Greenwich’s eyes narrow. “If you care about Taylor at all, stay away.”
12
TAYLOR
We hug. A lot. And cry.
Hayley steps immediately into big sister mode, and we go to the apartment she shares with her fiancé, Maxim. We talk for hours. And we laugh too.
Payton can’t stop apologising for a disagreement we had over a hair tie before I left five years ago, and Hayley is sorry for not finding me sooner, and for letting me go. I just keep apologising that I ever left.
Payton’s husband, Feliks—our baby sister has a husband, what?—says we were all kids when it happened, and it wasn’t our fault. Any of us.
Mostly though, Feliks and Maxim sit at a table and talk quietly, keeping an eye on Payton and Hayley while we three sit on the sofas and overflow with stories and relief and love.
Appropriate, I guess, given our surname.
“You need a phone,” Hayley says when Maxim brings her a shiny new phone in its packaging and she passes it to me. “And seriously, you have to take iteverywherewith you. We can’t lose you again.”
“I will,” I promise fervently, and I’m crying again.
It’s sonormal, and I’m grateful for it.
We catch up. Mainly, I tell them what didn’t happen. Putting their minds to rest. No, I wasn’t hit. Mostly. No, I wasn’t starved, dancers are just lean. No, I couldn’t escape. No, it wasn’t awful all the time. No, I didn’t have my phone, and I don’t know what happened to my passport.
No, I wasn’t raped.
I feel weird about that last one. It’s true. I wasn’t. What Kon did to me wasn’t something hedid to me. I made it happen. I even liked it.
We were pretending, or I was. But it wasn’t exactlynormal.
Maybe I’ll never be normal, because instead of shame, it’s a delicious secret I have with Kon. Something that is just between him and me.
Over and over, my brain returns to Kon, and I want to talk about him to my sisters, but that feels like it would be inappropriate. So I explain about the ballet performances, and the endless hotels. I tell them about the other girls, but I can tell from the expressions in their eyes that they don’t understand quite the way Kon does.
In return, they fill me in on the time I missed. The changes in my sisters’ lives are insane. They’ve been through a lot too. Poverty, the ugly kind, and years of searching for me.
My heart aches at how they looked for me.
They tell me about their recent relationships. How Feliks kidnapped Payton to save her from his son, who was her ex-boyfriend, and took her to his tropical island. They married on the island. How Hayley’s fiancé killed Payton’s ex-boyfriend and then protected her.
Kon told me the truth about everything.
It’s all totally insane.
I stay in Hayley and Maxim’s spare room, and waking up alone is a jolt after last night with Kon and years of the same room as at least three others.
I explore my phone and I’m added to a group chat for the dancers. Over the next week some go back to their families, and there are a lot of photos of happy parents and cute dogs. The ones that haven’t yet are staying in individual rooms in a hotel, and parts of this are familiar. Madam Polina is given a studio Kon arranges for her in a building in Harlesden and she continues with our ballet practice as if nothing has changed.
I go nearly every day, despite Payton and Hayley being a bit horrified. They can’t believe I’d want anything to do with my old life. I spend most of my evenings hanging out with my sisters, and reading Hayley’s books.
On the ballet chat, they’re all, “Konstantin is doing this for me”, and “Konstantin arranged that”. It makes me want to scream that Konstantin fucked me until I came on his cock.
I guess I’m jealous that they see him and talk to him, when I don’t even have his phone number. I’ve seen him naked and heard him pleading in my ear, and begged in return, and now I’m nothing to him.
I think about that at odd times, and when Feliks picks up Payton and kisses her or Maxim smiles indulgently at Hayley when she explains a new wedding “essential” that she’s discovered, I feel a bit heavy, and I wonder if Kon thinks of me.
He doesn’t. If he did, he’d contact me.
