Page 38 of If I Were Yours

The room is now murky, and my limbs are slow and sluggish when I reach for it. As expected, it’s Markus. Even after a long nap, I don’t feel quite ready to talk to him, but I answer anyway.

“Hi,” I say, my voice hoarse and flat.

“Is everything okay?” Markus asks, noticing my strained tone.

“I’m sorry I didn’t respond to your text,” I say, avoiding his question.

“What text?”

“Didn’t you text me an hour ago or so?”

“No, I’ve been so busy that I’ve barely had the chance to check my phone. Sorry, sweetie.”

Frowning, I take my phone from my ear and put it on speaker.

“Has Grigory left?” Markus is probably only asking to get me talking—he surely already knows the answer since the two men seem to be talking about everything concerning me.

“Yeah.” I open the messaging app, and my breath catches when I see the name in bold at the top.

Grigory.

My heart becomes loud thumps in my ears as I click the message, hope and fear warring inside me.

“Clara, are you still there?” Markus asks.

“I’m here...” I trail off as Grigory’s text appears on the screen.

Sweet devochka,I’m sorry I left like that. It was hard to say goodbye.

Time stops. The world around me becomes a blur as my attention gathers on those two short sentences.

The air drags in and out of my lungs at a speedy tempo as my heart thumps with relief. It’s like I can breathe again for the first time since I heard the harrowing sound of the front door.He hasn’t pulled away again.

“Clara,” Markus urges. “Clara, are you there? What’s going on?”

“I-I’m here,” I say, blinking rapidly as I let the world and the man on the other end of the line seep back into my consciousness. “Sorry. I’ve been dozing for a while, and you caught me before I got a chance to regain my senses.” The text message catches my attention again, and a wide, radiant smile spreads across my face. “Everything’s okay.”

Markus must hear the smile in my voice since he chuckles. “You do tend to take your time waking up.”

“I do?”

“Oh yeah. Was it hard saying goodbye?”

“Uhm, yeah. But I’m okay now.” And I really am. That small text means everything. It’s proof that things have changed. Not just for a while, but in the long haul. So I bring the phone back to my ear and spend the next twenty minutes talking to Markus before he has to go again.

Then I open my text app back up and start typing out a response.

I already miss you,I write but send back the cursor to eat the words.

It’s too soon—too vulnerable—for those words. Instead, I go for a simplethank youand hit send.

And I mean it. So far, Markus has been the one to patch things up every time Grigory has withdrawn, but finally, Grigory comes back on his own, admitting his mistake.

— CHAPTER 13 —

CLARA

Markus calls me a few days after Grigory has left. He’s been hard to get a hold of beyond short texts lately, so I’m beaming when I put the phone to my ear.

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