47. Alexei
Alexei
“Mr. Petrovsky.” Dr. Moretti gives me a wary look. “Nobody warned me you were returning to Sicily.”
“That’s because nobody knows I’m here—and I’d like to keep it that way, at least for an hour or so. Who is with him at the moment?”
I don’t bother saying Lars’s name. It’s not like I’d be in the ICU ward for anyone else.
“You’re in luck,” she says, “since I forcibly evicted Mr. Al Sudairi and Miss Borovsky some time ago. It does not help, all this worry and tension. I am not some kind of hippie,” she goes on, with a ferocious frown as far from love and peace as it’s possible to imagine.
“But I know brains. They do not respond well to tension, even when unconscious. So if you’re planning to yell at me, Mr. Petrovsky”—she folds her arms belligerently—“I suggest we do it before you go into that room.”
I resist an inappropriate urge to laugh with no small effort. “Noted,” I say politely. “And please accept my apologies for any yelling that might have taken place the last time we met.”
“Hmm.” She gives me a skeptical look. “As I mentioned when we spoke, your friend has been taken off sedation.”
“Yes.”
“He still hasn’t woken up, but as I told Mr. Al Sudairi and Miss Borovsky, this is completely normal.” She goes on to explain further, but I already know the basics: Lars might wake up, but until he does, we won’t know how he will wake up.
“I understand.” I do my best not to sound impatient. “I just want to see him, if that’s okay.”
She gives me a rather sour look. “Visits are restricted to one or two people, for very short periods, only a few times per day. Since Mr. Al Sudairi is usually a permanent fixture in the waiting room, he’s unlikely to be happy that you’ve taken one of those windows.”
“Understood.”
Benny. I feel a rush of affection and amusement for Lars’s lithe, quick-witted companion.
“One other thing.” Dr. Moretti pauses at the door to the ICU.
“Grateful as I am for your financial generosity, Mr. Petrovsky, I am not your personal surgeon. I am a specialist in a major hospital in Rome, a job I would like to return to as soon as possible.” She pauses.
“I will tell you something I have not included in my briefs to your friends: despite the fact that he is breathing unassisted, there is a chance that Mr. Andersson will not wake up at all. It is an outcome you must prepare yourself for.”
I close my eyes briefly, waiting for the acerbic mental asides I’ve become accustomed to, but for once my mind is strangely quiet.
Don’t you dare, I think, with a savage bolt of fear. Don’t you fucking dare leave me now.
“I understand.” My voice rasps in my chest, and Dr. Moretti, wisely, doesn’t push it, just opens the doors and walks me down the corridor.
I pause in front of the opaque glass doors, staring at the green button beside the sliding door. Lars is nothing more than a dim outline behind the opacity.
“Would you like me to clear the glass for you?”
“No.” I still her hand as she reaches for the switch. “I’ll go in.”
“Ten minutes, Mr. Petrovsky,” she says sternly. “Not a minute more.”
Taking a deep breath, I press the button, and the door slides open. I step inside, and it seals behind me like a tomb.
I’ve been bracing myself for this during the entire flight from Miami.
And it still kills me to see Lars’s long, lean figure beneath a hospital blanket, bandages swathed over the top of his head and one eye.
It is inconceivable to me that the still, silent body on the bed could possibly be the same animated friend who is unable to sit still for more than a few minutes.
I made myself come here before anything else because I needed to face it alone.
“Hey, asshole.” I force myself to speak aloud, glad there’s no one around to witness my cracked voice. “For someone who hasn’t shut up for days, you’ve gone awfully quiet.”
The only response are mechanic bleeps.
“I only get ten minutes, so I won’t bother telling you about what went down in Miami.
You were there, anyway. Or at least it seemed like you were.
You certainly had a lot to say at the time.
” I cover the lifeless hand beneath the blanket with my own, unprepared for the way my throat closes over at the feel of his inanimate hand, there but not really there.
“I’ve never given much thought to souls before,” I say. “But right now it feels like yours is offline. Still there, but hovering in the cloud somewhere, waiting to reconnect.”
I stare at his face, still and perfect as a marble sculpture. “I don’t know what to say to plug you back in. I’d say I’m secretly in love with you, but we both know that’s bullshit.”
Incongruously, I realize I’m grinning. “Anyway, if Benny heard that, he’d probably kick my ass. He’s much tougher than he looks, the little prick. I see why you like him so much.”
My smile fades.
“I’ve done a lot of thinking lately. Thanks for your help with that, by the way.”
