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Jenya. For someone who has been continuously punished for disobeying orders, she sure doesn’t listen.
Like you, a little voice says in my head, but I ignore it.
I was only next door, so I’m with them in a minute. I didn’t bother putting my high heels back on, enjoying instead the relief on my feet and ankles.
“What is going on here?” I ask as I burst inside.
Mathias is slouching in one corner of the small space, shirtless and covering his tattoo like a shy girl. Jenya is stiff as a pencil in the opposite corner, drenched from the waist down. They’re both silent, sizing each other up. What a bizarre sight.
“You go back up and change,” I bark at Jenya, pointing to the door. “You’re so lucky Mathias found you and not one of our customers!”
“Tanya…” Mathias says in a small voice, like one would speak to a child.
“What?” I snap at him. None of this is his fault, but why the hell is he here, and shirtless? He has a house and a girlfriend to be with.
“I’m going. Don’t fight,” Jenya mumbles under her breath and moves toward the door. It suddenly swings open, making us all step back to avoid getting hit. Instinctively, I grab Jenya’s shoulders and pull her toward my chest. She’s taller than me, so the whole thing probably looks awkward as fuck. And yet, she’s warm in my arms and shaking like a leaf. A scared human.
Something within me softens and her existence in my world solidifies, like she was not real before. But the feeling is too strange, and I don’t know what to do with it, so I release her and step farther back.
Hanako, Mathias’s girlfriend, enters the bathroom and stares at all of us with a baffled expression.
“Don’t you two have an apartment to be in?” I say, my words coming out way harsher than intended.
Hanako raises an eyebrow. “We were enjoying the Tropical Room. We booked it, remember? Are you okay?”
They did book it. Shit. I hold my head with my hand, fingering my hairline, fighting the desire to pluck pieces of my hair to calm myself down.
“Hanako, can you take this lady to the first floor? She’s resting in the room with the purple door. And maybe help her change out of her clothes,” Mathias says. He’s using his doctor’s voice, and I’m unable to speak over him.
He clearly has more to say because when Jenya and Hanako leave, he picks up my chin with his fingers and forces me to look up at him.
“I’m not going to ask you if you want to talk about it because I know you don’t. A few weeks ago, when I showed you the flyer, you told me to leave it, which I did. But this young woman is not a piece of paper. You can’t crumple her up and discard her. She’s as much a victim to your grandfather as you are.”
That was the wrong thing to say.
“I’m not a victim!” I hiss. “I’m a survivor. You don’t know how horrible it all was and how much time it took me to learn to live in this other world, without seeming out of place. And now Jenya is here, and my grandfather is somewhere else, still alive. I bet he’s plotting how to get her back. And when he does, he will find me too, and I will be dragged back, and I don’t know if I can escape a second time, and…”
Tears are spilling down my cheeks. I hate how pathetic they make me feel, and I’m so angry that Mathias forced this outburst out of me. He makes a step toward me, but I flinch away.
“Don’t fucking touch me! Your stupid tattoo, I bet it has a sweet story behind it. But this”—I tug my skirt away to reveal the inside of my thigh—“this is only here to hide my brand. And I survived all of that, and more, so don’t you fucking tell me I’m a victim.”
He raises his arms in surrender. “It was a poor choice of words. I’m sorry. I won’t butt in anymore. But please, please dig a little deeper when it comes to that child upstairs. Find a little compassion. Try to remember how it felt the first night you were free from your grandfather. Your experience is valid and important, but she’s not the enemy. None of us are.”
The fight goes out of me, quickly replaced by embarrassment. Mathias has been my friend and ally for more than seven years. He’s the last person to deserve the fury I unleashed on him.
“I know,” I whisper. “I know, but I hate everything she stands for.”
“I don’t think she stands for what you think she does. Do you know why she was here, drenched like a rat?” He comes closer now and swipes a strand of hair away from my eyes. “She has some stains on her clothes and was trying to get them out, so the owner of the clothes doesn’t punish her. She doesn’t know a world where she doesn’t get pain for nothing. And she was in the dark because she didn’t know she could turn the light switch on. She said they didn’t have things like that in her village.”
“The light was centrally controlled when I was last at the compound,” I say as I wipe my eyes.
“Yes, she can’t know what she doesn’t know. And the fear you have, that’s her fear too.”
“But she looks so smug and composed.” My voice is whiny.
“She’s not. She’s masking. I can tell you that as a doctor. She’s terrified and she has no idea how to express that.”
“I’m terrified too,” I whisper.
