71. Mine For Theirs
Mine For Theirs
The day after Christmas feels like I’m still asleep, everything is in a haze.
The house smells like coffee, pine, and whatever pierogi Mama reheated for breakfast. Snow drifts past the window like the world isn’t in any rush to start again.
I’m halfway through cleaning up from lunch when Mama calls from the living room.
“Kasia! Come here for a moment, your father found something.”
When I walk in, Tata’s still got his boots on, puddles of melted snow forming around them.
He sets a thick envelope on the table. Our family’s name is written across the front in careful, slanted handwriting.
I know that script. My stomach tightens.
Mama opens it, careful not to rip the flap.
A single card addressed to me slides out, and then several smaller envelopes fall onto the table.
She reads, voice trembling:
Mama lays the page down like it might break. She opens the smaller envelopes one by one. Checks.
One for Mama, Tata, and Natalia.
One for Piotr and Aga.
One for Dominik and Zosia.
One for me.
Each for $100,000. No one speaks. The clock ticks above the stove. Somewhere in the living room, Kacper laughs at a cartoon and steadies himself against the arm of the couch. Aga has her hands on each side of him, but her mouth hangs open in shock. Then, I open my card and read it.
I hold my hand to my mouth, my eyes sting. My heart is trying to leap from my chest.
Piotr lets out a low whistle as he stares at his check. “Bo?e… he’s insane.”
Natalia blinks at theirs. “This is… real? I mean, obviously it’s real, but—”
Mama shakes her head, eyes wet. “It’s too much. We can’t accept this.”
Tata exhales through his nose. “He’s trying to buy forgiveness.”
Something in me snaps. “Forgiveness for what, Tata? It’s not his fault that Mrs. Filmer stalked me. He’s a victim too, he lost something too.”
All their eyes land on me. My voice comes out steadier than I feel.
“He’s trying to make amends for something he didn’t cause.
Because that’s the kind of man he is. Look at what this means, Piotr and Aga can buy that bigger house, maybe a bigger shop.
Dominik can put money away for Zosia. You can pay this place off.
This changes everything for all of us. He deserves at least a thank you. ”
Mama opens her mouth, closes it again. Guilt, love, worry, every expression I know by heart fights for space on her face.
I don’t wait for a verdict. I grab my coat, my keys, the letter. “If you can’t accept the money, fine, but he doesn’t need to earn your forgiveness. Either way, you’re not going to stop me thanking him.”
“Kasiu—” she starts, but I’m already out the door.
The drive feels longer than it is, every red light taunting me. By the time I pull up to his building, snow has started again, fat, soft flakes catching in the halo of the streetlamp. His windows are dark. No car or motorcycle outside, just stillness.
I sit there, engine idling, staring at the door that stays stubbornly shut, no sign of life. My hands shake. Maybe he’s with his parents. I pick up my phone.
You didn’t have to do this.
yeah. I did.
time I gave you something besides damage.
should’ve done it sooner.
You were never damage to me, Rafe. Where are you? At your parents?
just landed back in LA.
Guess that’s a good thing. I’m outside your place. I wanted to say thank you in person. It’s probably safer this way, that you’re gone.
I can see him in my head, hand in his hair, mad at himself for leaving so fast, staring at the ceiling like he could will himself back here.
I’ll fly back.
Don’t be ridiculous.
I mean it.
I’ll get right back on the next flight if you promise to stay right there.
For one reckless heartbeat, I almost say yes. I almost tell him to come home. The word rises, then sticks in my throat where love and fear have learned to live together. Then, instead, I call. I just want to hear his voice, so he can hear mine say the words that he deserves to hear.
“Thank you, but I’m not keeping it.”
“Kasia—”
“No. Listen to me.” I keep my voice steady even though my throat is tight. “I’m not taking a lump-sum settlement from you like some class-action lawsuit.”
He huffs out a laugh, and I do too. The sound hangs between us for half a second, soft and warm, then it dies out and the air goes still. “That’s not… us,” I say quietly. “Not what we were.”
There’s a beat of silence, crackling, full of everything we’re both trying not to say. I can feel his hurt, quiet and contained.
“It wasn’t meant to insult you,” he says. “It was supposed to help.”
