“My last year of med school, I was miserable,” she says quietly. “I’d realized I didn’t want to be there anymore, I didn’t have any friends, I didn’t like what I was doing, but I was too much of a pussy to drop out and admit that I’d fucked up and wasted a couple of years.”
She thumps a fingertip on the table.
“So when my young, cute professor asked me to drinks to ‘talk about my work,’ I said yes, because I was flattered that he asked me, and because I felt like I couldn’t make things any worse,” she says, swallowing. “He told me he’d just gotten divorced, and when we went back to his place it was this ugly one-bedroom apartment full of boxes and crappy furniture, and he didn’t have a ring on, so I just believed him.”
Even though this is all in the past, jealousy tightens in my chest at the thought of Hazel with someone else.
She’s staring at the table, her eyes vacant and empty, leaning her head against one hand, and she swallows again and sighs.
“We weren’t supposed to be fucking in the first place, so I didn’t tell anyone, so there wasn’t anyone to say, ‘Hey, watch out, Evan’s actually just separated and he told me that they’re still trying to make things work,’ and it wasn’t like I was going to look up divorce records,” she says, her finger slowly tracing circles on the table.
“And then one day I came over late at night, and his wife was there, and he sat on the couch while she screamed at me and called me a stupid slut. He wouldn’t even look at me.”
Hazel clears her throat, and I frown in disbelief.
“He let her do that?” I ask.
“Yup.”
“He did this to you and then let another woman call you names?” I ask, my voice getting hard.
Hazel just looks up at me.
“Spineless coward,” I say. “Are all American men sniveling worms?”
She smiles, looks at me, and stops.
“No, I just got lucky,” she says. “And he didn’t do this to me. I knew better than to sleep with him in the first place, but I did it anyway. I just thought it was a bad decision for a different reason. Anyway, I dropped out of school, sublet my apartment, and sold a bunch of my stuff, and traveled for a few months because I figured if I was going to be a fuckup I should at least be a fuckup doing something I really wanted to do, and now I’m here.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
She looks at her hands and flexes her fingers, like maybe she’s holding the answer there.
“I didn’t know how,” she said. “At what point was I supposed to say, hey, here’s the worst thing I’ve ever done?”
“At any point,” I say, and I’m tired and irritable as fuck. I miss her even though she’s right here, and I feel like I can’t have her any more, so I’m picking a fight. “Anything would be better than finding this out from the fucking Tobov Post.”
“Right, because now everyone knows that the American girl dresses slutty and fucks peoples’ husbands,” she says, and she sounds angry but also sad and tired. “I’m sorry, Kostya. I fucked up then, and I keep fucking up, and I’m sorry.”
“What else?” I ask.
“What else what?” she says, leaning back and crossing her arms.
“What else don’t I know?” I ask. “What else is the fucking Tobov Post going to smear you with?”
“It’s not a smear if it’s true,” she says bitterly. “He was definitely married, definitely my professor, and I definitely fucked him.”
Jealousy rolls through me again, and I try to shut it down, pacing back and forth through the tiny office.
“Just tell me what else so I’m not surprised,” I say.
“Kostya, I don’t even know what you want me to say,” she says, eyes closed, her forehead in one hand. “That’s the worst. That’s the worst by a mile.”
“You got kicked out of boarding school,” I say. “You told me that.”
She looks at me, with a long, slow look.
“Okay,” she finally says. “I stole twenty bucks out of my mom’s purse when I was thirteen and bought cigarettes. I lost my virginity at sixteen to a senator’s son in the back of his Range Rover. I got a fake ID when I was seventeen and used to sneak out and go to bars in Boston. One time, I hit a parking sign with my mom’s car, got a ding, and when she asked about it I lied. I tried cocaine once my freshman year of college, which was the same year I got so drunk I threw up on Boston Common. I went skinny dipping on Cape Cod.”
She flings up her hands, slumps in the chair, and stares at me.
“It’s normal stuff, Kostya,” she says. “It was dumb, but I never hurt anyone besides myself. I never did cocaine again and a month ago in Amsterdam was the first time I’d smoked pot in a year and a half. I finally confessed to my mom about the car and it turns out she knew the whole damn time, because she’s not stupid.”
Her eyes are glittering with tears. She looks back down at the table, and I feel shittier than I even thought possible.
“Did you want anything else?” she asks, her voice hushed and strangled. “Maybe the time I killed my goldfish when I was ten because I forgot to feed it?”
“That’s everything,” I say, quietly.
She stands, her arms crossed in front of her, jaw clenched against the angry tears filling her eyes.
“Am I dismissed?” she asks.
I just want to fucking rewind. To five minutes ago, before I picked this stupid fight with the person who matters most to me. To yesterday, in the stairwell, when maybe I could have said I miss you, I’m sorry, I want it to be different.
To the day my father was murdered, when maybe we could have left twenty minutes earlier and driven away and just never come back.
“Things are starting to turn around,” I say, swallowing. “We’re gaining ground. The staff is going back home. We’ll have the airport within a week.”
“And then I go home?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say.
She nods once, dodges around me, and leaves the office.
I sit in the folding chair, my elbows on my knees and my face in my hands, because right now, I hate this. I hate being King, I hate being in charge, I hate being watched every second, and I hate that I couldn’t even stop that conversation from going down the drain.
I’m still sitting there when Niko finds me a few minutes later.
“Good news,” he says.
“Please,” I say.
Chapter Thirty-One
Hazel
I don’t cry until I’m power walking down the hall, head down, trying to hide my face with my hair because I absolutely fucking hate it when I cry and I hate it worse when I cry in public.
I flee to the laundry room, in the basement, because it’s warm and noisy and there’s no one in there. For a moment I consider burying myself in the huge basket of clean sheets, but I settle for sitting on the floor in the corner, my back against an industrial dryer.
Then I just fucking sob. I’m angry at the Post for telling everyone why I dropped out of med school and for running that picture, but I’m mad at myself all over again for doing it in the first place. I’m angry at Kostya for being a dick about it, and I’m angry at him for not even saying something and just cutting contact without even saying goodbye.