8. Roman
EIGHT
Roman
I want to stay in bed with Lucas while he sleeps, but I can’t. I’m too agitated. I need … fuck, I feel like I need to talk to someone. It’s a weird feeling and I can’t imagine actually doing it, but I can’t lie here either.
I carefully disentangle myself from Lucas.
I’m not sure where my sweatpants went, so I snag something from the laundry basket.
It’s my black slacks from the other night at Eclipse.
On my way to the door, I spot my white t-shirt on the floor by the bed.
It’s all twisted and stretched, but I put it on anyway. I glance at Lucas, but he doesn’t stir.
I slip out of the room. It’s evening, but the house is quiet. I take the stairs to the bottom floor. I’m heading to the gym by default, but the hallway takes me past Vitali’s office. The light is on and the door is open. It often is, and I usually just walk by, but this time I stop.
Vitali looks up from his laptop and stares across the office to me in the doorway.
The office looks the same as when it was our father’s, but the man behind the desk is very different.
Vitali can be cold and harsh like our father, but he’s a lot like our mother too.
I see it suddenly in his eyes. The warmth.
The worry. It’s been emerging for a while, I realize as I keep looking at him.
With Quinn. With me too, though he’s more guarded.
I’ve given him reason to be. But I think he’s tired right now.
He’s not hiding it like he usually does.
When I walk into the office, surprise flits through Vitali’s dark eyes.
He thought I would walk on by. So did I.
But instead I go sit on the ornate velvet couch along the side wall.
There’s an eighteenth century landscape painting above my head, a fancy coffee table in front of me, and a minibar on the other side of the room.
There are bookcases with leatherbound books and other ornate furniture.
It doesn’t fit Vitali at all. He’s very stylish, but this isn’t his style.
His office at Eclipse suits him better. I wonder if he hates it in here. I guess I could ask him.
“Do you hate it in here?” I ask.
Vitali is very still behind the desk. I’m acting strange. He doesn’t know why I’m here. Neither do I.
Vitali says, “Sometimes.”
“He was an asshole.” There’s no need to specify who ‘he’ is. Vitali knows that I mean our father .
He takes a deep breath. It comes out like a heavy sigh. “Yeah,” he agrees.
“I feel like you forget that,” I say. I’m surprised at the words coming out of my mouth. I didn’t know any of this was in my head, but as I say it, I realize it’s been bothering me for months.
“Maybe,” Vitali concedes, then he scrubs at his face and says, “Yeah. I guess I do.”
“You know he cheated on her, don’t you? A lot.”
Vitali frowns. “Did she tell you that?”
“She didn’t need to. It was obvious.”
Vitali is silent for a while, frowning at his desk, frowning at nothing. Then he says, “Yeah. I guess it was.”
“I’m glad it’s you that’s here,” I tell my brother. “Instead of him.”
As the words leave my mouth, I realize how true they are—and how much I’ve needed to say them. But it’s as hard for Vitali to hear that as it was for me to say it. It just contains … too much.
When our parents died, Vitali was only seventeen, two years older than me, and suddenly responsible for a hell of a lot. He didn’t get to grieve, and I chose not to. That grief, if we had stepped into it, would have been complicated.
Vitali swallows hard. “I’m really—” He breaks off, clears his throat. He looks away from me then at me again. “I’m really fucking glad you’re here, Roman. ”
Vitali said this to me once before, and it’s no easier to hear this time. The weight that I felt earlier today settles over me again, or maybe inside me. It’s heavy. It locks me up.
When it happens, when I go silent, I realize for the first time that part of what is always locked inside me are, actually, words. They don’t feel like words when they’re silent, but … I think that’s what they are.
Vitali sees that I’m stuck. I can see in his eyes that he thinks I’ll get up and leave. But I don’t.
Vitali is the one who gets up but not to leave. He goes over to the minibar and pours a drink. Now that I don’t drink, it worries me to see how much he does it. He’s stressed. I’m stressing him. Because he … cares about me.
I know that he does. I’ve known that from the start. But knowing and feeling are different things, and I feel it now, a little, for the first time. It’s supposed to feel good. It does, kind of. But it hurts too.
Everything was so much easier when I wasn’t human. But being in that cell with Lucas last night made very clear to me that there’s no going back. But I don’t know how to go forward either.
Vitali gives me time. He’s getting more patient. He’s starting to adjust to how I am. He was so shocked at first. Of course he was. But he’s starting to let me be myself. I’m the one who can’t figure shit out .
Vitali rests back against the minibar. He sips his drink but doesn’t look at me. It helps me breathe. It helps me speak again.
“You would take care of Lucas,” I say. “If anything happened to me.”
I know he would, but I want to hear him say it. He doesn’t hesitate.
“Yes. Of course.”
I close my eyes, relieved.
“But, Roman—he wouldn’t be the same. You know that, right? He wouldn’t do well.”
When Vitali says that, in that careful tone, I know that he knows why we’re talking about this.
