64. Metallic
Metallic
The week blurs past, the kind that leaves no room for thought.
I'm caught between work and calls with Rafe, calls where he keeps asking when I’ll come to L.A.
now that he’s back. Which consists of me telling him I can’t, not yet.
Not after what happened with Emily. I’m still angry, still broken open in ways I don’t have the language for.
He doesn’t want to accept it, not for a second, but he does because he's learned what that tone in my voice means.
Don't push it or I'll just dig my heels in harder.
He’s buried in the studio anyway and I’m buried in everything else.
The noise online won’t stop bleeding into my real life, I keep checking websites reporting his new lover, looking at the photo from all angles.
Trying to decide what the truth is, what it means, what I really believe.
The days slide past before I can get a grip on them.
By the time family dinner comes around, I’m almost grateful for it, for something solid.
I’m still trying to figure out what the hell to do next, where to go from here, and how to forgive someone I want to believe but haven’t stopped hurting over.
Mama’s humming in the kitchen, moving between pots like a conductor at her orchestra.
Tata’s at the table, laying out plates and refolding napkins that don’t need refolding.
Piotr’s pacing with Kacper until he finally settles, before he hands him to Aga and kisses her hair.
She smiles from the armchair, one hand resting over the gentle swell of her belly.
Since the day Piotr called to say Lena was joining us for dinner, that Dominik was trying with her one last time for Zosia's sake, she’s slotted herself into the family with the confidence of someone who mistook proximity for belonging.
She's always wrapped seductively in animal print and loud opinions that arrive uninvited.
Dinners have turned performative, careful smiles, Natalia overcompensating with hostess energy, Mama tracking the table like a referee.
Lena needles, implies, tests boundaries, especially mine.
She fishes about Rafe, about my faith in God, about babies, about my time running out.
I learn to stay still for Zosia’s sake, to answer neatly when provoked, to win without raising my voice.
Dominik watches it all with that regretful look of a man glimpsing the life he fumbled held firmly in someone else’s hands.
Whenever she leaves, the house always exhales.
Piotr barely contains his laughter, and Aga silently inventories hypothetical burial sites with saintly patience.
I never start anything, but I finish what's aimed at me.
I catch Babciu’s eyes in her portrait and whisper the old prayer without thinking, the one that always came before heartbreak or reckoning. Aniele Bo?e, stró?u mój, Ty zawsze przy mnie stój, (Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom His love commits me here.) as I pass her.
Lena’s perched on the sofa beside Natalia, showing off a new dress she ordered online. Natalia is critiquing it mercilessly, “the cut’s wrong for your shoulders, you’ll have to return it”, and Lena keeps insisting she can make it work. It’s almost funny, the rhythm of them.
Outside, I can hear Zosia’s laughter, the bright, unrestrained kind that only children have.
Dominik’s chasing her around the yard with a bubble wand, his mock growls sending her shrieking into the grass, legs kicking, curls bouncing.
Her joy is so unfiltered it reaches right through me.
It feels light, easy. Then comes the knock.
Three polite taps. For some reason, it makes every hair on my arms rise.
Piotr goes to answer it, dish towel slung over his shoulder from helping Mama with something.
“Yes?” There’s confusion in his tone, that slight tilt of surprise. Then I hear, “Kasia? Someone’s here for you.”
“For me?”
When I reach the door, she’s standing there, my patient, Ms. Filmer. Pressed shirt, perfect posture, a handbag looped over her elbow like she’s just come from some polite errand. Her lipstick’s too precise. Her smile, too still. I step onto the porch and pull the door ajar behind me.
“Ms. Filmer,” I manage, slipping into my professional voice without meaning to. “Hello. How are you?”
It takes me a second too long to process that she shouldn’t be here. She’s not supposed to know where here is.
Her smile widens, just a fraction. “I had a question for you,” she says. “About what I’m seeing.”
My pulse kicks up. “Okay,” I say slowly. “What kind of question?”
She tilts her head, a small tremor in her voice. “The veils. They used to let me see them. Before you.”
I stare at her, the words not quite making sense until they do, and then I feel it, that cold wave of dread rising from my spine.
“Ms. Filmer, I—”
I hear Dominik’s voice shift when he glances toward me. It’s subtle, but I know it, softer, cautious. The tone he uses when he’s assessing something.
