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“Galina!” Audrey shouts in my ear, and I have to hold the phone away while wincing in pain. “Oh my God! You’re okay!”
“Yeah, of course, I’m okay.” I guess she must have worried because we haven’t spoken to each other in a while. “What’s up?”
“What’s up?” I move the phone again—she’s going to burst my eardrum if she doesn’t stop shouting. “Galina! The dance studio got shot up, and I haven’t heard one goddamn word from you! I thought you were dead or something!”
Her concern makes me scrunch into a ball. My knees lift, and I put my feet on the cushion. “No, I’m fine. Nobody was hurt.”
“Thank goodness. Your mom must be in shock. Poor Katya.”
“Yes,” I agree somberly, “she’s shaken up.”
“Is she with you? Wait, back up here. Where are you, Galina? I haven’t seen you in weeks. You don’t call. You don’t text. It’s like you just disappeared off the face of this earth after we went to Tsar’s. I thought something bad had happened, so I went to ask your mom, but she just gave me the cold shoulder. I even thought about calling the cops, but you know they’re useless.”
Picturing an army of squad cars rolling up to the mansion somehow makes me smile at the ridiculousness of it all. Arsen would probably just pay them to leave. And if that failed, I have the awful feeling he’d be amenable to getting rid of them in a less savory way.
“I’m glad you didn’t report anything,” I tell Audrey. “I’m fine. I’m just … taking a break from things.”
“Like a vacation?”
“I guess you could call it that,” I laugh weakly.
“Galina.” Audrey softens her tone. “If you need to talk to me about anything, you know I’m here. We’re best friends, even if you’ve been pretending like I don’t exist this whole damn time.”
Appreciation washes over me at her words, and for a single dizzying moment, I’m tempted to spill everything—all the way back to what went down that night after the two of us parted ways at Tsar’s Lounge. I could tell her about seeing Arsen murder a man. I could say he bought the dance studio, kidnapped me, trapped me in his mansion, and then blackmailed me into marrying him.
My reflection in the mirror stares back at me. There’s a glint on my left hand clutching the phone, and it takes me a heartbeat before I recognize my wedding ring catching the sunlight pouring in through the window.
I almost forgot that the ceremony was something I resisted.
It all feels different now. It’s fake on the surface, but when I’m alone with Arsen, our feelings don’t seem so fake. And when he kissed me on the altar … That didn’t feel fake.
What did he say during the toast? The vodka is bitter, but the marriage is sweet.
Somehow, I want to believe that. I really do.
“Everything is fine, Audrey,” I finally say. “I’d tell you if I needed help.”
“Okay …” she replies, but from the sound of her voice, I know she’s not entirely convinced. “Don’t be a stranger, okay? You know how I’m worried about you.”
“I know,” I reply. “Thanks for checking up on me. And if I need anything, I’ll ask.”
After we hang up, I pick up my brush. Running it over my hair again, I stare at myself, trying to believe that I meant what I said. If I need help from anyone … I will ask for it.
But I don’t need help.
Everything is under control.
It has to be.
“Galina Stepanovna, please, you must stop pacing,” Olesya tells me.
“I can’t,” I reply, continuing to tread back and forth over the carpet until I feel like I’m about to wear a hole through it. “She’ll be here any minute. How do I look?” Before Olesya answers, I keep babbling. “Oh, what does it matter how I look? What do I even tell her? I haven’t seen her in weeks! And we were fighting before it all. She’s going to lose her shit when she learns that I’m married to Arsen.”
Olesya tries to catch my eye, but she fails as I keep walking back and forth, wringing my hands as I stare at everything and nothing.
“You can always wait to tell her,” she suggests.
“Absolutely not,” I laugh bitterly. “Mom is going to know the instant she sees me. She’s too clever for her own good.” Even if I took the ring off, she’d somehow suss it out. Sighing in defeat, I rake my nails through my hair and arch my back until I’m staring at the ceiling. “Maybe it’s for the best to come right out with it before she accuses me of keeping secrets. You know, rip the Band-Aid off.”