“This is enough, honestly.” I tilt the card toward the streetlamp bleeding light through my car window.
The engine’s off, the cold creeping in, but I barely feel it.
His handwriting curls across the inside of the card, the slope of his R, the way he presses too hard on the downstroke, the little stutter in the A.
“It’s nice just having a card from you, the words you wrote. Your handwriting.”
I hear him inhale like I’ve knocked something loose in him without meaning to.
“It wasn't supposed to go like this,” he says softly. “I was meant to give you cards for every Christmas, every birthday. Little stupid notes you’d shove in a shoe box because you’d roll your eyes at them but keep them anyway.
” He stops, the idea too full of pain to continue. “I thought we’d have more time.”
I close my eyes. The words hit me, tender and direct.
The line goes silent, weighted with everything he won’t say and everything I already know. When he speaks, his voice has dropped into something quiet and undone. Surrender wearing his breath.
“Merry Christmas, Kasia.”
I hear the blur of the airport behind him, rolling suitcases, announcements, footsteps echoing over tile. For a second it feels like I’m standing beside him, like if I turned my head he’d be there.
“Merry Christmas, Rafe.” I manage.
Rafe
The label calls it a visibility event. I call it a migraine with champagne.
I don’t want to be here. Not tonight, when the calendar’s about to roll over without her in it. But the label says the photos will be good for “momentum,” the guys say I’ll go mad alone, and in the end, it’s easier to just say yes.
The drinks keep showing up, some intern’s nervous smile and a tray full of temporary solutions and I keep taking them. Every one blurs the edges a little more until the world buzzes, until even the ache inside me starts to fade beneath it.
Someone laughs, Rithy, halfway to chaos already, flirting with a lighting tech. Ronan and Freja are dancing in the middle of the crowd, her arms around his neck, the two of them oblivious. Kiri’s talking to a label exec, nodding at the right places, pretending to care.
Then there’s Mara. I don’t even notice her until she slides into the booth beside me.
She says something I can’t hear over the bass.
I lean closer. She tries again, closer still and her lips brush my jaw.
At first I tell myself it’s an accident.
She’s just leaning in, trying to be heard.
But then her mouth grazes my neck, light but deliberate.
I freeze. The alcohol slows everything down, turns my reaction into something dipped in molasses.
Her perfume hits next, sweet. Cherries and vanilla.
But it's wrong. It isn’t her. No lilies or rain.
Mara’s hand comes up to my cheek, gentle.
Fingertips trace my jaw, and for one reckless heartbeat I let my brain lie to me.
I imagine it’s Kasia, her warmth, her scent, her breath against my skin.
I close my eyes and let the ghost of her take over.
Then Mara’s lips find mine, soft, searching and the illusion dies instantly. I don’t kiss her back. I just sit there, still, eyes closed, waiting for the moment to pass like a wave that’ll drown me if I move. When she pulls away, I exhale and manage a crooked grin.
“Sorry,” I say, voice thick. “Too much to drink. I should probably go.”
“Stay, Rafe.” Her hand stays on my knee. “It’s almost midnight.”
“Yeah.” I stand, unsteady, dizzy. “That’s kind of the problem.”
I weave through the crowd toward the exit. Rithy catches me on the way out.
“Leaving already?” he shouts over the music. “It’s not midnight yet.”
“I know. Planning to ring it in at the hotel. Try to sleep before the tour eats me alive.”
He glances behind me, spots Mara hovering, lipstick smudged near my jaw. He claps my shoulder, grin half-slurred. “Good for you. Time you moved on.”
My jaw tightens. “There’s no moving on happening.”
I try to brush past, but he catches my arm. “You act like you own the trademark to heartbreak,” he says. “Join the fucking club. You’ll never get anywhere like this.”
I shove him off. Ronan steps in, calm, steady. “Go to the hotel, Rafe. Sleep it off. Don’t drag her into this until you’re clear. She doesn’t deserve to be your collateral.”
I nod, too tired to argue, too drunk to fake it, and head out.
The Uber window turns the city into smudged neon, fireworks already warming up somewhere beyond the skyline.
The last thing I remember is the hotel door closing, the bed tilting, and the muffled crack of midnight exploding somewhere I can’t reach.