“Zosia, go play on the swing, kochanie. I’ll be right there.”
Her giggle drifts from the front yard as she travels to the back.
I catch sight of him over her shoulder, turning, scanning, reading the air like a soldier remembering old instincts.
He starts toward the porch cautiously, like a hunter trying not to spook his prey.
Ms. Filmer’s hand slips into her purse. The air around us stills, stops.
“Hey,” Dominik calls, his voice even but alert, hands raised like he’s stepping into a negotiation. “Do I know you? Didn't you work for Mr. Comina on that one site?”
She glances at him briefly, dismissively, then back to me, her expression flickering with something almost… jealous. “You’re so plain. How could someone like you change him?”
“Change who?” I whisper, but she doesn’t hear me.
“He stopped writing me into the songs since you showed up.”
Then I see it, the glint of the blade as she pulls it free. Dominik moves before thought can catch up. One second he’s on the lawn, the next he’s at the steps, grabbing my arm, yanking me back and covering me with his body as we hit the ground.
The impact knocks the breath from me. There’s a wet sound, awful and final. He grunts, low and guttural, and his arm around me tightens once, then loosens. I twist beneath him and see it, the spreading stain of red, seeping fast through his shirt. She’s still on the porch, knife raised again.
“Piotr!” Dominik shouts, voice cracking.
It all happens in a blur. Piotr barrels out the door, hitting her so hard she goes flying off the steps and into the grass.
The knife spins out of her hand. She screams, thrashes, but he pins her down with all his weight, shouting for Mama to call the police.
Mama’s already shouting for Natalia to dial 911.
Lena’s frozen in the doorway, pale and trembling.
From the backyard, I hear Zosia’s small voice again. “Tatu??”
Something inside me breaks. I drop to my knees beside Dominik. He’s breathing hard, shallow, his hand pressed tight to his side, but the blood keeps coming. My hands find his, pressing down harder, trying to stop the impossible.
“Keep looking at me, Nowicki. No dying allowed, that’s not the Polish man's way.”
He lets out a short, ragged laugh. “You wish I’d die this easy. This is just your revenge for that Wedel bar.”
“Shut up,” I whisper. My throat’s closing around the words. “Don’t talk. Just stay awake.”
He tries to smile, but it fades. His eyelids flutter once, twice.
Mama’s shouting that the ambulance is coming.
Natalia’s crying. Piotr still has the woman pinned, he's sporting a long cut down his arm and he's bleeding now, too. Lena finally moves, rushing out with a blanket, wrapping it around Dominik’s legs.
His breathing stutters. His pulse is faint beneath my hands. I cup his face, my palms slick with blood.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He blinks once, then nods, just barely, and leans into my touch before his eyes close.
“Dominik!” I shout, shaking him. “Dominik, focus on me!”
It doesn’t make a difference. Zosia comes running, screaming, tears streaming down her face. She throws herself at him, clutching his shirt, sobbing, calling for him. Aga, not Lena, pulls her away, her own sobs breaking through the shock. Tata’s holding Kacper now, white-faced, silent.
I'm kneeling in the dirt, covered in blood, hands shaking. The air tastes like iron and panic. Every sound feels too loud, the wail of Mama on the phone, the sirens finally rising in the distance, slicing through the late afternoon glow. It’s a sound I’ll never forget.
The moment everything calm, everything safe, everything I thought I could protect, shattered.
My hands still smell like his blood.
I’ve washed them three times already, but the scent clings, ghosting beneath the soap. I sit in a plastic chair outside the trauma bay, my scrubs spattered dark, a thin smear of blood dried along my wrist where his pulse had been. I can still feel it there, gone, then back, then gone again.
A nurse walks past, slows, and offers a sympathetic look I can’t return.
Natalia’s beside me, pale, her phone dim in her lap as she whispers updates to Mama in the waiting room.
Down the hall, Piotr’s talking to a police officer, voice low and hoarse.
I can see the dried blood on his collar from when he tackled her.
Lena’s in the corner, trying to comfort Zosia, who’s curled up in a blanket far too big for her. The little one’s eyelids flutter, fighting against sleep. Every time the automatic doors open, she stirs and whispers, “Tatu??” I press my palms to my face. My fingers are still trembling.
