Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 89090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
“Good girl,” Yev praises with his hand in my hair.
Before I can wet my throat with enough spit to thank him for not marching me to the light, the generator finally kicks on, and my panic subdues a smidge.
Not enough for me to secure an entire breath, but enough for me to know I will let Yev walk me to hell tonight if it means I don’t have to remove my nails from his thigh.
14
YEV
After ensuring the battery-operated night light in the entryway is on, I give Polina a tour of my apartment as if she’s never been here. She has, multiple times, but she’s so shaken up we’re both acting out of sorts.
“Kitchen, living room, guest bathroom, Feo’s room, and this is my room.” I switch on the light, enter, then toss Polina’s bag I packed in a hurry onto the rumpled bedding I refused to change the past two weeks since they smell like her perfume. “There’s a shower in the attached bathroom, but if you want to soak in a tub, you’ll have to use the bathroom out there.” When she remains as quiet as she had during our ten-minute trip to my apartment, I spin to face her. “Any questions?”
I sound like the nun who barked out orders at me the night I sought shelter from the rain under the awning of the boys’ home she ran.
My mother said I was breathing too loud for her pounding head and that I needed to walk home. Considering that it was thirty miles from where she forced me out of her car, I assumed she would return to collect me.
She never did.
I thought she had drunk one bottle too many until Feodor found me several long months later. Our mother had the decency to give him details on how he could find his father, before shipping herself off to rehab.
It proved I don’t breathe too loud.
I was dumped on the doorstep of a well-known respite home for out-of-control boys.
Does that mean I have abandonment issues? Fuck yes. But it also taught me to trust my intuition. It’s been warning me for weeks to stop ignoring the obvious alarms flashing from Polina, so that is what I’m going to do—after she’s rested.
She can’t stop shaking, and it is driving me fucking nuts.
I hated seeing her like this when I was a kid, but it is worse now because I know the cause of her fear. No person should have had to go through what she went through that night, let alone a child.
Needing to weaken the tension, I mutter, “I’m not sure what time people nearing their thirties go to bed, but around here, it is usually sometime in the a.m.” I slant my head to hide the grin dying to break free from her response to my jibe that she’s old. “If you’re down for that, we can watch a movie or play a card game—”
“I think I’ll just sleep,” she interrupts, the disappointment in her tone unmissable.
I was seconds from creating the first chip in her wall, and then a brownout went and ruined it.
Now I have to start from scratch.
“All right.” I nudge my head to the bathroom door. “Fresh towels are in there if you want to shower before bed.”
My shaky steps to the door halt when she whispers, “Will you stay with me?” I’m about to deny her request, to tell her I don’t trust myself being in the same vicinity as her, let alone the same bed, but the faintest plea has me choking on my reply. “Please, Yev.”
Polina only begs when she’s scared, and since this plea has nothing to do with feelings she’s trying to keep buried, I can’t say no to her.
“All right.” Sparks of the man I once thought I’d grow up to be pops in for a visit. “But you get the wet patch this time.”
Her smile barely lifts her lips half an inch. “That’s fine.”
The strained curl of her lips is as sluggish as her steps as she makes her way to the bathroom.
Mine are just as weighted when I head to a dresser on the far wall. My head is pounding, and I feel fucking sick to my stomach, but I’m so damn confused by the number of emotions hitting me, I don’t give the two lines chopped up on the beaten wood a second thought before snorting them.
I cuss into the cool evening air when my habit is witnessed by the last person I want to see me as a drug-fucked idiot. “I would have thought Alek’s downfall would have stopped you from reaching for the same crutch.”
Polina sighs before entering the room. Her hair isn’t wet, and she’s wearing the same clothes she entered the bathroom with, but she acts as if she wasn’t spying on me by moving toward the bed.