Chapter 11 Alice
Alice
Ithink I might be a bad person.
Most of my life, I was so sheltered from the world and my impact on it, it never occurred to me to contemplate my morality.
I didn’t even wonder if my father’s work was right or wrong, even as I learned more about it in my teen years.
This was just the way the world was, and I played my part in it.
After that night with Ilya, when I realized I needed to escape, I was too focused on survival to consider if the scales would balance in my favor.
I saw myself as a victim, someone who these things were happening to instead of a willing actor in a system of which I was finally experiencing the consequences.
Perhaps that should have been my first sign that I wasn’t good. I thought of myself as helpless, and didn’t consider the impact of my life and actions on the world until someone I cared about was on the receiving end of my karma.
But now I know where I stand. Because I know it’s wrong to keep sleeping with Emily.
I recognize that it puts this innocent, oblivious, brilliant woman in more danger.
I understand that with each passing day I spend letting her teach me what I’ve been missing, I harden the seal on her death certificate.
But that doesn’t seem to stop me from crawling back to her bed every day this week.
On the research days, we took the boat out to the coordinates she gave me, set up the ROV, and tried to remember to watch the monitor for hours at a time. On whale watch days, every second I wasn’t on the catamaran, I spent with her.
I still haven’t kissed her, even though it’s all I want to do.
I considered taking the capsule out while I’m at work, but I can’t predict when Ilya will show up.
It has to be soon. As much as my uncle cared for me, I’m certain my father would only grant him the mercy of death once he handed over the information he needed.
Whatever Mikhail told him, coupled with the carefully placed hints I’ve left over the past few months, I know my time is short.
Ilya could steal me from my apartment, or off the street, or in the damn discount store.
The only place I feel safe is on the water, and I can’t exactly explain removing a capsule of poison from my mouth to Emily.
I have to keep it on my body at all times, so at the first opportunity, I can give Ilya exactly the end he deserves.
“Alice!”
I snap my head up, whipping around to find Alan holding a mop out to me. Once again, I was daydreaming about Emily’s fingers in my…
“Are you going to help us clean or do you want to be here all night?” he scoffs, rolling his eyes at me. If Alan is complaining about my work ethic, I know it’s gotten really bad.
“Yeah, sorry,” I mutter, grabbing the mop from him and shuffling to the bathroom.
It’s the last cruise of the week, and on each one before this I’ve been wholly distracted.
I’m actually thankful that we’ve sold zero tickets for our Monday cruises.
No trips mean no pay, but it also means I get a whole day off, which I haven’t had since Emily’s research trips began.
I should take the opportunity to up my dose of poison tonight, since I can risk being sick in bed all day tomorrow. Instead, I imagine I’ll find myself in the only occupied room of the best motel in town again.
When the vessel is as clean as it will ever get, the three of us disembark, and I volunteer to haul the trash bags to the dump at the end of the lot.
After I’m done, I rinse my hands in the grimy dock bathroom, fully planning on riding my bike directly to Emily’s hotel room.
But I’m surprised to find her waiting by the dock, leaning against the door of her rental car.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, drying my hands on my shorts as I approach her. She raises her eyebrows at me.
“Such a warm welcome,” she scoffs, opening up the passenger door. “I thought you could take me on another adventure.”
I’m not sure how I’ll take her on an adventure from the passenger seat, but I shrug and slide in. Not like I know how to drive a car anyway.
“What kind of adventure would you like to go on?” I ask as she pulls the sleek little car out of the dock parking lot. There’s a nervous smile playing at her lips.
“You said that you go cliff jumping,” Emily hedges, her fingertips drumming against the steering wheel. “I know it’s probably too late to do that now, but I thought we could sit on the cliff and watch the ocean and eat something.”
She nods toward the back seat, where paper bags are filled with discount store snacks and takeout food from the burger place in Port Oxford.
“You went all the way up there?” I don’t ask Emily what she does with her days when we’re not tracking sea nettles.
Partially because I assume she’s working on her dissertation, compiling the data we collect or whatever, but also because it feels wrong to ask.