“He’s in surgery,” Natalia catches me up on the latest while I was in the bathroom, yet again. “They said it was deep, but it missed the arteries. Hit his liver and gallbladder but they said it's repairable. That’s good, right Kasia?”
I nod, but I don’t move. The liver is tricky but I don't let on about my worries. “She came to the house,” I whisper. “In the middle of dinner. Like it was nothing.”
Natalia swallows hard. “She’s not getting anywhere near you again. Piotr and Dominik saw to that. The police have her.”
I glance up at the clock. 10:47 p.m. Not long ago, we’d been laughing, teasing Piotr about overcooking the chicken with Tata's supervision. It feels like another lifetime, like that family, that dinner, belonged to someone else entirely.
The hallway’s quiet except for the vending machine. I stare at my phone on the chair beside me. I’ve picked it up twice, put it down twice. The third time, I don’t stop myself.
I scroll to his name. Rafe Ashton. The contact photo lights up the screen: that half-smile, eyes lined with kohl, soft from a hotel somewhere. He’s probably asleep. Or on a call, maybe still recording in the studio. A shadow moves across the floor.
“Dr. Sawadzka?”
I look up. A police officer stands in front of me, mid-fifties maybe, the kind of tired that looks permanent. His vest bears the SPD crest; the radio on his shoulder crackles softly. Behind him, the nurse’s station glows blue from a monitor screen.
“Yes,” I manage. My voice sounds strange, thin.
“I’m Detective Harris,” he says, voice gentle but practiced. He asks if I’m able to give a statement, and I hear myself agree before I actually decide to.
I follow him to a quieter corner of the waiting area, away from the sliding doors and the constant movement. I focus on the hard plastic of the chairs, the buzz of the lights overhead. Anything but what he's asking me to think about.
He asks questions. I answer them. Times, positions, what I saw, what I heard. My voice sounds calm, precise, almost professional. I keep my hands folded together so he won’t see them shaking. He thanks me when he’s finished. Says someone may follow up later. I nod like I'm paying attention.
When he walks away, the quiet collapses in around me. For a long moment I just stare at my phone in my lap.
Then I unlock it and press Rafe’s name.
“Kasia?” His voice, low and rough from sleep or disbelief. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
For a second, I can’t speak. The words crawl up my throat like something foreign. “She showed up,” I whisper finally. “My patient. Or—what I thought was a patient.”
A beat of silence. “What?”
“The one who called me plain, that said my wardrobe was ugly. I told you that night, made a joke of it, remember? She… she came to the house. Mama and Tata's.” My voice barely sounds like me. “She mentioned the veils, the songs. Said you sang to her and that you’d stopped after I showed up.”
Rafe doesn’t answer at first. Just a rough inhale, like the air’s been knocked out of him.
“Jesus, Fuck.”
“She tried to stab me,” I say. “She was going to. Dominik stepped in.” The words come out flat, as if someone else is saying them. “He’s in surgery. He saved me. They said it's deep. What if he doesn't wake up? What if he dies, saving my life?”
Another pause. I hear the sound of him moving, the scrape of something, something slamming on a bed, maybe a hanger being stripped. “I’m coming out there.”
“No.” My voice is firmer than I feel. “You can’t. You’re in the middle of the album, the studio—”
“I don’t give a fuck about the studio.” His voice cracks. “You almost—Kasia. She could’ve—”
“I’m fine.” The words are automatic, meaningless. “We’re fine.”
He exhales, deep and raw. “There’s no point in arguing. I’ll get my manager to call a few firms they use for security, same people that handle our barricades and backstage coverage. They can send someone to keep watch. Just until I get there.”
“Okay.” It’s the only thing I can say. The only one-syllable word that still exists in my mouth.
“I’ll be there soon,” he says. “I swear.”
When the call ends, the silence is unbearable.
My phone slides from my hand onto the floor, I don’t bother to reach for it.
The fluorescent lights buzz, steady and indifferent.
I look down at my hands. They’re trembling, pale, clean now, but all I can see is red.
Dominik’s blood, warm and slick between my fingers.
The way it wouldn’t stop. How my training, my precision, my whole life’s work, all of it was useless when it really mattered.
I press my hands together, like prayer, but there’s no god in the room. Only the echo of Rafe’s voice, promising something I can’t bring myself to believe in yet.