After a moment, Natasha exhaled.
“And don’t give me some bull about baseball either, Natasha.”
She didn’t answer.
She didn’t have to.
I already knew.
She loved Lachlan MacKenzie. Enough to let him go.
Did that make her stronger than us all? Even her mom. Would’ve gutted my pride if she hadn’t waited for me. Zariah had. But I’d done her wrong. Made no promises in word or action. So, did this grand sacrifice make Natasha stronger than us? Or more broken?
27
NATASHA
May- Los Angeles
Justice’swise adage at the end of Taco Tuesday had already echoed through my brain for a while when Pop’s observations turned the resonance into a roar. I replayed their wisdom, picked apart each treasure in the quiet spaces of my days. And then I told my therapist about the Russian. I’d started to attend therapy twice a week again. Still not sure if it was helpful.
Yet this morning, guilt crushed my chest over how I’d ruined my brother’s night during our drink fest at his frat house at UC San Diego. I rubbed the heel of my palm over the ache while lying in bed, then grabbed my cell phone and shot him a quick message.
ME: You ok?
BOOBIE: DA.
Great. That one-letter word. All caps and aperiod.
I tried to remember when my quest to terrorize him as kids had gotten too intense. We had the usual scary stories. Plus,I once told him to jump from the garage roof because it was shorter than the house.
And Vassilievich … trusted me.
Does a broken leg hurt? Fourteen-year-old me had asked an eleven-year-old Vass as he lay in bed, leg in a cast. Of course, the garage jump went horribly wrong.
Da, he’d said.
So, this was not good. And another thing? He’d responded to my text too soon. He should be in class. No matter how drunk we got, leave it to Vassilievich to sit in front of his professor at UC San Diego, ready to engage.
I scrutinized his text. A subtle scream that came from the pain of holding my secrets. Why had I told him? He’d invited me to hang. And being Russian, we drank. A lot.
And I got too chatty. Told him what I’d told Lach. The big reveal had started with a tipsy question as to why Lachlan had another woman meet him at his Airbnb. And then I’d laughed and said,No, she was crazy. Probably crazy. So far, it had sounded like I was conversing solo, while his dark gander tracked sleazy Sorors.
But the thing about Russians?
The instant a serious topic arose, that eat-grass type of drunk was obliterated and rendered one instantly sober. Being half Russian was no exception.Guess twice a week cognitive behavior therapy wasn’t enough. Dr. Vashone had given me a list of sexual assault group sessions too. But still, I blabbed to my kid brother?
He’d kicked everyone out of the frat house, brothers in togas included, and Borya, who’d sat in the corner nursing the same shot. Vassilievich had grilled me in a way Lachlan hadn’t.
“I’m sorry for telling you!”I’d shouted.
“You aremoya sestra.” Nostrils flared, Vass’s voice turned into ash and gravel. “You didn’t. You didn’t speak with the authorities?”
“Just Lach. Then Dr. Vashone. But Lach …” I’d tried to steer the conversation toward my fragmented love life.
Vengeance had burned in Vass’s eyes, molten lava. “We need to figure out who did this, Natasha,” he’d said. No, Cutie Pie, or other words of affection, to which I could annoy and call him Boobie.
“I’msorry I told you,brat,”I whispered into the quiet of my massive bedroom. He shouldn’t have to carry my pain.
