Chapter 21 #2
His eyes are red.
“I should have told you that night.” His voice is raw. “The night I heard you hum.”
“Yes.”
He opens his mouth. Closes it. His hand presses harder against the back of his neck.
“I was —” He stops.
“You were what.”
The silence goes too long. His throat moves.
“You were what, Nico.”
“I couldn’t —”
His jaw tightens so hard I can see it. “I couldn’t lose —”
He stops.
Can’t say it. That’s fine. I already know and it makes it worse, not better. He couldn’t lose me. He’d found me — Milochka, alive, breathing, in his bed — and he couldn’t risk losing me, so he said nothing. He said nothing and let Yelena wait.
Nausea rises in my throat.
He knew.
He touched me.
He fucked me.
He marked me last night with his teeth.
He knew.
I’m shaking.
My whole body is shaking.
I can’t stop it.
Yelena tried to save me.
Yelena died trying to save me.
Mama tried to leave and Alexei killed her.
They’re both dead.
She spent her last breath asking him to find me.
And he stopped looking.
He decided I was dead.
He buried me in his head so he wouldn’t have to feel guilty.
He gave up on me.
Then he found me anyway.
And he didn’t tell me.
He put his mouth on me. He put his hands on me. He was inside me.
He left teeth on my throat.
While knowing.
While lying.
I look at him.
He’s waiting for me to speak.
Rage climbs my chest. Not grief — that’s coming, I can feel it at the bottom of everything, I know it’s coming — but not yet. Rage first. Hot. Clean. The first clear thing I’ve felt since he turned his back.
“You brought me into this house,” I say. My voice is very quiet. “You sat across from me at that table every morning. You watched fro days while you already knew.”
His eyes don’t move from mine.
“You were inside me while you knew.”
“Yes.”
One word.
Just yes. Not I’m sorry. Not I tried. Not a single syllable of defense.
He’s not going to fight you. He’s going to take it. All of it.
I almost wish he would. I almost wish there was something to argue with. He’s giving me nothing — just his eyes and his hands at his sides and that single yes, like he’s been sitting on a stand waiting for the verdict for months.
I drive my hands into my thighs. Hard. To stop what’s about to come out of me.
“I’m not going to say the rest of it for you,” I say. “You already know what you did.”
Russian comes out.
Sharp. Hard. Each word a blade.
“Ty reshil, chto ya mertva.” You decided I was dead.
I take one breath.
“Ty pokhoronil menya v svoey golove, chtoby ne smotret’.”
You buried me in your head so you did not have to look.
Another breath.
“Ty ne imeesh’ prava.” You do not have the right.
The last sentence. The longest one I’ve spoken in years.
“Ty ne reshaesh’, kogda ya perestayu sushchestvovat’.”
You do not get to decide when I stop existing.
I get up.
My legs almost give out.
I have to grip the edge of the mattress to stay upright.
He doesn’t move or try to stop me.
He can’t.
I find my underwear on the floor near the chair. I put it on.
My hands are shaking so hard I can barely get them on.
I’m humming.
I don’t realize I’m doing it at first.
The song Yelena sang when I couldn’t sleep.
It’s all I have left.
I don’t put on the dress from yesterday or touch it.
I’m in his shirt and my own underwear and the chain at my throat.
Still humming.
I cross the room to the door.
My vision is blurring.
I can’t cry.
Not in front of him.
Not where he can see.
I open the door.
Still humming.
I walk through it.
I don’t close it behind me.
The hallway.
I’m using the wall to stay upright.
My legs are shaking.
Still humming. Soft.
Still humming.
The hallway connecting the wings.
At the corner before the stairs, Cassia.
She’s in the silk robe she wears in the morning before she dresses. Her hand is on the bannister. The bump under the robe is full.
She’s been on her way down to the kitchen.
She’s stopped at the corner.
She sees me.
She sees the shirt and the chain and my face.
She hears me humming.
Her left hand on the bannister tightens for one second. Her right hand goes briefly to the bump, the small reflex of a woman whose body has been protecting its weight for months.
She lets me pass.
I pass her.
I don’t look at her.
Still humming.
I walk the rest of the hallway.
My legs are barely working.
I reach my room. I open the door. I walk inside.
I close the door.
I don’t lock it.
I’ve never locked this door.
I’m not going to lock it now.
I cross to the bathroom.
Italian marble. The rainfall head fixed high, the way this whole house is built for men taller than me.
I turn the water on. Hot. As hot as it goes.
I rip off his shirt. Throw it on the floor.
I step under the water.
It’s too hot. It burns.
I don’t care.
I grab the soap. I scrub.
My arms. My chest. My stomach. Where he was inside me.
Everywhere he touched.
I scrub harder.
My skin turns red.
I keep scrubbing.
I need him off me.
I need him gone.
I scrub until my skin is raw.
Until the water at my feet runs pink.
And I hum.
Tonkaya Ryabina.
The lullaby Yelena sang to me when I couldn’t sleep.
When I was small and the world was still safe.
When Papa was still alive and Mama still smiled and Yelena was there to chase the nightmares away.
I hum it while the water runs over me.
While my skin burns.
While I scrub and scrub and scrub.
And then I break.
My legs give out.
I slide down the shower wall.
The water is still running. Still too hot. Beating down on my head.
The sound that comes out of my throat is the sound I haven’t made in years.
Raw.
Broken.
Animal.
I’m sobbing.
I can’t stop. Can’t breathe.
My whole body is shaking.
I’m sobbing so hard I can’t breathe.
The water is running over me.
My skin doesn’t feel like mine anymore.
Good.
I pull my knees to my chest.
I wrap my arms around them.
And I hum.
Tonkaya Ryabina.
Over and over.
Rocking.
Sobbing.
The water beating down.
My skin on fire.
Alone in a shower in a house that isn’t mine.
Wearing a chain that’s all I have left.
Humming a song my sister sang to me when we were girls.
A sister who died asking a man to find me.
A man who stopped looking.
I hum.
And I break.