It feels a lot like that tonight. Everything I’ve known since the age of fourteen is like the seemingly invulnerable concrete in that parking lot, disintegrating under the force of something beyond my comprehension.
There are absolutes in my life. The sky is blue. I am Russian. And I am going to have to marry Konstantin Turgenev.
Now everything that shapes my life has changed and I don’t know how to process it. I’ve read through the legal documents twice and everything he said was true. If I sign this document,it’s over. I don’t have to marry him and, based on what I’ve heard and read, the alliance between our families continues.
How does this happen? How did he get Maksim and his parents to agree to this? They would really go back on a seven-year agreement because he asked them to?
“You’re up early,” Tatiana stumbles into the room, yawning. “It’s the running, isn’t it? You’re getting into it.” Starting the coffee maker, she leans against the counter. “What’s that?” She nods at the papers in my hand.
“Konstantin climbed up the wall outside my balcony last night,” I said, my voice sounding high and strange. “He showed me a video from Maksim and his parents.”
Tati’s clutching her coffee cup, eyes wide.“Bozhe moy,my god. What did that man do now?”
“He convinced them to end our engagement and keep the alliance between our families, with the condition that he be allowed to court me. I get to choose whether or not we marry.”
“What… he…” she starts and stops her response a couple of times and stares at me for a while. “Can that bedone?”
“I guess so?” Shaking my head for the fiftieth time that morning, I say, “I’ve never heard of something like this, but… I mean, my brother Yuri’s wedding was stopped right at the altar, but that was more blackmail than anything.”
“Okay…” she seems to have recovered her equilibrium faster than I have, sitting next to me and handing me a cup of coffee. “What doyouwant to do?”
“He says he loves me,” I burn my tongue with a gulp of hot coffee, not really noticing. “He asked me to give him a chance toprove it. He apologized for being stupid and prideful and getting angry at me for saving his life.”
She’s silent for a moment. “Are you sure this wasn’t a dream?”
“No, Tati! It was real! There’s a grappling hook on my balcony railing to prove it!” I snap.
We both break out in slightly hysterical laughter at the ludicrousness of this moment.
“Okay,” she wheezes, trying to get her breath back. “You don’t have to make any decisions right away, but you must admit, this is one hell of a grand gesture. No, not a gesture, a change. A commitment.”
“Can someone change overnight?” I ask, a sudden dread feels like it is pressing down on my chest. “Remember the morning after the first time we were together? He insisted on outing us a couple in the middle of the main square on campus, and then not forty-eight hours later lost his shit because I saved his life?”
Tatiana throws her arm over my shoulder, resting her head against mine for a moment as we ponder this dilemma. “He told you he wanted a chance to prove to you that he could treat you well,” she offers, “he has to know that’s not an overnight process. You take the time you need until you feel like you can trust that this change is real.”
“Well, this is probably going to be his first test,” I said.
“What’s that?”
My smile is dark. “The Christmas Eve party.”
Konstantin starts slowly, joining us again for most meals in the dining hall, sitting across from me with Lucca, lookinggorgeously, gracefully casual. After a few days, the buzz died down over fresh new gossip about one of the seniors breaking up with both of the men she’d been seeing.
“Good for her,” Athena said. “The odds here are great. She can find another couple of eager studs in no time.”
“Did they know she was just using them for sex?” It’s Tatiana, ever the soft-hearted one. “Maybe they really cared for her.”
Lucca points his fork at her. “They’re twenty-two years old. The only thing they’re thinking about is sex. You don’t need to feel sorry for them.”
“Really?” Tati purrs, “That’s the only thing twenty-two-year-old men think about? So shallow and meaningless?”
His eyes widen and I can’t help laughing as he awkwardly starts backtracking. “I mean, not me, of course. You and I, that’s different.”
Konstantin’s eyes meet mine across the table, warm and intent.
Konstantin…
Winter is settling heavily over the campus, but there’s a slow thaw between Mariya and me.
