“Yes.” Her voice remained firm. “It was fake. It was alwaysgoing to end.”
I didn’t answer.
The therapist warned me this could happen. At some point, Inna would decide that leaving first hurt less than waiting to be left behind. I dismissed that part because I thought I already understood Inna. Apparently, I didn’t.
“Cole and I will leave.” She began sliding the ring off her finger. “If you aren’t satisfied with the services I gave, I will pay you back eventually. Let’s just end it.” She held the ring out to me. “Let’s not do this anymore.”
Something cold moved through my chest. “You are sick.”
“I’m—”
“Fine?” I finished for her.
My eyes dropped to the ring resting between her fingers. A normal man probably would have pulled her into his arms and said something reassuring. Instead, a quiet laugh left me because apparently my mind processed emotional damage the same way it processed violence.
“Okay.” I took the ring from her fingers. “Let’s end it. But you’ll complete your treatment first,” I continued. “You stay here until the doctor clears you fully.”
The relief that crossed her face came too quickly, and her reaction irritated me.
I stood before I did something reckless, like drag her into my lap and kiss her until she remembered exactly who she belonged to.
“We won’t discuss this while you’re sick.” I stepped back from the bed. “Get some rest.”
I walked out before she answered, with no clear destination in mind.
The balcony doors slid open beneath my hand while my head replayed the way she handed me the ring. Reaching the railing overlooking the backyard below, I opened my fist.
The ring sat in my palm beneath the dim light. Such a small object. And somehow it made me feel like Inna shot me straight to my heart.
A scoff left my mouth before I threw it. The ring disappeared into the darkness below without a sound.
I gripped the balcony railing hard enough for the metal to bite into my palms as pressure built slowly beneath my ribs.
Inna offered to leave me so easily, as if I wasn’t already ruined enough.
Chapter Forty-eight
Inna Grace
My fingers curled deeper intothe blanket as Dmitri got into bed beside me. Cigarette smoke and alcohol followed him into the sheets. We agreed to end things two hours ago. After that, he left. He must have been drinking.
I wasn’t even sure when he returned from Cuba, too, maybe after hearing I was sick. It didn’t matter anyway. He asked for permission to leave as if my answer would have changed anything. People always did that. They wrapped words inside concern so it sounded softer. Like care and abandonment couldn’t exist in the same sentence.
He didn’t move toward me. He stayed on the far side of the bed and turned the lights off. Silence settled between us. The distance helped. The farther he stayed, the easier this became. If he touched me, spoke softly, pulled me into his chest, everything inside me would weaken again. Distance was safer. It gave people room to survive what came after.
I stared at the wall in the dark.
Dmitri was good to us. That was the problem. In those pastmonths, he became important to me. Falling for him happened naturally because he was easy to love.
But my mother used to feel that important too. She tied my hair before school every morning and read stories to me at night while I lay against her chest. Some mornings, she woke up early just to cook food she knew I liked, then got me dressed herself. Back then, life was certain. But she disappeared without warning. No goodbye or explanation. Nothing.
My father stayed longer until he couldn’t. Yes, Iker took him, but all those years, my father still said nothing about what our family really was. He left me blind inside it. I spent years not knowing if my parents were alive or dead, suffering somewhere or comfortable somewhere else.
My mother appeared again, glowing as if she had a simple life. Her skin was clear, and she wore expensive clothes. She looked rested, healthy, untouched by the kind of life that nearly swallowed Cole and me whole. And knowing who she truly was now, I understood something worse.
She knew where we were. She could have reached us if she had wanted to. It didn’t have to be openly or directly. But through strangers. She could have sent a message through someone else. She sent nothing.
Cole and I barely had enough to eat some nights. I skipped meals, so his portions looked bigger. Other nights I sat awake, doing calculations over and over, hoping the numbers would change if you stared at them long enough. We lost our home and slept in someone else’s house, where our existence felt temporary every single day. I smiled through it all because at least we weren’t outside.
