Chapter Forty One
Catherine
Denied.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out why.
Or how. Catherine Miller looks good on paper.
An upstanding citizen. Intelligent. Wealthy.
Educated. There’s absolutely no reason my visa application should have been denied.
And there was no reason given, anyway. Just a flat denial, and a terse suggestion that I shouldn’t attempt to apply again, because I won’t be approved.
It’s Alexei. It has to be. He’s washed his hands of me completely. I’m not even permitted in his country, much less his presence. It’s a cold, rude awakening, and I’m filled with a frothing, boiling rage. I feel shamed, humiliated…bereft.
Like the last tie between us has finally been severed. Not by my hand—by his.
It’s so unfair. It’s so unfair, and there’s nothing I can do.
Again, I’m powerless. And the worst of it, the very worst of it all, isn’t that it’s not the first time I’ve felt this way.
It’s that I am alone in this feeling. There is no hand that sifts through my hair at night.
There is no big body curled around mine, no arm thrown over my waist. There are no soothing murmurs in muted Russian that I don’t understand.
No one dries my tears. No one holds me. No one speaks to me even if I never deign to talk back. No one sends me breakfast in the morning or tucks blankets around me when I kick them off. No one cares for me when I’m incapable of caring for myself.
We’re just done. Without any sort of closure. And I feel like half of myself has been severed. Like I’ve lost something important, and I didn’t even recognize it until it was no longer there.
Ya tebya lyublyu. Remember.
My eyes close. I think those words weren’t really ever meant for Catalina.
They were meant for Catherine. He knew he was abandoning me.
He knew it, and he never really told me.
He knew it, and he never actually said goodbye.
Didn’t I deserve that? After everything he put me through, didn’t I deserve at least the courtesy of an actual goodbye?
This new life was a freedom that I asked for. I just didn’t know how miserable it would make me. And I can’t take it back now. I can’t rewind the clock and ask for something else. There is no simple solution, no changing my mind.
Catalina Russo is already dead.
My life, such as it is, is a string of regrets. Is it even fair to be angry when he only gave me what I wanted, what I asked for over and over again? But I am—so, so angry. The broken parts of me ache.
It’s been months already. I don’t think this pain will ever fade.