THE FIRST WEEKS IN STOCKHOLM had been lonely. Two years after I graduated from high school I left Fj?llbacka behind. Both mentally and physically. I couldn’t get away from that claustrophobic little place fast enough. It suffocated me with its picturesque cobbled streets and inquisitive people who never left me alone. All I took with me was fifteen thousand kronor and top grades in every subject.

I would have liked to get away sooner. But it had taken longer than I expected to sort out all the practical details. Sell the house, clear it, get rid of all the ghosts that crowded around me. The memories were so painful. When I walked around my childhood home, I kept seeing them everywhere. My older brother, Sebastian. Mom. And, not least, Dad. There was nothing left for me in Fj?llbacka. Just gossip. And death.

No one had been there for me then. And they weren’t there now either. So I packed my bags and got on the train to Stockholm without looking back.

And swore never to return.

At Central Station in Stockholm I stopped by a rubbish bin, opened the back of my phone, and threw the SIM card away. Now none of the shadows of the past would be able to reach me. There was no threat of anyone coming after me.

I rented a room for the summer in an apartment above the ugly F?lt?versten shopping mall, the one the residents of ?stermalm shake their heads at and tut about it being “the Socialists” fault, they couldn’t resist ruining our lovely ?stermalm.” But I didn’t know any of that at the time. I was used to Hedemyr’s ICA supermarket in Tanumshede and thought F?lt?versten was so upmarket.

I loved Stockholm right from the outset. From my window on the seventh floor I could look out across the ornate buildings around me, the leafy parks, the smart cars, and tell myself that one day I would live in one of those imposing nineteenth-century buildings with my husband, our three perfect children, and a dog.

My husband would be an artist. Or an author. Or a musician. As different from Dad as possible. Sophisticated, intellectual, and worldly. He would smell nice and dress smartly. He would be a bit hard on other people, but never to me, because I would be the only person who understood him.

I spent those first long, light nights wandering the streets of Stockholm. I saw fights in alleyways when the nightclubs closed. Heard the shouting, crying, laughter. The sirens of emergency vehicles, heading into danger to save lives. I stared in amazement at the prostitutes in the city center, in their 1980s makeup and high heels, puffy white skin and needle tracks on their arms that they tried to cover up with long-sleeved tops and blouses. I asked them for cigarettes and fantasized about their lives. The liberation of finding yourself at rock bottom. No risk of falling any deeper into shit. I toyed with the idea of standing there myself, just to understand what it would be like, who the men were who paid for five minutes of sordid intimacy in their Volvo with a child’s seat in the back and extra diapers and wipes in the glove compartment.

That was when my life really started. The past clung to my ankles like a dead weight. Weighing me down, spoiling things, holding me back. But every cell of my body was alive with curiosity. It was me against the world. Far from home, in a city I had dreamed about my whole life. I hadn’t merely wanted to get away. I had been desperate to come here. Slowly I made Stockholm my city. It gave me hope that I might be able to heal and forget.

In early July my landlady, a retired teacher, went off to visit her grandchildren in Norrland.

“No visitors,” she said sternly before she left.

“No visitors,” I repeated obediently.

That evening I put my makeup on and drank her gin and whiskey. Mixed with cherry liqueur and Amarula. It tasted disgusting, but that didn’t matter, I wanted to feel that rush, the rush that promised the bliss of forgetting and spread through my body like a warm glow.

When I had drunk enough to feel brave, I put on a cotton dress and walked to Stureplan. After a bit of hesitation, I sat down at a pavement bar that looked nice. Famous faces I had only ever seen on television walked past. Laughing, intoxicated by both alcohol and the summer.

At midnight I got in the line outside a nightclub on the other side of the street. The atmosphere was impatient and I wasn’t sure if they’d let me in. I tried to imitate the others, act like them. It was only later that I realized they must have been tourists too. As lost as I was, but with courage painted on.

I heard laughter behind me. Two guys the same age as me walked past the line and went up to the bouncers. A nod and a handshake. Everyone was staring at them with jealousy and fascination. Hours of preparation and giggling over glasses of rosé, only to end up shivering behind a rope. When it could all be so simple. If only we had been someone.

Unlike me, these two guys were people who got noticed, they were respected, they belonged. They were Someone. There and then I decided the same thing was going to apply to me.

At that moment one of the guys turned and looked curiously at the crowd. Our eyes met.

I turned away and felt in my bag for a cigarette. I didn’t want to look stupid, didn’t want to look like what I was—a girl from the country on her first trip to a nightclub in the big city, giddy with stolen gin and Amarula. The next thing I knew, he was standing in front of me. His hair was close-cut, his eyes blue, kind. His ears stuck out slightly. He was wearing a beige shirt and dark jeans.

“What’s your name?”

“Matilda,” I replied.

The name I hated. The name that belonged to another life, another person. Someone who was no longer me. Someone I had left behind when I got on the train to Stockholm.

“I’m Viktor. Are you here by yourself?”

I didn’t answer.

“Go stand next to the bouncer,” he said.

“I’m not on the list,” I mumbled.

“Me neither.”

A sparkling smile. I pushed my way out of the line, the object of envious, longing stares from girls in too few clothes and boys with too much hair gel.

“She’s with me.”

The meat mountain by the door removed the rope and said, “Welcome.”

In the crowd Viktor took my hand, leading me deeper into the darkness. Other people’s shadows, flickering lights, all different colors, throbbing bass, entwined bodies dancing. We stopped at the end of a long bar and Viktor said hello to the bartender.

“What would you like to drink?” he asked.

With the cloying taste of sickly liqueur still in my mouth, I said, “Beer.”

“Good, I like girls who drink beer. Classy.”

“Classy?”

“Yeah. Good. Solid.”

He handed me a Heineken. Raised the bottle in a toast. I smiled at him and drank some.

“So, what dreams have you got for your life, Matilda?”

“To be someone,” I replied. Without pausing to think.

“You’re already someone, aren’t you?”

“Someone else.”

“I can’t see that there’s much wrong with you.”

Viktor took a few sideways dance steps, swaying in time to the music.

“So what are your dreams?” I asked.

“Me? I just want to make music.”

“Are you a musician?” I had to lean closer and raise my voice for him to hear me.

“DJ. But I’m not working tonight. I’m playing tomorrow, I’ll be up there then.”

I followed his finger. On a small stage over by the wall, behind a turn table, stood the guy Viktor had arrived with, grooving to the music. A little while later he came over to us, and introduced himself as Axel. He seemed nice, unthreatening.

“Good to meet you, Matilda,” he said, holding out his hand.

I couldn’t help thinking how different they were from the guys back home. Polished. Well-spoken. Axel got a drink, then disappeared. Viktor and I drank another toast. My beer was almost finished.

“We’re warming up beforehand with a few friends tomorrow, if you’d like to come along?”

“Maybe,” I said, looking at him thoughtfully. “Why did you want me to come in with you?”

I drank the last of my beer demonstratively, hoping he’d order more. He did. One for me, one for him. Then he answered my question. His blue eyes glinted in the dim light.

“Because you’re pretty. And you looked lonely. Are you regretting it?”

“No, not at all.”

He fished a packet of Marlboros from his back pocket and offered me one. I had nothing against taking it, mine would last longer that way. There wasn’t much left from the fifteen thousand I’d got from the sale of the house once the mortgage and everything else had been paid off.

Our hands touched as he lit my cigarette. His hand was warm and tanned. I missed his touch the moment it was gone.

“You’ve got sad eyes. Did you know that?” he said, sucking hard on his cigarette.