Earnings Season #12
His tone immediately changes. “What’s wrong?”
“I—I didn’t—I . . . I messed up, and I don’t—”
“Where are you?”
“Can I—” She bites back tears, staring up at the sky. “Can I see you?”
“Yes, but where are you?” The urgency in his voice pushes back at the irregular, increasing thud of her heart, like a panic attack about to take
hold.
“Downtown,” she croaks out. “Sixth, in the—the Village.”
“I’ll be home in fifteen,” Aleksandr says. She can hear movement, the changing scope of sounds on his end: a door closing,
footsteps. “Can you meet me there?”
Lili nods, before realizing he can’t see her. “Yes,” she whispers. “Yes.”
As she walks to Tribeca, she tries to hold herself together. It’s okay, she tells herself, but it seems like the worst kind of joke, the most despicable form of insult: to pretend that any of this—any
of her—is okay.
Instead, as she somehow turns onto Walker, the only remotely okay thing—a sick wash of relief—is that it’s here, again: the
familiar comfort of the floor falling out from under her; the reliable confirmation that there isn’t steady ground underneath
her, but only water—dark water, inhospitable depths, pain so much bigger than her.
The elevator slides open, the openness of light and space.
“Lili.”
Already home, he’s waiting for her. She catches his expression of deep concern for a second before she’s kissing him, racing
to overwhelm this panic before it ruptures.
He grasps her hair—good; she wants sharp hurt to burn her.
But Aleksandr’s hands are gentle, not rough, as he pulls away, and looks into her face.
“What happened?” he asks. His eyes search hers, serious.
“Nothing,” Lili insists, grasping the lapels of his suit. “Come on, just—let’s just—”
He holds her wrists. “Talk to me.”
“Stop—don’t—”
“Lili, please—what’s wrong?” he asks, trying to pull her into his chest, trying to calm her down.
Fighting against his grip, Lili twists free, and he lets her.
It makes poisonous disappointment snarl in her: she wants to hurt him, wants him to hurt her.
She buries her face in her hands, unable to stand it.
“Don’t—don’t—Aleksandr, just fucking—hurt me—” Her voice breaks, rough like a scream trapped. “Just—just hurt me—fuck, I’m not asking for anything new—”
“Lili.” He grasps her shoulders, but she shrugs them off, knocking away his hands.
“What? This is what we do! Sex, that’s all—that’s—” Again, panic claws in her chest. She digs her nails into her palms. All
she wants is clean pain: hurt that blots out the guilt, the shame.
“Not like this,” Aleksandr says, threading his hands through her hair. “Just talk to me—”
An angry noise rises in the back of her throat. Lili wants to ruin this, make it all complete. “This is the only thing you
can give me,” she spits.
He freezes. “You know that’s not true—”
“It’s the only thing I want from you. Isn’t that what we did last time? Fucked and didn’t talk about it?”
“That wasn’t—”
She lets out a near scream of frustration. “Jesus, fucking—come on! Did you think this means anything? There’s nothing else here, this is the only thing I want from you—”
Sudden, his grip in her hair tightens, sending a shock of cold pain over her scalp. The reflex action immediately loosens,
but his entire body is rigid over hers. “Don’t fucking lie to me,” Aleksandr grits out, hard teeth.
Against his loosened hold, Lili tries to swallow. The thud of her own heart fills her head as she looks up at him; she’s never
seen him this angry. There is nothing kind or gentle or familiar here.
Tears sting in her eyes. “Do whatever you want to me,” she whispers, choking back tears. “Anything you want, I don’t care,
please—just make it stop, Sasha—please . . .”
Aleksandr’s gaze hardens—closed to her, grip growing stronger in her hair, he forces her head back against the wall, and her
mind washes out for a brief moment—and here it is, the break of it, what she wants—
And then, it’s gone.
The grip in her hair spasms, then loosens.
“Lili.” Her name comes as a plea, breaking.
She suddenly feels too full of herself, a desperate noise between her teeth.
“Lili, look at me.” She struggles against his hand in her hair—her heart, it thuds so loud—and then he’s starting to draw away, and she starts to shake, grasping for his shoulders, needing him, needing him—
“Please,” Aleksandr whispers, low and rough. He holds her face, firm but not hard enough to hurt. “Tell me what happened.
You need to tell me—we can’t keep doing this.”
Somehow, she finds her voice. “This—it’s what I need. This is the only thing—”
“Don’t lie to me,” he breathes, hoarse. “I can’t do this to you, not like this. Not again. Not like that night. There’s more
to you than this.”
