Chapter 22 - Athena
The burden of my father’s death aches inside me like a constant magnetic pull, weighing me down.
Losing the last person I can call family is daunting and scary.
And knowing I will never see him again is difficult to process.
My father and I might not have been on the best of terms, and I might have already been ready to cut him from my life—but at least I still knew he was out there in the world.
Now he’s gone, and there’s a hollow space inside me that will take time to heal.
I understand the burden of grieving someone who has passed away. I grieved my mother even though I didn’t know her.
What I don’t understand or know how to face is the grief of losing someone who is still alive.
This is a different kind of grief.
Adrian is a phone call away. He is right here, easy to reach out to, easy to meet up with… but I can’t.
I can’t because I have to be strong and stick to what I believe in.
And I believe that I should not let people lie to me.
But my heart and my head are at war.
Every moment is an internal battle with me not to leave here and go back to him. But with what I found out, how can I do that?
I thought it would be easy to leave him after what he did. I’ve never been more wrong about something in my life.
Because no matter how much my logic will tell me, over and over again, that he is no good for me. My heart wants him back. And my heart shouts so much louder than my mind.
The apartment I am staying in is in the city. Not too far from Adrian’s mansion. Lucky the views are in the opposite direction of where he lives, otherwise, I might find myself pointlessly staring across the impossible distance toward him.
It’s not snowing today. It seems as though the worst of winter is passing us by. But my body feels cold. I wrap my arms around my shoulders and rub my arms, biting at my lip.
It’s a cute apartment. More than I could ever afford on my own. I am grateful for it. Without it… who knows where I would be.
A knock at the door has my stomach churning. Is it him? Did he find me?
The first thought is panic. The second through is excitement. The anger that I might be excited to see him.
“Athena?” her voice calls through the door. “It’s me,” she says.
“Coming,” I call back, scolding myself for being so jumpy.
Unlatching the two bolts on the inside, I tug the door open.
Anka immediately hugs me. “How are you holding up?” she asks.
“Is there any news?”
“Not in the papers or anything. I don’t think they know who killed your dad. I’m so sorry, honey,” she says.
I nod, stepping back to let her in. It’s her place. She usually rents it out on Airbnb or lets friends stay there when they visit the city. Thank goodness she answered my call. And thank goodness she was kind enough and didn’t even hesitate to help me.
“I am going to start looking for a job tomorrow. I’m sorry, I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you. I…”
She takes my arm and pulls me to face her. “Sweetie, breathe. You can’t be thinking about work right now. You just lost your father. Your whole life is upside-down. You need to take time for yourself and let yourself process and heal,” she says.
“Yes, but,” I gesture around her apartment, sighing softly.
“This place is yours for however long you need it. I promise you. A month. A year. It literally makes no difference to me. It’s yours, ok?”
I start to cry, overwhelmed by her kindness.
“I don’t think anyone has ever been there for me like your family has,” I blurt out as she pulls me into another hug.
It strikes me how true my words are.
Anka.
And Adrian.
Even though he lied, he still took care of me. He still made sure I was ok. We had something special…
Stop that, Athena. You’re remembering the good and forgetting the bad.
Anka steps back. She gestures to the packets she’s placed on the open-plan kitchen counter.
“I figured you most likely hadn’t eaten.
When I was depressed, I went on this massive junk food binge because I couldn’t even think of cooking.
But it made me feel a thousand times worse.
So, I got you a few sweet treats, but I made sure to stock you up with all the fresh veggies I could think of.
And some steaks and some mince and some… ”
“You really didn’t have to do this,” I stammer, following her to the kitchen.
“Yes, I did. And you need to stop telling me otherwise because, regardless of what happened between you and my brother, you are my sister-in-law, which makes you my sister, and that means I get to look out for you, ok!” she says sternly.
I grin at her serious tone and nod. “Ok,” I agree.
“Now, I was thinking I would make a stir-fry.”
“Sounds amazing,” I say, even though I’m not hungry at all.
I haven’t been eating. And I totally get why she binged on all the junk food. It seems easier. Convenient and comforting.
She gets to work in the kitchen, handing me a cutting board and a knife. I don’t have to think much while I slice onions and carrots.
After a while of comfortable silence, she tentatively says, “I spoke with Adrian today.”
I press my lips together. I have a thousand questions.
She glances at my face. Then carries on. “Do you know what happened between us in the past?” she asks.
“I know some of it. With Viktor. And how he lied to you?” I reply.
