Because some hungers can't be tamed, only fed.
And we're both starving.
23 - Sofia
My fingers find the bracelet at my wrist, the silver half-heart charm I discovered in my old room just weeks ago. The metal is cool against my skin, unfamiliar still, and I twist it absently while staring out at the lake. I’d slipped it on this morning without thinking, drawn to this piece of my past I can’t quite remember.
Alexei's voice drifts from his study, speaking Russian to someone in Moscow about funeral arrangements he won't attend. His mother died yesterday asking for Mikhail, and now he's handling the aftermath with the same efficiency he brings to everything. Except when he broke down on the porch, sobbing apologies into my skin, comparing himself to his father, seeing his own cruelty reflected back.
The lakehouse creaks around me, old wood settling in the morning air. Dawn came hours ago, but I've been sitting here on the couch, unable to shake this feeling that something's about to crack open. My hands won't stop trembling. Coffee sits cold and untouched on the side table.
I should eat something. Should do anything except what I'm about to do.
Mikhail's door stands slightly ajar down the hall.
I've been avoiding it since we arrived, too heavy, too haunted. But now, with Alexei occupied, I can't resist the pull anymore. My bare feet are silent on the wooden floors as I approach, though each board groans beneath my weight like it's trying to warn me back.
The door swings open at my touch.
The room preserves youth like an insect in amber. Architecture books line shelves that reach the ceiling, spines cracked from use, corners folded to mark important passages. Models of impossible buildings crowd every surface: bridges that curve like ribbons, towers that spiral toward heaven, a concert hall that looks like it's made of glass wings. A teenage boy's dreams rendered in balsa wood and careful glue.
The morning light streaming through dusty windows makes everything glow like it's been dipped in honey. Even the dust motes dance with purpose, swirling in patterns that feel deliberate.
I sit on his bed, the mattress creaking beneath my weight. I breathe in the stale air that still somehow carries his scent: pencil shavings and the cologne teenage boys wear too much of, something green and hopeful.
Not searching. Just feeling.
But my eyes catch on the closet, door hanging open to reveal boxes stacked on the upper shelf. One has shifted forward, like it's been waiting.
I stand without deciding to, pull it down. Personal items, the box says in faded Cyrillic. My hands are already trembling though I don't know why.
Inside, tissue paper so old it crumbles at my touch. Letters in Russian I can read. Photos of people I don't recognize but feel I should. And beneath it all…
My vision tunnels.
A half-heart charm on a broken chain. Tarnished silver, the exact size and shape of—
My hands shake violently as I pull off my bracelet. Hold them together with fingers that won't stop trembling.
They fit.
Perfectly.
Two halves of one heart.
The room tilts sideways. My chest constricts, breath coming in short, painful gasps. And the wall in my mind, the one that's been cracking since I found Mikhail's diary, shatters completely.
The memories don't trickle. They crash over me like a dam bursting, but these aren't the fragments I recovered before. This is something deeper, darker, the part my mind locked away even from those partial memories.
The garden where I remember him teaching me Russian, but now there's more.
His voice, urgent, desperate: "This changes everything, Sofia."
Not just Russian lessons. Not just friendship. Something else.
The night before.
No. No, no, no.
