Page 10

After her parents died in a car crash, she spent the next five years living with her sister before moving to Oxfordshire nine months ago.

Now she’s in a tiny apartment, ten minutes walk from the University for an average person, three for me if I make a run for it.

None at all if I’m already inside her flat. Though that’s a line I still refuse to cross. For now.

I’d like to watch her sleep without a screen between us. To trace the curve of her cheek and reassure myself she’s real. To fall asleep beside her and wake before she does.

She likes coffee. Silence even more.

I don’t know her favourite colour. That is, if she has one. Not because people with dead eyes don’t have favourites, but because they see the world through a desaturated lens.

What bothers me is that I still don’t know what happened to her. I’ve never seen her eyes sparkle and I’m curious what they’d look like if they did.

I want to be the reason they do. Only me. Possessive much? Undeniably.

And these past two weeks, when she started following me, I thought the moment had finally come.

Elara, who’d buried herself behind silence ever since arriving at Kingsford, was finally looking at me instead of through me.

Then Roman’s sister wrapped herself around me, and just like that, she disappeared.

Three days.

Three fucking days.

See, I care about Alina. I always will. We grew up together. We’ve bled together. If someone put a gun to her head, I’d put myself in front of it without thinking twice.

But I don’t want her and I never have.

What gnaws at me is the possibility that Elara walked away believing otherwise. That she saw Alina clinging to me and decided I belonged to someone else.

I don’t and I never will.

The only woman I’ve ever pictured beside me is Elara. The only woman I’ve ever wanted to touch is Elara.

So what if she doesn’t remember me? I’ll make sure she never wants to forget this version of me.

This is the first time in years I’ve felt something close to excitement. I’d forgotten what it felt like. Being alone in a room full of people has never bothered me. It still doesn’t.

It was Roman and Aleksandr who decided otherwise. One day, they barged into my life and informed me we were friends.

I didn’t know what that meant back then. I’d only just escaped Russia, and English was hard.

I never had friends before, and after them, I never wanted any. Roman and Aleksandr were enough. More than enough, actually.

I ran away from home when I was ten because I couldn’t take it anymore and running away was all I learned from my family.

My mother ran from my father. Years later, I ran from him too.

I wanted to hate Mama for leaving me behind. It would’ve been easier but I couldn’t. After she left, there was no one else for Vasily to hit and the bruises became mine.

My father never loved her. He loved that she was quiet, that she never raised her voice, never challenged him, never made him look weak in front of the men whose fear he mistook for loyalty and respect.

She wasn’t his wife in his eyes. She was another possession, one he believed would remain exactly where he’d left it.

It wasn’t the loss but the humiliation. It was having to explain to the Bratva why Vasily Zaytsev’s wife had walked away from him.

I remember standing at the bottom of the staircase, staring at the front door until my eyes burned. My fingers were wrapped around the banister so tightly they hurt yet I refused to cry.