When morning comes, my head’s splitting, my mouth tastes like regret, and the mirror shows a smear of lipstick I don’t remember earning. I missed the countdown.
I miss her.
Kasia
New Year’s at Mama and Tata’s is exactly what it always is, tons of people, noise, and a kind of warmth that doesn’t quite reach me.
The table is crowded with food and vodka bottles in every stage of empty.
The air carries bigos and citrus peel. Music floats from the old stereo, the same playlist we’ve used for a decade.
Aga stayed at home, pregnant and sensible, watching all the kids. Piotr swore it wasn’t fair that she couldn’t drink, so he’s doing his share for both of them and by the look of him, he’s halfway there. He and Dominik are deep into a drinking game at the kitchen table, arguing over the rules.
I hover near the edge of it all, smiling when someone catches my eye, laughing in the right places, but none of it lands in my chest. I feel like a ghost watching my own family live.
Natalia kisses my cheek before heading out, all perfume and shimmer, some golden slip of fabric pretending to be a dress. Mama and Tata wave her off, laughing.
I ask, “She managed to pay any rent yet?”
Mama sighs. “Not yet. But she’s building something. Maybe not the same way you and Piotr did, but she’ll find her way.”
I nod and pour myself another shot. The ache in my chest won’t quit, so I drag a chair to the table and tell Piotr to add me to the game.
He grins, sloppy and delighted. “About time, doktorka.”
Dominik’s eyes flick up as he passes me the shot glass. Our fingers brush. He wipes the corner of his mouth with the same graceful motion he used after doing devious things to me, and I look away fast. The vodka burns down smooth and merciful. I slide the glass to Piotr.
The night softens at the edges. Laughter comes easier. The game devolves into nonsense, slurred dares, songs that no one remembers the words to. Piotr’s drunk past coherence, pointing between us, trying to form a sentence.
“You two, always making big eyes at each other,” he says. “I’m the only reason she wasn’t pregnant at sixteen, you know. I kept them apart!” He slurs to a cousin.
Dominik kicks him under the table. We all collapse into helpless laughter.
For a moment, through the haze, I almost forget what I’m missing.
For the length of a laugh, I’m not sad. When the countdown begins, we gather near the couch, swaying and unsteady.
I’m standing, barely. Dominik steadies me with a hand at my elbow. The numbers blur.
Three. Two. One.
When midnight hits, everyone shouts, and he looks at me.
He tips my chin gently and kisses me, just a brush of lips, so light it’s almost imaginary.
I search for the spark we used to share but it’s just out of reach.
My mind instantly replaces him with Rafe, the weight of his mouth, the way he opened me, made me forget the world.
The memory hits so hard it makes me pull back, nodding quickly. Dominik nods too, none-the-wiser.
I kiss Mama and Tata goodnight, their faces flushed with celebration, and climb the stairs. The room spins more with each step. My eyes sting. I grab my phone, thumb hovering over his name. I almost call. Almost.
Then my stomach flips, and I bolt to the bathroom. Piotr hears and staggers in after me, brotherly instincts intact even at his drunkest. He holds my hair, wobbling.
“You’re still a lightweight, siostra,” he slurs, laughing. “But I love you.”
When I’m done, he hands me a towel, then says, “Wait, I’ll get you some water. Don’t move.”
He returns with a glass and helps me into bed. I can feel the room tilting, the water trembling in my hand. He watches me, serious all of a sudden.
“Kasia,” he says, voice threaded with concern through the vodka haze. “If you’re so messed up, fuck what Mama and Tata say. Just go to him. Nothing keeps us safe forever, I’ll back you. It's not good, to live like this, huh?”
“You’re drunk,” I mumble. “Sober, you’d feel differently.”
“Maybe,” he says, smiling faintly. “But I see straight right now.” He leans down and plants a kiss on my forehead before leaving the glass on the nightstand and stumbling off down the hall, still humming.
I lie there, listening to the fireworks outside, to the laughter drifting up from downstairs. The ceiling spins. My heart does too.
In the dark, I whisper to no one, “Sometimes it feels like I gave my life for theirs.”
The words vanish into the air, but the ache stays deep and alive.