“I think a romantic dinner sounds perfect,” I say innocently. “Very low-key. Intimate. Fits the occasion.”
“Right?” She sighs contently. “I’m turning twenty-eight, not twenty-one. I don’t need a whole production.”
“Absolutely,” I agree, half tempted to laugh.
She’s going to lose her mind when she walks into that party.
Once coffee with Chantal wraps up, I head to my appointment with my therapist. Her office is located in a nondescript building in Park Slope, neighboring a yoga studio on the left and some smoothie place on the right.
Today’s session was a tough one. We talked about Mom and the night she disappeared, leaving me and Eva alone at the Greyhound station. I spent years wondering if she truly abandoned us or if Fedorov was lying and something worse happened to her.
I’m not sure I’ll ever know, but my therapist provides me the tools to start moving on from that childhood trauma one session at a time.
Childhood wounds will never truly heal, but that doesn’t mean you can’t work toward reaching a healthy enough place where you’ve learned to move on.
I’m still mulling over what was said during the session by the time I descend the stairs to the subway platform, my metro card in hand.
The platform’s crowded with the usual afternoon rush. Commuters in business casual scroll through their phones and a guy with a guitar plays for donations, his case open on the floor to collect dollars and change. A group of teenagers with their heads bowed together laugh about some funny TikTok they’re watching.
I find a spot near a pillar and wait out the minutes ’til the next train comes through.
It’s a typical New York experience, standing among other strangers, waiting to board the subway train.
My eyes scan the crowds with my mind still miles away. Eventually, they land on a girl on the far side who immediately wrenches me back to the present.
I blink several times and look again.
She’s partially obscured by the flow of people moving between us. But she has light brown skin and curly hair. She’s young and baby faced, with big, dark doe eyes I would recognize anywhere because I spent a childhood looking into them.
“Eva,” I whisper. Then I take a few steps forward. “Eva? EVA!”
My heart races as desperation clinches me. I start trying to shove my way through the crowd, calling her name as loud as I can.
“EVA!” I scream. “WAIT!”
I’m too late.
People stubbornly either refuse to move or even shove and nudge back at me, probably thinking I’m trying to cut their place on the platform. The sea of bodies shifts, and soon the baby-faced, curly haired girl gets swallowed up.
…or maybe she was a figment of my imagination to start with.
“NO!” I cry out in frustration. “Come back!”
But she’s gone, nowhere to be found on the subway platform as the train finally arrives.
Could I really have been seeing things? Did I just imagine seeing my sister among the crowd when really it was someone else?
…or have we been closer than I realized?
Fedorov admitted his real goal was to bring Eva back. It had little to do with me, other than using me to help achieve that goal.
He said she’d escaped months ago, which means she’s in the city somewhere.
I lean against a pillar and take off my glasses, eyes snapping shut. My heart’s still racing and now my thoughts are too.
The real question I’ve agonized over from the moment Fedorov revealed the truth is why hasn’t Eva come to find me? Why has she stayed hidden if she’s free and I am too? Doesn’t she know I’ve been searching for her?
I’llalwayssearch for her. I won’t stop looking. If she’s out there, I’ll find her.