“He hurt me badly. He stole years from me. Years where I could have been with the man I loved, but because of Adrian…” she hesitates. Sighing and rolling her eyes. “It’s so frustrating because somewhere in that stupid brain of his, he thought he was doing the right thing.”
She talks to me about what she went through. How betrayed she felt. She speaks openly, and while she makes it clear she still has anger, she also makes it clear that she has forgiven him and is working toward completely moving past it because her life is so perfect now.
“In the end, I am exactly where I am meant to be. Maybe the delay was meant to happen? I don’t know.”
“But… Adrian orchestrated the delay. It wasn’t divine intervention, it was him being controlling,” I say.
“Definitely. I don’t disagree. But I have come to learn that my brother acts with extreme stupidity when he cares about people. And he is trying to unlearn that habit.”
“And you two get along now?” I ask.
She nods. “That poor man has jumped through hoops to make it up to me. And still to this day, he is humble and apologetic. And he does and will do anything for me. He’s proven himself to me, and from my side, it would be silly of me to let go of someone who cares deeply enough to try and to put actions out there to prove how sorry they are. ”
I scrape the sliced veggies off the wooden chopping board and into the bowl she hands me.
Setting the knife down, she hands me a bottle of wine and tells me to pour each of us a glass.
While I’m pouring, she watches me. I can see there is something else she wants to say.
“What is it?” I ask.
“The reason he called me was to speak about you,” she admits.
“Oh,” I answer, my voice sounding strangled.
“He called me to tell me what he’d done.”
“Did you tell him…”
“That you’re here, no, absolutely not. I didn’t even tell him you asked me for help.”
I scrunch my nose, handing her a glass of wine. “What did he say?” I ask nervously.
“He’s broken, Athena. I’m not telling you that for any reason other than because it is the truth. He was open about how badly he messed up, and he is drowning in regrets over it. I hope that gives you some relief, to know he isn’t storming around denying what he did?”
“It does,” I say quietly, picturing him alone in that massive mansion. It causes my heart to ache.
“He spoke about how he thought he was protecting you. He drew distinctions between what he did to me and what he did to you, realizing he was repeating the same mistake. He knows he was wrong. He does want a chance to fix it, but that isn’t for him to decide. It’s for you to decide.”
She keeps talking while she cooks, and we sip wine, and I ask questions.
The way she is describing her brother is cutting into me. He is a strong man. He protects. He defends. But with her words, he sounds vulnerable, shattered, and lost in regret and remorse.
“Do you think he can change?” I ask quietly.
“Oh, to be honest with you, I think he has already changed. Think about this. What happened between him and me in the past spanned over the space of years. It took him years and a very heavy confrontation for him to break down and even consider that he might have been the one in the wrong. With you, he knew it instantly. He knew he’d made the same mistake.
He admitted it right away, and he is suffering from guilt over his actions.
Yes. I think he has already changed. It doesn’t make what he did right, though.
You have every right to be furious with him. ”
She tops up my wine. I’ve already had a glass and a half on an empty stomach, but the fuzzy feeling in my head is a welcome relief from the past few days of heartache.
I look up at her through tired eyes, my heart now focused on Adrian, picturing him struggling and alone in the mansion.
When I say the words out loud, they surprise me more than they surprise her.
“I love him,” I blurt out.
My heart somersaults. It’s true. I love him. I’m not falling in love. I am in love.
And now that I’ve admitted it, I realize that I have been in love with him for a while already.
Anka smiles. She tilts her head to the side and watches me while she thoughtfully twirls her wine in her glass. “I know,” she says with a grin.
“You do?” I ask, furrowing my brows.
“It’s in the eyes. The way you two looked at each other that night we ate a truckload of spaghetti.”
“That was… that was ages ago!” I argue.
“It was, but that’s the thing about love, your body knows before you do. And the eyes never lie.”
She turns to stir the veggies in the pan, and I stare down at my wine. “I can’t bear the thought of hurting him,” I mutter quietly.
She speaks gently.
“This isn’t about him, though, sweetie. It’s about you. So whatever decision you need to make, it needs to be for you. For your happiness. You have to decide what you want. And whatever it is, no matter how long it takes, I will help you with it. So, there is no pressure, you understand?”
I nod. “I know what I want,” I say, my heart lifting slightly.
“You do?” she grins, as though she already knew this, too.
I nod. “I do.”
“Well, that’s always a good thing. Then tomorrow we can start helping you get what you want. But tonight, you are drinking wine with me and eating stir fry,” she grins, holding up her glass and tapping the edge of it against mine.