“Please,” she sobs, tears slipping into her hair. “Please—I can’t, not now, I can’t—”
“It’s never going to stop unless you feel it,” he whispers. “Whatever it is—I can hurt you, but you need to feel it—it’s pain,
Lili. Pain ends.”
Pain ends.
But if it ends, what will come next?
Struggling under him, gentle hands unwilling to hurt her, she feels it so close to catching her: pain that can’t be overwhelmed,
hurt that can’t be dislodged, her constant bolting away from the rupture. Subspace, the oblivion she wants, that night of
too far, it didn’t take her here; to having to take the next step, after being hit so hard by emotional agony—the next step
that isn’t escape. It took her to the moment of collapse, not the next moment forward. It showed her she could survive touching
the pain, maybe, but living past it? If the pain ends—if it ends—she will still be here: alone, with grief for the loss she is still willing not to be true, a release—acceptance—she does
not want.
If the pain ends, she will still be here, without them.
Her heart seizes. It’s a well inside of her: black, ceaseless, unending, how could this ever drain? A sob cracks in her chest;
she cannot outrun this.
Slumping against the wall, she collapses to the ground, finally breaking. Aleksandr catches her. The floor is cold and hard,
but he draws her into his arms fast, he’s all around her, as she starts to sob, her entire body shaking with grief.
Worthless, dead laughter—broken ocean air—ruined, all the pieces of a life she was supposed to have.
These fears wait, the threat of their realization always lurking: Having something means losing it, and Lili holds him harder.
Her fingernails dig into his shoulder blades, a desperate sound scraping out of her throat.
“I’m here, Lili.” His voice is hoarse. “I’m here—I’m not leaving.”
Huddled together, his arms are urgent, insistent around her. She holds onto him like a life raft, grasping for him so tight
she can’t see beyond his arms, sobbing as it finally crashes over her, with nowhere to run: all of the dark, deep sadness.
It’s pressure in her chest that keeps building until she has to close her eyes, shutting them hard, buried against his chest—still
trying to will this not to be true: that they are gone, that she is still here; that this only becomes more true, with every
passing day—but if it’s building, it will break, or she will break, one or the other—because she cannot only be this pain
or nothing, there must be some in-between, something has to give—and as it starts to crack, faltering, a high-pitched cry,
there’s something like strength in her hands, what can endure this, and this body that can just barely breathe, sobbing and
grasping for something to hold onto—
“I’ve got you.” A hoarse murmur. “I’ve always got you.” Clinging to that, she lets go, lets it finally start to leave; cries—she
cries until she can’t see a thing but can feel everything, because words like always never come true, and promises can only
hurt.
The clink of glass against marble, setting soap back. Warm water against her skin. Palms smooth down her arms, washing her
clean of lather, the scent of sandalwood. The bathroom is quiet, and Aleksandr kisses her vertebrae, the top of her spine,
as she rests against his chest.
“How are you?” he murmurs.
Afterwards, there’d been her body, on the floor, held by him. His shirt in her weak grip, tremors, the returning rush of her
breathing. The hesitant flex of her fingers, trying to move her own body again, in small and subtle ways—this is my arm, these are my hands. The safety of his body, in turn, around hers, a kiss at the hollow of the base of her neck.
Hands, familiar skin. Helping her up, letting her find her own two feet, offering her steadiness to lean against. Water, a
drink down her raw throat. Her eyes closing, opening: dark, then light resolving.
Like she’s outside of her body; outside the boundaries of herself.
Like the things she thought she was, the things she thought she’d never rise above, are with her still, but she can set their weight down for a moment—and unease, too, nameless but definite—she can’t settle here, this relief won’t last—
But for now, she feels safe in his arms.
“Tired,” she murmurs. She lets her fingers trace through the water.
The resolve to tell him, it’s not something she owes. It’s something she wants to give.
Lili takes a breath, and trusts.
“I—um . . . They died today,” she whispers. “My parents died today.”
He is quiet. Not judgmental, not shocked, not reacting. Instead, his arms are steady around her, listening.
“I forgot,” she whispers. Water laps against the side of the bath. “I was just running errands. I was happy, it felt like
a good day, then my foster mom texted me. We’d talked recently, she’d found some photos, and—and—”
Tears do come, then. Lili tries to brush them away, her warm hand from the bath soothing the prickling heat at her eyes.
Behind her, Aleksandr kisses her hair. He doesn’t speak.
“I forgot,” she repeats. Like a slap, that confession of insufficiency, because how could she forget? Dark heaviness—worthlessness,
undeserving—begins to crawl back in. “I forgot the date that my own parents died—”
Her sobs rise again. Her shoulders hitch, soundless gasps she can’t force back.