I can’t ask for more from her than what she’s already giving.
Knowing what she does when I’m not around would feel somehow more personal than all the intimacy we’ve shared, and would only serve to make my guilt worse.
“I finished the methodology portion of my dissertation, so we deserve to celebrate,” she says with a little shrug, brushing off what I assume is a fairly significant achievement.
Without my direction, she navigates the car off the main road and up one leading to a hiking trail.
Well, more of a glorified dirt road with a faded wood signpost at the trailhead.
“You’ve been here before?” I ask as she parks along the side of the path, the car tilted slightly sideways on the slope.
“Googled it.”
Right. Most people have computers and phones and internet access.
Luxuries I do miss. Every once in a while I wonder how my favorite television series ended, or what music is popular in Vladivostok now.
The only times I’ve been online since I left Russia were to book bus or train tickets at public libraries using prepaid gift cards.
Emily gathers the bags from the back of the car, refusing to let me help, before leading the way up the trail.
This isn’t the area I usually jump from—the rocks jutting up from the ocean are a clear enough warning to stay on land—but I have followed this trail before.
It’s peaceful, the thicket of trees buffering the sound of the ocean until you find their break.
The sensation of stepping through the treeline is like raising a curtain on a stage.
The entire world opens up in front of you, the murmuring of the crowd no longer muffled by red velvet, but filling your body like the crashing of the waves below.
The horizon is endless here. Emily sets up our dinner as close to the edge of the cliff as she probably feels comfortable, I stand a few feet closer, letting the adrenaline of the height flood my nervous system.
It’s a high that, before a week ago, I thought couldn't be matched.
The hues of the sunset reflect on the surface of the water, the oranges and pinks bleeding like paint spilled on an eternal canvas.
Golden sunlight flickers in the motion of the waves, shimmering like glitter. A beautiful, messy piece of art.
“I assume you’re afraid of heights as well?
” I ask as I turn back to Emily, blinking back the tears welling in my eyes.
Sometimes I hate that this world has so many beautiful things, like the ocean and pistachio ice cream and blackberry mojitos and sunsets and Emily, and I get so little time with them.
“Falling from this height would be instantly fatal. I think this fear is both reasonable and healthy.” If Emily notices my tears, she doesn’t say anything. She pats the spot next to her on the blanket she’s laid out for us.
“So are you afraid of heights, or afraid of falling?” I ask, joining her in front of our meal and crossing my legs beneath me. “Or maybe you’re afraid of dying?”
A muscle twitches in her cheek, and I wish I could take the words back.
I don’t want to know if she’s afraid of dying.
I don’t want to face the fact that, sooner rather than later, I’ll likely be the one to force her to face that fear.
That my selfishness will be the reason she will be afraid before she dies.
“I think dying is the only thing I’m not afraid of,” she admits with a humorless laugh, and somehow that makes my guilt even worse. “It’s inevitable. There’s no point of being afraid of something you can’t escape.”
My tongue is stuck in my throat, and I stare at the ocean again to avoid her gaze.
I can’t say I agree. I’m afraid of lots of inevitable, inescapable things.
Dying, sure, though I hope I might be lucky enough to see my mother again in whatever afterlife exists.
Ilya finding me. Even though I’m prepared, and I know what I have to do, I can still hear his voice in my head telling me the words that pushed me to escape.
I know seeing him will be terrifying, that he might torture me as punishment for embarrassing him, or on behalf of my father for my treason. I’m afraid of the unavoidable pain.
Before my mother’s family gave me hope of escape, I was afraid of being trapped in that life.
Of dying like my mother did, for the simple crime of no longer being useful to the man who owned me, and of being a liability to his ego.
I thought I knew the course of my entire life, and it was terrifying.
I’m afraid of losing Emily, even though that is also an inescapable reality.
Even if, by some miracle, she doesn’t become collateral damage in Ilya’s path toward me, and even more so, if I survive my confrontation with him, I will lose her.
One day I’ll be a faint memory, a footnote in her recollection of her PhD process.