“I’m sorry?” What the fuck is that?
Then I feel awful for being mad at him, because he has way bigger shit to worry about than my feelings, and I should give him the benefit of the doubt. I fucking know that, but I still feel like he’s taken sandpaper to my heart. And now I’m going home, and even though I know it’s obviously the best decision, I don’t want to.
I want to stay here. I want things to be normal again. I want to go back to Kostya trying to make jokes in the rose garden.
After a while, I stop finding reasons that I’m crying and just cry until I’ve got the hiccups.
I’m in the laundry room for a long, long time.
Kostya was right, and things start to turn around. He figured out pretty fast that the United Svelorian Front wasn’t united at all: the group responsible for his father’s death was a tiny, fringe segment, and a much larger part of the Front would be happy with governmental reform instead of overthrow.
Plus, the peaceful factions resent the fringe elements for dragging them into this. It doesn’t take much for the USF to start fighting itself while the Svelorian army nips at its heels.
Once Velinsk is safe, the palace workers all go home. Yelena goes back to her family’s villa on the Black Sea, and suddenly, the palace feels oddly empty without her around to chat with me about the best time to go sailing on the sea, or her favorite shampoo, or home remedies for colds.
She’s not smart, but she’s a genuinely nice, good-hearted person. Especially after the week we’ve had, I think maybe that’s better. Being smart hasn’t gotten me much of anywhere.
The only upside is I’m alone in my rooms again, which I’d been sharing with Yelena, two of the women who do the laundry, and the chef. Not that I spend much time there; I spend half the day in briefings and meetings as the unofficial American presence in the palace, and the other half taking care of odds and ends that someone has to do.
I see Kostya constantly. He’s in nearly every meeting, every briefing, every meal. We pass each other in the halls, exchange looks, and don’t talk. He’s always surrounded by people and I don’t know what the fuck to say, or where to start, or whether I even should. I know he’s got more things to worry about than me.
At least I sleep like the dead. Two nights in a row I fall asleep with a laptop next to me, trying to finish one last thing or go through one last briefing. Despite growing up with a diplomat, I don’t know shit about any of this, and I’m desperately trying to learn.
The third night, I jolt awake and don’t know why. The room is perfectly quiet and still, mostly dark, but I know something woke me up and got my adrenaline pumping.
Then I hear it: a soft but insistent knock on the door.
Something happened, I think. Anxiety squeezes my chest and my mind starts racing as I grab the black robe and pull it on.
There was another bombing. The USF is pushing back and coming for Velinsk, and we have to leave right now.
Kostya’s dead.
That last thought makes my fingers and toes go cold. The knock sounds again, and I knot the robe around my waist, half-run to the door through the dark, and pull it open.
It’s Kostya. He looks like hell.
He’s still in the clothes he was wearing that day, dress pants and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and it’s rumpled and creased, like he fell asleep in it at some point. His eyes have dark circles around them, they’re bloodshot, and he hasn’t shaved in a day or two.
I’m sure I don’t look much better.
“What happened?” I ask, the only question I can think of. Something has to be wrong.
“Can I come in?” he asks.
I step back and he enters, closing the door behind him. We’re in the living room in my little apartment. I’m very aware that I’m naked except this flimsy robe and he’s still dressed like he’s going to an office, and my arms are crossed over my chest like that will somehow make me more clothed.
I try not to think about the last time he was in this apartment. That was a week and a world ago.
“We should have the airport again within two days,” he says.
I just nod.
“So you can go back to the U.S.,” he goes on.
I almost say yes, I understood the implication there but I don’t.
“But what happened?” I ask.
“I got a report from the seventh division that they’re making good progress,” he says.
“Is that it?” I ask.
His eyes flick to the windows behind me, the bedroom door, taking everything in.
“Yes,” he says.
We pause for a long moment and look at each other, and then he looks away and runs one hand through his hair, the cords in his neck popping.
“It’s two-thirty in the morning,” I say. “And you came to tell me something might happen in two days?”
“I thought you’d want to know,” he says.
I swallow hard and look at the floor. He didn’t come to tell me that, and he’s not still standing there because he came here to tell me that, but I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what he wants and I don’t know what I want and I don’t know how any of this should be working, right now, in the middle of all this shit.
He’s here because it’s your room, not to tell you that, I think.
I take a deep breath, then hold out my hand.
He looks at it, then at me. He takes it, his fingers warm and rough just like always.
I lead him to the couch. I sit and then pull him down until we’re half-sitting, half-lying, propped up on one arm, his head on my chest. My robe’s come partly open, and after a minute he puts both arms around me, his rough stubble on my bare skin.
I drape one arm across his shoulders and stroke his hair with the other hand, and he lets me. For the first time in days I feel like I’m doing the right thing at last, even though I couldn’t put it into words.
I just know, deep down, that this is why he’s here. This is what he needs. Gradually, he relaxes into me, his shoulders losing tension, his breathing getting slower and evening out.
“I met my father for the first time in this palace,” he suddenly says, and I jump.
“I thought you were asleep,” I say.
“Not quite,” he says.
“You remember meeting your father?” I ask.
“I do,” he says. “I didn’t know that was strange until years later, when I was a teenager. I guess for most people, their fathers are always... there.”
“I don’t remember meeting mine,” I say.
“It wasn’t really the first time,” Kostya says, shifting a little. “He was around when I was very young, but I don’t remember that at all. I didn’t recognize him when I met him here.”
I can’t imagine meeting my father. He’s just there, a fixture in my earliest memories.
“I was two when the Soviet Union fell, and my father left to lead the monarchist forces against the communists,” he goes on, his voice half dreamy. “He sent my mother and me to safety. The last few years of the civil war, we were here, back before it was restored, and it was filthy and dilapidated, but it was beautiful in the way old, dilapidated things can be.”
I keep stroking his hair and let him talk.