking.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She did not check it.
For once, she wanted to find out what her life looked like when nobody else was deciding what they were.
