2. Something Good, Maybe?
Something Good, Maybe?
Natalia
These stupid roots.
Everyone’s due any minute for our family’s ritual Friday night dinner, and I’m only halfway through bleaching them.
Hurry up, I tell the bleach like it has anything to do with my poor timing.
That’s when, of course, my sister knocks on my bedroom door, hesitant enough to make me pause.
As if I’ve ever done anything important in this room besides film TikTok thirst traps and reorganize my skincare shelf.
“Nat?” she calls, careful in a way that instantly raises my suspicion. “Can I talk to you?”
I glance at my reflection, plastic gloves on, hair clipped up like a deranged fountain, bleach brushing dangerously close to my forehead, and sigh. “Enter at your own risk, siostra.”
She steps inside and despite being exhausted from her doctor duties or whatever emergency she just handled at the retinal clinic, she still has that quiet, grounding presence to her.
She’s the kind of person who could be cast as a saint in a stained glass window while I look like a demon summoned by Sephora and the wrong toner.
Only thirty-four, but she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders so heavily it’s sometimes easy to mistake her for seventy-four.
“Kasia... what’s wrong?” I ask, because she sounds like she’s been thinking too much. I feel myself bracing for whatever she’s about to drop on me.
She smiles, soft and warm. “Nothing’s wrong. Actually, something good, maybe.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Is your rockstar fiancé flying you to space? Because you should absolutely monetize some zero gravity selfies.”
She lets out a short laugh and rolls her eyes the way she always does when I talk about Rafe like he’s a celebrity crush instead of her soon-to-be-husband.
“No, he has a couple shows coming up in Seoul, then Tokyo. He asked if I wanted to come along... I told him I could probably manage a week without the partners killing me for offloading my patients.”
I freeze, mid-stir of my bleach bowl. “Seoul and Tokyo?” She nods.
Those aren’t just cities, they’re capitals. Dream capitals.
“I think I should go,” she says softly. “I haven’t done anything for myself since…”
She trails off, she doesn’t need to finish the sentence. My chest tightens, it's been almost a year since our older brother, Piotr, passed. It still feels unfair to move through the world without him.
“Tak,” I say. “A great plan, I approve.”
She adjusts her weight, hesitating. “I was wondering... if you wanted to come along?”
For a moment, I almost laugh. Kasia inviting me, an aspiring influencer, on a rockstar world-tour stop is like inviting an alcoholic to a Polish wedding. But she’s serious, she wants me there, I can tell by the look on her face. Company and distraction or maybe a little hope.
“Serio?” I keep my voice flat so I don’t sound desperate, the Polish escaping without my consent.
“Of course I’m serious.” She touches my arm with her always-cold doctor's hands. “You’ve been working so hard at that temp job and you’ve always talked about wanting more travel content. This would be perfect, right? Rafe can cover the flights and hotels, he offered.”
I snort. “He lives in Belltown. His bank account has so many zeros it looks like it’s doing a collab with Jeff Bezos. If he hadn’t offered, I’d have thrown his fancy piano out a window.”
She laughs lightly. “He wants us there, both of us.”
Something bright sparks in my chest. I’ve been building something these last few years.
Not a real job by Mama and Tata’s standards, no matter how much I’ve quietly saved, but it’s mine.
Almost sixty-thousand followers on Instagram, thirty-thousand on TikTok, respectable.
A Seoul and Tokyo trip could explode my following.
The thought feels like opening an acceptance letter to a future I've always wanted.
“I’ll go,” I say. “Just no sentimental bullshit. I have selfies to take, not expensive mascara to cry off.”
“Absolutely, no emotions. Just selfies.”
We end up on my bed, me with a towel around my shoulders, her scrolling hotels on her phone. It feels almost like when we were kids, planning imaginary vacations we’d never take while she babysat me and our cousins. Except now we can, we will.
We look up cafes in Hongdae, shrines in Asakusa, neon markets, dessert shops shaped like cartoon animals. Between her lectures about travel insurance and my content ideas, the air starts to buzz with possibility.
Underneath it, something quieter rests. A whole year without him, looming.
A year of learning to walk around grief without stepping on its tail.
Maybe this is what we need. A week far from the empty chair at the dinner table, far from the last beer he brought over, the one Tata still keeps in the fridge for him that no one dares to touch.
