Chapter 30
CHAPTER
THIRTY
Sia
Maxim was gone longer than a night. Than a week.
And he rarely texted.
He called even less, and sometimes it’d be days before I heard anything at all. Usually, I just checked in and asked how he was doing.
All I got in response were canned answers. He said he was busy and still working the job he was on. It was nice hearing from him, but he wasn’t telling me anything at all.
“ Malyshka, I think you know I can’t.”
I didn’t like how he sounded before he left and definitely didn’t like how he sounded after he left. He never sounded carefree anymore during our sporadic conversations. He sounded serious and certainly didn’t tease me. I never liked that, but once the teases were gone, well, I missed them. Now, Maxim sounded like he had when we first met. He came across as overworked, stressed.
And I didn’t like it.
What I liked even less were when the calls and texts stopped. Like they just stopped . I’d message him something, and there’d be zero response. Eventually, I started asking Val if he was okay. I was worried and needed to know, but each time I inquired, Val assured me she’d heard from Maxim, and he was fine. I was relieved when she’d tell me this, but why wasn’t he telling me that himself?
I was starting to ask Val about Maxim’s status too much, and I knew when she started looking at me funny. One day, she looked on the cusp of asking me why I kept asking so I broke down and texted Lettie. I was also tired of Val’s canned answers.
Asking Lettie had been a mistake though. I wasn’t weird about my line of questioning. I didn’t want her thinking Maxim and I were involved before he was able to talk to her, but I did ask if he was normally gone for extended periods of time surrounding work. When she said not usually, I really started freaking out, and I could tell she did too when she started texting me and asking for more details. I didn’t have those details, but I was able to assure her he was okay in the end. Her worry had stopped then but mine hadn’t.
Something wasn’t right about all this, and my gut told me that. Maxim appeared borderline panicked before he left and definitely frazzled. That wasn’t normal at all, and I was thinking about that one day when I got Val’s attention in the kitchen. She’d pretty much been staying at the house. Apparently, Maxim had wanted her to watch over everything while he was gone, but I had a feeling that was mostly for my benefit.
“ Val ?” I signed. She taught me her name and quite a few signs. I’d been a sponge for them. I really wanted to be able to communicate with her, and I could tell she’d been happy I was interested.
Val had been peering out the window, but she left it. She’d been doing that a lot since she got here, which didn’t make me feel great. I never used to catch her doing that. I’d obviously been attacked, but my attacker was dead.
This made me think about Maxim. Things didn’t feel safe here anymore, like they used to, but I worried less about my own safety. If people were after Maxim, I didn’t know what I’d do. I didn’t know what I could do.
“ Can you teach me to fight? ” I signed to Val, and her brow lifted. I wasn’t sure if that was because of the request or the sign. I had to spell out the word fight since I didn’t know it. “ I’d like to fight. Can you teach? ”
I spelled out the word again, and she smiled. She waved at me before showing me the ASL word for fight .
“Thank you,” I spoke the word while signing. She nodded, then took out her phone. I watched her type a response, which wasn’t uncommon. We normally did a combination of signing and texting. This was because of me of course. I wanted to be able to speak with her dominantly in ASL, but I was still learning.
“ Why do you want to learn to fight, jellybean? ” her phone screen said. She started calling me jellybean after seeing how many I ate since she’d come to the house more. I’d been stressed a lot with Maxim gone, but I found comfort in the nickname. Actually, it always made me laugh. Val typed again. “ You just want to learn for fun? ”
Not exactly. I swallowed. “I don’t want to be here feeling helpless.” I chewed my lip. “I hate feeling helpless.”
I was only partially honest with Val. Yes, I did feel helpless being here. Especially after being attacked, but I felt useless as well. What if the difference between me being able to help Maxim or not came down to my ability to defend myself? I knew that sounded silly, but that was how I felt. I wanted to be able to take care of myself, yes, but maybe I could help him too in some way.
This did sound silly, but I wasn’t just going to sit around and do nothing. Not when he was out there doing God only knew what.
“ I can help ,” Val signed before helping me make tonight’s salad. I didn’t like Sophia making me dinner every night like I was royalty, and I really didn’t like eating by myself. Val ate dinner with me most nights when I asked. I made my own meals, and she helped sometimes like this.
“ Help me fight ?” I signed. “ Or help me with dinner ?”
“ Both. ” Her eyes warmed after her sign, but then her expression fell. She typed on her phone before showing me the screen. “ I’m sure you felt helpless when that man attacked you, and you should learn some basic defense maneuvers. I can teach you that. No problem. ”
I was grateful for the help but didn’t dwell on what she said. It was probably best she thought I just wanted to defend myself. She’d probably find it silly that, if it came down to it, I’d want to help Maxim too. It probably was silly.
I just didn’t care.