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“When did he tell you this? Just now?” I ask, trying to gauge how much comfort I should be providing to her under the circumstances.
“Just twenty minutes ago. I don’t know where I’m going to go, but I can’t fucking marry Izet. He’s so gross and socially awkward. Why would my father do this to me? He himself doesn’t even know Izet. How does he know he won’t hurt me?”
I feel the twist of guilt forming in my guts as the inevitable question races towards me. There’s no way she won’t suspect that I know something at this point, and that will only serve to make matters worse.
“I’m sorry, Mika. Really, I am.”
She wipes her tears away, smearing the black fault lines of mascara on her cheeks. “You don’t seem very shocked.”
Here it comes.
“Are you mad that I’m not having the response that you wanted from me?” I ask, feeling like an asshole as soon as I speak.
“I’m angry because you don’t seem to care! Did my father tell you about this before me? Is this the reason why you wouldn’t fuck me in the basement?” she asks, her voice growing louder as she begins to connect the dots.
“Shh! Shut the fuck up, Mika. Don’t ever say that out loud again, do you hear me?!” I say in a harsh whisper.
“I’m right, aren’t I? You knew this the whole time!” she continues, now speaking at a normal volume as her emotions overtake her.
“Mika, what was I supposed to do? If your father found out that I told you and then you ran away, he would skin me alive. Don’t you understand the position I’m in?” I ask, keeping my voice low to encourage her to do the same.
She begins to tear up again, crossing her arms self-consciously. “If you think he’d skin you alive for telling me a secret, you don’t even want to know what he’d do to you if he found out that you fucked me on his couch!”
“Mika! For fuck’s sake! Be quiet!” I beg.
I grab her by the arm to pull her back over to the front door and into the house. She’s still missing a shoe, which I assume now is the thing we heard falling from the trees.
Remi’s nowhere to be found, at least not for now, so I drag her back up to her bedroom to tie her to the bedframe. There’s no fucking way I’m going to let her escape this time. My life depends on it, and hers could too if the Italians got ahold of her.
“Let go of me! Stop pulling on my arm!” she shouts, attempting to jerk herself out of my grip with no success.
I decide to pick her up, covering her mouth as she continues to shriek. With her kicking and screaming, she’s a bit harder to carry, but she’s so light that it hardly makes a difference. If she needs me to show her who has the power here, I will.
I slam her door closed behind me, reaching for a silk scarf hanging from a hook on the wall. Tossing her onto her bed, I grip her wrists and hold them together as I start to tie her to the bedpost.
“What the fuck are you doing? You have no right to be angry at me! I get to be angry at you!” she continues.
“Mika, I need to know what he told you, first of all,” I say, keeping my tone calm.
“Why do you need me to tell you? Hasn’t he already told you everything?” she asks, giving up the struggle as she fails to free herself.
She looks back at me with betrayal in her eyes.
“We’re getting married in a month.”
13
MIKA
Amonth.
That’s all the time I’ll have left here in my own home with any sense of freedom at all. Of course, the freedom I know would feel like a prison for others, but it’s still better than being locked up with Izet.
“Damn, I had no idea that it was going to be that fast,” he says, suddenly speaking as if he didn’t just tie me to my bedpost.
“You’re so full of shit. Why wouldn’t he tell you something like that? You’re a man, anyway. That means you get to have more privileges than me,” I mock.
“Mika, I swear I didn’t know. If I knew it was going to be that soon, I would have tried to do something about it. But I can’t, and now it looks like you need to marry him in order for us to both keep our heads,” he replies as he tightens the scarf around the bedpost again.
