16. Valya #2
I clean the tin, cap the bottle, throw the spoiled gauze into the metal bin.
He pulls the knit down, sets the line of his clothes back into order.
When he stands, the window light casts him as a saint a parish would trust to carry candles.
He buttons his jacket and is suddenly again the man who makes rooms stop lying.
"You are pulling away," I say, not because it is true, but because I need to make the sentence solid so I can test it. His gaze lifts. A thousand decisions sit in his eyes and don't ask for applause.
"I'm placing you where stray fire cannot reach," he says. "It is a wall."
"A wall cuts both ways," I answer. "It keeps wolves out. It also keeps women in." The temper in me lifts its head like a dog who recognizes an old enemy. I stroke it once and tell it to lie down. "I will not be kept. Not even kindly."
He doesn't argue. He never argues when I say something that is more oath than opinion.
It is infuriating and one day might be the reason I forgive him for everything he has not done yet.
He steps close enough for my pulse to notice and not close enough to crowd.
His hand lifts as if it has a right, then waits.
When I don't move, he sets his palm on my cheek, thumb at the hinge of my jaw, pressure so light it could be a question.
The look in his eyes is not ownership. It is inventory, the way a man measures his gear before a fight so he doesn't lie about what he can carry.
"I keep vows," he says. "I will not lie to you. I will not barter with God on your behalf to make my work easier. If I'm silent, it is because speaking would put your name on my blade. I will not do that."
"Do you trust me?" I ask. I hate the need in my voice. I hate how fast my grandmother's voice arrives to say that wanting truth is not weakness.
"More than I trust myself." He plants it like a stake. It lands and doesn't ask for discussion. He lets go of my face and steps back into the armor of his posture. The distance is both courtesy and strategy. I forgive it more than I want to.
When he leaves, the room loosens by a shade, as if the walls release a held posture.
I make tea and forget to drink it. The Book of Vows lies open on my lap, the red ribbon cutting the page like a small wound that refuses theater.
I trace one line with my finger. To keep no secrets that could undo us.
My mouth flattens. I'm thinking of something I don't want to speak into this room. I'm thinking of Aleksandr.
I don't want to summon him into my day, but I have learned hard lessons about ghosts that smile too softly.
They use silence like a weapon and politeness like a bridge.
He waited outside my parish last night as if the street were a parlor and the snow an invitation.
He smelled the same. He wore the same apology I once mistook for courage.
I gave him nothing then. I'm giving him my attention now.
I will not give him the canvas to draw lines in my life with his presence. I'm done building altars to what-ifs.
I open my phone. The screen lifts my face in winter light. I type slowly because speed has cost me before.
Don't wait outside St. Nicholas. Don't stand near the community center. Don't send flowers. Stay away from me.
I don't explain the difference between a vow and a leash. I don't ask whether he knows it. I press send and set the phone down on the window ledge, where the cold can bleed the heat from my hand. The text leaves with a charge that feels like relief and like a risk.
The afternoon sulks toward evening, blue leaking into the corners like spilled dye.
The house changes timbre the way water changes temperature between one tile and the next.
Somewhere, dinner becomes steam and garlic.
In the corridor, boots walk past in a pattern I now recognize as his men at a distance that respects my steps.
It should feel like a cage. Today, it feels like a roof.
I pick up the book again. The lamplight turns the gold leaf on a saint's halo into a soft coin.
I hear my grandmother hum her washing-day song as if she were standing behind me pinning towels with hands that never stopped working.
I practice my half of the vows once more, quietly, because saying them out loud in my room feels like inviting God to sit on the chair by the window and watch me try to be brave.
"To bind my fate to his," I say. I keep my voice steady and my back straight and refuse to apologize to my younger self, who swore she would never give any man that much leverage. This is not leverage. This is will.
The phone buzzes. The tone is brief and indifferent.
My stomach drops before my hand moves. Intuition is a witch who lives in my bones and never misses her cues.
I pick it up and see the name I thought I had escorted out of my day.
Aleksandr writes like he speaks—measured, polite, calculated to make words vulnerable in good lighting.
He cannot protect you from what is coming.