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“I doubt it. She was about to take a swing at me.”
“You probably deserved it. She looks tough. Do you think you could have handled her?” I asked.
“Asshole,” Sorin said playfully.
“So where was Fawn? With that woman?” he asked.
I nodded. I’d had Sorin and some of the others quietly searching for her during the day.
“She can’t be doing that, Vasile.”
Sorin was completely serious now, which only reinforced how bad those hours without her had been, how she needed to understand she could never do that again.
“We discussed it,” I said, my words calm and casual and in no way a reflection of how I felt.
Sorin looked skeptical. “Discussed it? That’s it?”
“Should I beat her to prove my point?” I wouldn’t, not ever, but many others didn’t share my reserve.
“Father would have.”
“Good thing I’m not Father then,” I said.
Sorin frowned, but I could see the war in his mind. We’d loved our father, admired him, but there were things that he’d done to our mother that I wouldn’t be able to forgive, forget, and would never emulate. It was up to Sorin to decide whether he would do the same.
“I’m moving back to the house,” I said.
“You love her,” Sorin said.
“No, but she needs space, and I need to keep a better eye on her,” I said.
Sorin smiled, this time genuinely, no trace of anger at all. “Of course, brother.”
* * *
Fawn
Esther frowned at me and then shook her head.
“What did you expect me to do, Fawn?”
“Not come here,” I said, still boggled at what she had done, what she’d risked.
“Right. I’m supposed to let that menacing-as-fuck dude walk into my home, bodily remove my best friend from it, and not do a thing?”
“He’s a good man,” I said. “He would never hurt me.” And I knew he wouldn’t, trusted that knowledge in a way that I had trusted little else in my life.
Esther stayed silent, her lips puckered into a tight grimace, and I knew what she was thinking before she even said it. “I’m smarter now. He is…what he is. But I’m safer with him than I’ve ever been with anyone else.”
She looked unconvinced. “Come stay with me. Try something different,” Esther said, eyes imploring.
I didn’t entertain the thought, not even for a moment. Couldn’t entertain the thought of not being with him.
“I’m where I belong. With whom I belong.”
And I knew it to be true. It didn’t make sense, but it didn’t have to. I was where I wanted to be. I could see Esther struggle, knew that she wanted to argue, to try to persuade me. The girl I’d known all those years ago wouldn’t have held her tongue. But she did. And that made me wonder what other changes I’d missed. I planned to find out.
“One phone call, that’s all it will take, Fawn,” she said, pulling herself to her full height and crossing her arms over her chest.
