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“Speaking of ‘no fun.’” I laugh, but it sounds hollow. “My ex was a boatload of no fun. But he never hit me.”
Yakov’s jaw flexes. “That’s not what I asked.”
Instinctively, I wrap my arms around myself, though it’s pleasantly warm in here. “In some ways, I think it would have been easier if he had hit me. That’s black-and-white, you know? I know what physical abuse looks like. Everything else was kind of a gray area. Like when he isolated me from my friends and family or controlled who I could and couldn’t text. It happened slowly at first. Then the next thing I knew, he controlled every aspect of my life. Where I went, who I saw, what I ate.”
I should stop. I’ve said enough to answer the question.
But now that I’m finally saying it out loud, it’s hard to stop.
My eyes burn with tears. I squeeze them closed and take a shaky breath. “The sad part is that I wanted to make him happy. When things were good, Benjy could be so loving and sweet. I liked that side of him. But when I messed up—when I came home too late or dressed in something he didn’t like or asked him too many questions about where he’d been—things got bad. Somehow, he made me think all of it was my fault.”
There was so much shame. I was ashamed of the way I made him behave. If he could be so nice to everyone else but treat me like shit, then it must mean there was something wrong with me.
Even when I got away, the shame lingered. It whispered in my ear all the time. Why did you stay with him for so long? Why didn’t you leave?
“When did you figure out it wasn’t?” Yakov asks.
His voice burns through the fog of memories and shame. It brings me back to the here and now.
I open my eyes, a smile pasted on my face. “I believe that is your second question. It’s my turn.”
He nods slowly, the picture of calm—but when I look down, I see that he’s holding his glass so tightly his knuckles are white.
He probably thinks I’m pathetic. A man like Yakov doesn’t know anything about being overpowered by someone else. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be made small.
It doesn’t matter, though. Not when I’m about to get the answer to the only question that matters.
I take a deep breath and meet his eyes. “Who wants to hurt me, Yakov?”
He peels his fingers off of his glass with obvious effort. “I can’t tell you that.”
I don’t know why I expected anything different. Of course Yakov isn’t going to play by the rules of some stupid game I made up. Still, I hope…
“You can’t say because you don’t know the answer?”
He shakes his head. “I know exactly who it is.”
“But you still won’t tell me?” My hopes crash and burn. “You know who it is, but you won’t tell me.”
He looks at me without any sign of guilt or shame. I don’t think he’s capable of such basic human things.
I shove back from the table just to put some space between us. I don’t want him to see the angry tears welling in my eyes. “That’s why you wanted to go first. Because you knew all along you weren’t going to play. You let me go on and on about one of the worst times of my life, and you knew the entire time you weren’t going to answer any of my questions.”
“If you had asked me something that wouldn’t put you in danger, I would have answered.”
“I don’t believe you!”
He shrugs. “I’m not going to risk your life for some silly game, Luna. Be mad about that if you want. I don’t care.”
I am mad about it. He’s infuriating.
Even if I have to admit, deep down, how sweet it is that he wants to protect me.
But no. No!
“You keep getting away with that,” I snap. “You refuse to answer my questions or tell me anything and then I end up thinking you’re a good guy for it. It’s not fair! You have to tell me something. Something like… like… Oh, Hope said something about working for your dad before she worked for you.”
He tenses. It’s subtle, but at some point over the last few days, I’ve become familiar enough with Yakov to read the tilt of his shoulders.