I pause, but there still isn’t any response.
“Anyhow, here’s what I came to say.” I clear my throat.
“I’m going to marry Ofelia, Lars. Here in Sicily.
Sometime in the next few days. I thought about waiting around for you to wake up and be best man, but we both know you’re notoriously late to everything, so you’d probably keep me waiting forever.
“And that’s the point, I guess.” I lean forward, resting both my elbows on the bed.
“I don’t want to wait anymore, Lars. Not for Ofelia.
Or for the life you and I used to plan back when we were kids.
I know I should have stopped waiting years ago.
Christ, I should have walked away from the fucking swamp the moment the Orlovs were in the ground and never looked back.
If I’d known then what would happen to you—”
I shake my head, taking a deep breath. “I swore I wouldn’t do this,” I say roughly.
“And I won’t. I’ll be living with those regrets for a very long time, brother.
I can’t change that. But I came here today to tell you that I’m done creating regret.
I’m done building the gulag my father talked about.
” I laugh softly. “You weren’t there for that particular conversation, but I’ll tell you about it one day, over a Graf—or that Akvavit shit you love so much.
Even if I have to smuggle the bottle into a hospital room like this one. ”
The machines blink their monotonous rhythm.
I touch my forehead to the bed, feeling the neutral length of his body just beyond my skull, taking comfort in the rise and fall of his chest that is evidence his body still lives.
For now.
“I might not be able to love you the way Benny does,” I say quietly.
“But I do love you. I wish I’d said it before, but like I said, I’m done wasting time, so I’m saying it now.
And even if your soul does go offline, brother, you and me are fucking hardwired.
You’re in here, Lars.” I thump my chest, not bothering to try to wipe away the tears running down my face into the mattress.
“The invisible fucking code that kept me alive when I couldn’t see any point in life at all.
You’ll always be my best man, whether you’re standing beside me on my wedding day or not. ”
I half expect his eyes to open. To hear him drawl, Yeah, you too, motherfucker.
But the mechanical beeping doesn’t alter, and the voice in my head remains stubbornly silent.
I wait until my time is up, then close the door behind me, the opaque glass turning him back to shadow, while his soul hovers somewhere in the cloud.
I see Benny in reception before he notices me, although he’s so altered I might easily have passed him by.
Gone is his semipermanent half smile, the wicked gleam in his dark eyes as he observes everyone in the room.
He walks slowly, head down, hands stuffed in his pockets and shoulders hunched against the world.
He’s lost so much weight his clothes hang off him, his limbs angular and pointed.
The last time I saw him he was lithe and supple, tanned from sunbathing on Lars’s yacht.
Now his olive skin has the gray undertone of sleepless nights and days spent beneath fluorescent lighting.
“Benny.”
His head snaps up, every nerve taut. His eyes narrow when he recognizes me.
“There’s no news,” I say immediately.
His whole body slumps.
“And Dr. Moretti gave me one of the visiting slots. Sorry. I know you’ve been waiting to see him.”
“So I can sit there uselessly for ten minutes?” he says harshly. “No point, really.” Taking a breath, he closes his eyes briefly. When they open, he forces a bleak smile. “I understand that congratulations are in order.”
“Ofelia told you.”
“She just took me to look at a church.” He gives me a speculative look. “Then she went back to the villa to break the news to Darya. I told her she should do that before her DILF comes back and the fireworks start.”
“Ah.” I look around at the sterile reception area, the sick people and the worried faces of those here to visit them. “No offense, Benny, but you look like shit,” I say flatly. “Is there a bar somewhere around here we can go for a drink?”
He eyes me suspiciously. “I thought you’d want to see Ofelia.”
“Oh, you have no idea how much.” I give him a wry smile. “Which is exactly why we’re going for this drink now. After I see her, you’ve got no chance, friend.”
He gives a snort of surprised laughter. “I do know a place close by.” He shoots a worried look toward the elevator.
“You can’t see him for several hours,” I say gently. “And I’m guessing they’ve got your number.”
His mouth twists. “Yeah,” he says heavily. “They do.”
I gesture to the door. “Then show me the way.”
He walks with me, but his wary expression makes me horribly aware of how I’ve failed him until now.
I’m sorry, Lars. I’ll do better, I swear it.
In the dim coolness of a small side street bar, we take stools on either side of an oak barrel and order drinks and a pizza. Benny stares at them dumbly.
“When was the last time you ate?” I push the plate toward him.