If I were dead, I wouldn’t have to figure any of this out. It would just go away. I wouldn’t be a danger to Lucas or a source of worry or stress.
It’s not that I plan to do anything or even directly want to. It’s just … a thought.
I think Quinn thinks like this sometimes. I think that’s the understanding I sensed when he was driving me and Lucas home. Recognizing it now, actually looking at it for the first time, I see it in him too. These kinds of thoughts.
I suppose Vitali has also seen it in Quinn. Maybe that’s why he can see it in me. And I feel really relieved that he’s letting me deal with it right now, with him, without getting upset with me.
I don’t blame Lucas for getting upset, but I really need to talk to someone, just for a second, who doesn’t .
I swallow hard. “I want better for him.”
“He loves you.”
“I know.”
“I’m not sure you do, Roman. I think you only see the generous part of his love, the part that he gives. And it’s real. It’s big. I see it every fucking day. But there’s a selfish part of his love too. A possessive and hungry part. He needs you as much as you need him.”
My vision blurs, smudging Vitali and the room together until it’s just a swirl of light and color.
Vaguely, I see Vitali moving through it.
I hear him. When I blink and the tears fall, he’s sitting on the coffee table.
He’s facing me but not right across from me. He’s just close enough to be with me.
He’s leaning forward, his forearms on his knees, his glass held between. He’s looking down. Something about it makes me feel like I can tell him the truth.
“Everything’s so fucking hard,” I confess.
Vitali’s eyes squeeze shut. “I know.”
“I don’t know how to do this.” The way Vitali receives my words, listening, accepting, makes more of them spill out.
“I don’t know how to be here. I wear my old clothes and live in my old room, but it all feels wrong.
Like I’m supposed to be who I used to be, but I can’t.
And I don’t even actually want to. And yet, I can’t stop feeling … ”
“What?” Vitali asks quietly when I don’t finish the sentence .
I don’t know if I can tell him. I don’t know if I can say it. I try to get around it.
I ask, “Do you remember when you told me that Nonna Maria had died and I said how that was good?”
Vitali was so angry when I said that. I didn’t really react to his anger, didn’t think I even cared about it, but it’s stuck with me. It’s obviously stuck with him too because he answers almost at once.
“I remember.”
“It’s how I feel in the library too, because I think about our mother in there, and I’m—” My words cut off. I can’t say that I’m glad she’s dead. I just can’t. So I say, “I’m glad neither of them can see me. Like I am now.”
Vitali is silent for a time, taking in what I’ve said, and haven’t said. Then he tells me quietly, “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Roman.”
I close my eyes, relieved but also upset that Vitali heard the word I couldn’t say. It’s such a painfully human word.
I don’t know what to do with it.
Vitali says, “God, Roman, I’m just—” His sentence gets chokes off. His head is still angled down, but I see the tears fall. “ Fuck .” He swipes the back of his wrist across his eyes. He doesn’t lift his head. “I’m just so fucking glad you’re here.”
Having him say those words again, seeing how upset he is, I realize how much he needs me to hear this. I keep having trouble with it, and I think that’s why he keeps saying it. He needs it to land in me. For some reason, this time, it does.
My throat tightens. My hand lifts from my thigh.
I almost feel like I’m not controlling it as I reach out and set it on Vitali’s shoulder.
That just makes things harder for him. His breathing gets harsh.
He starts shaking. He drops the glass between his feet.
The heavy crystal doesn’t break, just thuds onto the carpet, spilling whiskey.
My fingers tighten on his shoulder. I pull at him.
He still doesn’t look at me, but he turns my way.
I keep pulling at him, but I have to stand up to close the distance.
He stands too. I haven’t hugged anyone but Lucas in years.
And the last person I hugged before Lucas was probably my mother before she died.
It’s strange to hug my brother. He’s almost as big as I am. He’s the size of someone I would usually fight. But I don’t have to fight him. He’s not against me. He’s not a danger to me. He’s … a safe person for me. It stops feeling strange. It just feels good.
But at the end of it, I feel weak and shaky, like there’s a lot of adrenaline in my body but it just skates along my nerves and never gets to my muscles.
I pull away from Vitali and walk straight to the door, suddenly desperate to escape. I wasn’t ready for that. I need to get out of here. I need Lucas.
I walk along the hallway to the stairs and up to the main floor.
As I enter the sitting room, I spot Lucas seated on the stairs up to the upper floor.
He’s on the third step, so when I reach the foot of the staircase, he’s close enough to touch.
But he doesn’t reach out. He just looks up at me.
He looks wary, a little guarded. He’s still upset with me.
I’m a little upset with him too. I didn’t like what he said.
He scared me. I guess … I scared him too.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
He swallows hard. “It’s okay.”
“I’m trying,” I say quietly.
His eyes fill with tears. “I know.”
When I reach for him, he springs up into my arms. He wraps his legs around my waist and holds on tight. The position is similar to when I fucked him, but it feels completely different now.
His face tucks against me, and mine tucks against him. I hold him for a long time, until I start to feel centered again, until I start to feel calm.