Maybe she slung that insult at him one too many times, and it did nothing for him anymore to snap Vaslav out of his behavior. He loosened his stance in the doorway, and even folded his arms over his chest while he stared her down. His eyebrow cocked with a silent challenge she heard well while the plastic bag with what remained of Hannah’s unused pregnancy tests swung in his grip.
Try me—his posture screamed it.
Vera had enough.
“Give me them,” she said, reaching for the bag.
Silently, Vaslav handed the handle loops over. She wasn’t particularly polite about the way she snatched the bag from his hand, and she didn’t soften the sarcasm when she told him, “I’m so glad Hannah only used four so I have two left to placate you.”
Vaslav’s expression didn’t change. “What about Hannah?”
Vera dead-stared her husband as she backed away from him while pulling one of the two tests remaining in the bag out. It didn’t matter now—he wanted her to take a fucking test so badly that he would be willing to force her to do so, then she’d take a test for him.
“No big deal,” she told Vaslav, waving the pink and white pregnancy test box for him to see even though the man couldn’t take his eyes off of it. Like it might bite him or something. “It’s just a piece of plastic. That’s useless to me, by the way, since I’m not the one who’s pregnant. Good thing you didn’t open the trash can down the hall, you would have found the used ones from yesterday.”
That time, Vaslav’s brows lifted subtly. He remained silent, though, observing her head into the bathroom from where he had stayed in the doorway between the connecting suites. Once Vera had made it to the commode and shoved her leggings and panties down to her knees, Vaslav had come to stand just beyond the bathroom door. She discarded the packaging for the test, but hesitated before doing anything further.
Instead, she sat down on the lid of the toilet seat, flicking that strip of thin plastic against her palm. Vaslav couldn’t look away from the pregnancy test, not even to see the way tears threatened to spill from his wife’s eyes.
It wasn’t right.
None of this.
“I’ll take the test for you,” Vera said, “but you have to tell me why you want me to.”
Vaslav’s chin tipped up an inch, and he sucked air through his teeth like he might actually be considering her request as if it was a valid offer. “I didn’t realize my demand came with an opportunity for a counteroffer.”
“Vaslav, I took a pregnancy test a month ago before I got my Depo shot. Standard. I get one every time. It was negative.”
Vera didn’t care about the pregnancy test at the end of the day, or even the fact that he wanted her to take one. She knew what it would say—she absolutely was not pregnant, so if he needed to see actual, real proof of that, then so be it.
She’d always been good at emptying her bladder on demand when she’d grown up with call times and marks to hit.
“I’ll take the test, but you’re damn well going to tell me why you acted the way you did about it,” Vera stated, offering no room for argument.
“Or. What.”
She drew her line.
He’d not crossed it.
This time, Vera was the one who couldn’t see the line he made for her to stay behind. A precarious game to play with Vaslav. He played to win, and for keeps.
“You’ll sleep alone,” Vera told him.
Vaslav scowled at the news, but at least, he kept his gaze averted while she peed. She continued, needing the steady stream of urine for three to five seconds on the end of the stick, to say, “And if you try any of that shit with me again, without at least the decency to explain what’s triggered you so much, then the trip I take to my mother and father’s this spring can be extended, Vaslav.”
His jaw clenched.
“You didn’t say anything about a trip to visit your parents in the spring,” he muttered through tight teeth.
Yeah, well.
“I’m mentioning it now,” Vera returned.
He finally turned his gaze back on her after the plastic test clattered to the countertop once she’d capped the grossest end. Finally, he seemed to put the issue of the pregnancy test out of his mind, and he didn’t stare at it obsessively like before.
Not that his change in attitude helped how she felt.
“They’re digital. Hannah couldn’t be bothered with the regular ones, like she didn’t already know what the answer would be when she’s four days late, so we won’t get an answer for least five minutes. It blinks pregnant,” Vera said, shrugging, “Or not on the screen there.”
She waved at the test, and then him. “Your turn.”
“You really need to stop talking to Bogdan,” Vaslav bitched under his breath. “I hate it when you use the words he does—triggers, and the rest ... it’s not about—”
“Frankly, I’d like not to have to talk with your brain surgeon on a regular basis, either, but since he’s the only human on earth with some form of a medical degree that you’re willing to talk to, I’ve got to work with what I have, Vas.”
There, she said it.
He wouldn’t talk to a therapist, never mind a regular family physician who could just ask him simple questions once a week over the phone to monitor his symptoms that manifested as behaviors. Not all of them were good, productive, or healthy. It also took a great toll on his mental health, so Bogdan it was when things weren’t great for Vaslav.
“Hannah’s pregnant?” he asked, then, shuffling sideways so that his profile faced her where she shimmied her leggings and panties back up in place.
“Not that she wants to be,” Vera confirmed, “but life happens.”
Vaslav did little more than grunt under his breath at that statement. He eyed the bedroom space studiously instead of Vera once she was off the commode. Without explanation or warning, he walked out of sight, and Vera opted not to follow.
They both needed the space.
Unsurprisingly, his distance didn’t last for long. Vaslav darkened the bathroom doorway once more, and tipped his head toward the pregnancy test on the counter while Vera washed her hands.
“What?” she asked.
“Toss it in the trash,” he said, “and come with me.”
Caught off-guard by the total one-eighty, Vera forgot to turn the taps off before she turned around with dripping wet hands. “For what?”
He sighed.
A heavy sound.
She saw how it weighed him down.
“Your answers,” he said.
Before she could ask him to explain more, Vaslav disappeared out of view of the doorway again. She made quick work of turning off the taps, and grabbing the pregnancy test that she had no intention of throwing away like he said to. Stuffing it into the pocket of her oversized cardigan before she exited the bathroom, she stepped out to find Vaslav waiting at the doorway of the bedroom.
“Come on, it’s in the safe.”
“The safe?”
“In the den,” he clarified.
Not once had he told her about a safe in the fucking den, and only now was the time he thought to do so. Right. Typical Vaslav. The whiplash this man gave her was unreal.
“And where is this safe in the den?” Vera asked.