28. It’s Only Love
IT’S ONLY LOVE
Iwash the sheets. They’re still damp when I pull them out of the dryer, which also doubled as the washer, but I’m too exhausted to wait for a second cycle to finish. All I care about is a lack of the mustiness that permeated the hostel’s generic bedding.
I make up the bed quickly, trying to focus on the clean scent of detergent instead of the way the lingering water makes some of the creases of the fabric feel sticky.
I turn on the overhead fan, hoping it’ll finish the drying process, then head into the attached bathroom to get ready for bed.
The cheapest room at the hostel where I was staying was a shared space with a communal bathroom.
Not having to wait to use a sink or toilet feels like a luxury.
When I walk back into the bedroom, Lev is seated at the end of the mattress.
An electric shock runs through me at the sight of him, still yet alert, the surrealness of this hitting me in full force.
He hasn’t answered any of my questions, so I have no idea what he’s doing here.
Why he bothered to track me down and whether I should believe his intentions are any more altruistic than Salvatore’s.
He abandoned me, effectively, without an apology or explanation, yet this is the calmest I’ve felt since lunch with my father.
Lev is as secretive as ever, yet I view him as a savior.
“You should be careful who you trust.”
“The sheets are still wet,” I say as an icebreaker, although I doubt that escaped his attention—he’s sitting on them.
His head swivels slowly, the shift in position leisurely or perhaps reluctant. His eyes flick over me in a cursory appraisal, registering my pajamas and scrubbed face.
We’ve been alone, in a bedroom, many times before. But everything about this feels different, beginning with him not telling me to take off my clothes. Something ugly slithers in my stomach as I speculate all the reasons he might have lost interest.
I wish it had happened before he found out my real last name so I could justify withholding it.
It’s ridiculous, in the context of the disaster known as my current life—no job, no plan, no allies—and maybe that’s why I fixate on how his gaze hardly lingers before he turns away again. Stands.
“You have everything you need?”
“Some answers would be nice.”
He looks at me again, eyes remaining on my face. “I agree.”
I tense at the deliberate reference to our impasse.
I don’t understand why he won’t just tell me what his involvement is.
I’ve never heard my father or brothers mention anything related to Russians.
Can’t contemplate why Lev would possibly care about my family drama.
He’s acting as though I crafted an entire secret identity simply to deceive him when I’d argue he knows a lot more about me than he’s ever shared about himself.
Aside from being dangerous enough to get stabbed and experienced enough to treat stealing a car like a minor crime, I remain clueless about what it is Lev actually does.
“Good night, Carina.” He strides out of the room without saying anything else, presumably to sleep in one of the other bedrooms with dry, musty sheets.
Whoever owns this place doesn’t occupy it often. It has a forgotten mystique, the same stagnant feel as a church or a museum. Maintained, but not homey.
I open a window before climbing into bed, the night air circulated by the spinning fan.
I close my eyes, attempting to stop the spiral of my thoughts. All my problems will be waiting in the morning. I desperately need a decent night’s sleep, which will hopefully enable me to think more clearly.
I roll on my side, forcing myself to alternate between deep inhales and exaggerated exhales.
At some point during the breathing exercise, I fall asleep.
I blink. Once, twice, dozens of times, until the chlorine clears from my eyes and the stinging stops.
I’m floating, but it feels like something heavy is strapped to my chest. Fears hover, but they’re transparent, separated from my tangible thoughts by a thin veil.
When I try to focus, to recall what I should be afraid of, they become more slippery.
The same consistency as the water I’m surrounded by, sliding soundlessly through my fingers with nothing to grasp on to.
Something cold and sharp presses against my neck. Instantly, I recall what I’m supposed to be scared about. Who is hunting me.
I turn my head slowly, wary of the blade, meeting the eyes with flecks I could draw from memory.
He smiles cruelly. “Caught you.”
I open my mouth, dragged down before any sound can escape, water filling my lungs and silencing my screams.
I’m shivering and sweating. Hiding and running, trapped in a nightmare of my own creation that appears to lack any escape.
“Carina.”
I sink deeper, limbs flailing uselessly since I can’t recall how to swim.
“Carina!”
I wake with a start, my inhales wild gasps as my ability to breathe slowly registers. I’m not drowning. I’m in bed, Lev’s frowning face hovering above. His hand is on my shoulder, grip tight, grounding me.
The sight is nearly as disconcerting as the dream. I’ve fallen asleep with him plenty of times. But I’ve never woken up to him before.
Also, he was just holding a knife to my throat. Warped versions of the night we met have existed in my subconscious ever since the actual evening happened, and I’ve always avoided exploring what they might mean.
I swallow hard, tempted to touch my neck, wishing there were anywhere else to look. I can barely make out his expression in the dim light.
“Bad dream,” I whisper.
The crease of concern in his forehead remains. I’m worried he’ll press for details or try to take advantage of my disconcertion to repeat previous questions, but he doesn’t. He just remains beside the bed, like his presence is enough to chase any demons away.
Maybe it is. The dreams always happen after he’s left.
“Do you want me to stay?”
The offer stuns me, paired with the immediate realization that’s exactly what I want. Like a first sip of water when you recognize how thirsty you truly were.
“Yes.”
He doesn’t reply. I squint at the darkness, tracking his shadowed figure along the perimeter of the bed before he halts on the opposite side of the mattress. The sheets shift, followed by a slight dip as he lies down beside me.
“Do you not know how to use a dryer?”
A startled laugh huffs out. I’m tempted to turn my head to look at his profile, but I smile at the ceiling instead. “You could have helped.”
“I needed a cigarette.”
I click my tongue. “You fit right in with the French.”
“Not the Italians?”
“I’ve spent more time here.” True, but I wish I’d swallowed that comment rather than said it.
His lack of reply confirms it. I trust he won’t slit my throat, but he has his own agenda. The less I share about my family and about my past, the better. He already knows too much, as proven by how easily he tracked me down in a city of millions.
I close my eyes, attempting to summon sleep. Suck in a deep breath, hoping the same strategy will work again.
I can’t smell any smoke. Just soap and lavender, drifting in from the plantings surrounding the house. Lev must have showered after I went to bed.
“ ‘Die Fledermaus Overture’ was my favorite.”
My eyes fly open, the tempo in my chest stuttering like a faulty metronome.
I love him.
The truth sneaks in, unbidden and unwelcome and so solid that I can taste the three words on my tongue.
I knew I did. I mean, I worried I did. I clung to denial like a necessary companion because that allowed me to pretend my feet were on firm ground rather than floating in the deep end.
Because I knew, once I accepted it to any extent, that it would be that much more difficult to ever let him go.
Now he’s right next to me and so far away that it aches.
“It’s mine too,” I admit quietly.
The first domino has been toppled. It feels inevitable that the aftermath will be miserable.
“I could tell. You looked … happy.”
My eyes are stinging again—from salt instead of chemicals. The night he attended was my best performance all season, fueled by not only heartbreak and confusion, but also the fervor his presence had always inspired in me.
The stranger who taught me how to swim minutes after nearly drowning.
I’m not Carina Carson around Lev, not even when I pretended to be. I’m someone bolder, stronger, maybe the woman I would have become if that bullet had missed my mother.
But it didn’t. It hit the intended target, determining the course of my life before I took a first breath. Turning me into someone that things happened to.
“I wasn’t,” I say sharply.
Part of the anger is aimed at him; part lands as collateral meant for a different target. One who has always been impervious to my resentment.
He stays silent after that comment.
Minutes or hours later, I fall back asleep.