“Seoul first,” Kasia murmurs. “Then Tokyo.”
I nod, imagining the skyline, the food, the fashion, the videos I’ll film.
A vacation with my sister, a chance to breathe.
Maybe a chance to start something new. It feels like stepping off the edge of something I’m not prepared for, but I don’t let that stop me.
Weak choices, weak results, Piotr always said.
He defended my career to Mama and Tata, always pushed me toward something braver.
Nothing weak about this choice, big brother. I meet my sister’s eyes and smile, certain of one thing.
Wherever he is, he’d approve.
Kasia trails behind me through Nordstrom’s like she’s afraid touching anything will summon the devil.
I lift a red Saint Laurent top off the rack and hold it up to the light, examining the way it drinks color, the cut sharp enough to draw blood.
I narrow my eyes, then toss it over my arm like I’m loading ammunition.
Kasia doesn’t say a word. She just watches me, quiet, worried, the crease between her brows deepening every time I reach for something sparkly or lethal. I love her, but she’s so transparent.
I drift into the next section, fingers skating over satin, silk, mesh.
I pull out a skirt so bright it could signal aircraft, hold it up experimentally, then add it to the pile.
Revenge requires tools, layers. The patience of a saint and the intent of a sinner.
I snag a structured blazer that would make a grown man reconsider his religion, then a sheer Mugler bodysuit I absolutely do not need but will absolutely be buying.
Kasia’s still quiet, watching me like a wildlife documentary.
She won’t address anything unless I hand her the script first. So I don’t.
I keep walking, letting her stew and worry in between the terrible department store radio that insists on being heard.
My mind starts to roam, because that’s the thing about being surrounded by Mugler and La Perla, it's the perfect hunting ground for plotting. I pick up a lace bra I know won’t even be seen.
No, Mr. Chhim won’t get that rare privilege, but just knowing it exists on my body will be enough.
I run my thumb over the fabric like I’m blessing it.
Now I know why Kiri sent his little pathetic Happy New Year, Nat.
He knew. He knew Rafe was organising this.
He wanted to save face before our first in-person meeting, hoping I’d spare him my full wrath. Critical mistake.
Without Piotr around to steady Kasia, she keeps looking at me like I’m a countdown to something chaotic, an explosion of glitter and poor choices waiting to happen at all times.
It drives me insane. Piotr used to actually defy Mama and Tata sometimes.
He was the rebel, the one who smoked, drank, lived loud before Aga settled him and started having babies.
But now it’s just me and Kasia. Which leaves me as the problem child. The black sheep.
Well. If we’re going with that theme, I might as well own it.
I lift a lacy black number off the rack and hold it against myself, tight and short and absolutely indecent, the kind of thing that would haunt Kiri’s dreams for months.
I tilt my head, assessing. I’m not just a black sheep, no.
I’m the little black dress the wool was spun into. At least I wear it well.
“Nat?” Kasia finally says. Her voice is careful, like she’s stepping onto thin ice. “That’s actually lingerie, isn’t it?” She swallows. “Are you… okay?”
“I’m great,” I say brightly, not even looking at her. “Just planning my trip wardrobe.”
She doesn’t buy it. She never does, she’s the brains of the family for a reason.
She follows me through the aisles, her concern almost a physical weight between my shoulder blades.
I grab a pair of stilettos that are sharp enough to qualify as a weapon, then a slinky slip dress in a color that screams sin but make it tasteful.
“You know it’ll be cold, right? What about this jacket?
” She holds up the longest, heaviest, most boring coat that has ever been designed and I just laugh and wave it away.
I’ll suffer in a bikini in subzero weather if that’s what it takes to wipe that little smirk he wears in all his pictures off his face.
Finally, she sighs.
“So… I know you were talking to Kiri… for a little while,” she murmurs, like she’s thinking out loud instead of speaking directly to me. “He’s not a great relationship guy. He’s sweet, but he’s… complicated.”
I shrug, because she thinks this is a conversation. It isn’t. This is a manifesto.
She worries in silence while I load more glitter, more shadow, more temptation onto my arm.
A corset here, a slit skirt there. Something backless, something dangerous.
My bank account will hate this, but oh, my soul!
Father Marek doesn’t need to worry about it anymore, because my soul feels lighter already just imagining his face when I walk in. Death in an instant.