I didn’t want another friendly face to disappear from my world, but I understood why he wanted to leave. “No matter what happens, I think of you as a friend. I don’t want to lose you.”
He leaned over and gave me a quick hug. “No matter what happens, we’ll keep in touch.”
I could smellthe cabbage and onions the second I opened the door. My home no longer smelled like my own. It smelled exactly like my uncle and aunt’s house back in Russia. Bandit was no longer waiting for me by the front door, and I knew he was probably hiding in Axel’s room upstairs.
I put my bag down and walked into the kitchen. Two burly men with matching dirty aprons were cooking up a storm. I could see the smoked sausage lying across the island and a fresh loaf of rye bread cooling on the counter.
My stomach rolled with nausea at the smell of my old prison.
“Who are you?” I deliberately spoke in English.
They looked at each other and spoke in Russian between themselves.
“Do you understand her?”
“Not a clue.”
One of them shrugged at me and then proceeded to ignore me. He looked at his counterpart. “I’m about to cook the smoked fish. Are you done with the oven?”
I marched over to the fridge to grab a yogurt, but instead of the yogurt and fruit that Jordan usually stocked for me, I sawonly jars of beetroot in vinegar, pickles, sauerkraut and baskets of dough. Even my cans of soda water were missing and replaced with short bottles of stout beer.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Aunt Lena’s voice sounded sharply in Russian.
I looked over to see her glaring at me. “I’m looking for something to eat. Do you know where they put the fruit?”
“This room is restricted. You will not get in their way or crowd their workspace with your little food quirks. Going forward, dinner will be served at 8 p.m. It’s formal dress, so be ready.”
I was so shocked that she was speaking to me about my own home in that way that I didn’t even know how to respond. I simply shut the fridge, avoided her gaze and walked around the island to move upstairs, pausing only to pick up my bag.
Tears burned my eyes by the time I reached my bedroom. I found a grateful Bandit wagging his tail like crazy on the bed. I lay and cuddled with him for a moment.
“Want to go for a walk?”
He nuzzled against me and tried to lick my face.
“I’m sorry you have to be here without Jordan all day,” I murmured into his thick neck fur. “But I promise you this is only temporary.”
I woremy most demure dress and endured dinner with my uncle and aunt, miserable over both the food and the company. We started with a thick, smoky soup that was too sour, too salty and too hot for my liking. The main course was cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and minced beef, smothered in a tomato and sour cream sauce. The texture was both limp and heavy, and theboiled sweetness was suffocating. There wasn’t a fresh vegetable in sight. Dessert was my uncle’s favorite. Fried quark pancakes that were heavy, sweet and still somehow sour. The whole meal made me feel trapped.
It felt like I was being dragged back to a life I had thought I had escaped, and I was both terrified and resolute. I would never go back.
Even though it was a school night, I waited up until after one in the morning for Axel to come home from work. He opened the door quietly and seemed surprised to see me sitting sleepily in bed, with the bedside lamp on.
“You’re still awake?”
“I need to talk to you,” I told him.
He nodded as he tossed his expensive suit jacket over the back of a chair and started to unbutton his dress shirt. “Sounds important.”
“My aunt fired Jordan.”
His jaw tightened. “I got a text from him. I meant to call you before you got home from school, but work got away from me.”
I was shocked that no one bothered to tell me. “Jordan was my friend, and he was great at his job, and I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
He moved to the bed and sat down on the edge beside me. “I’m sorry.”
My eyes filled with tears. “She was so horrible to him.”
