I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.
Her fists against my chest hurt like hell. But at least when she was hitting me, she was touching me. So long as that was true, I could feel something other than the pervasive numbness that’s consumed me since that night in the alley.
When a car pulls up to the building, I sit up straighter. As I watch, Yasmin climbs out, grocery bags in hand, wearing a white button-down shirt with a grease stain blooming across the front.She looks as exhausted as Eliana did. They both look like they’ve been running on fumes for weeks.
She’s tottering with the bags in her grasp, though they can’t be that heavy because they’re barely full. Even from here, I can make out the curved edge of a milk jug through the plastic, a loaf of bread crushed against what might be eggs. A sack of potatoes, maybe. Basic shit. Survival groceries.
Then the building door swings shut behind Yasmin, and I’m left staring at nothing again.
Until she reappears in the lit window.
Through the curtains, I watch a second silhouette merge. They must be talking, her and Eliana. Eliana’s smaller frame sways, then wobbles toward Yasmin like she’s been gut-shot. Even from here, through window glass and summer humidity and the gauzy curtains, I see it happen. Her knees buckle. Her whole body just gives up.
Yasmin catches her before she hits the ground. They sink together, two shapes becoming one dark mass against the amber light.
My hand moves to the door handle without conscious thought. Every instinct screams at me to go to her and fix the problem. But how can I, whenI’mthe goddamn problem?
I force my fingers to release the metal. She made herself crystal fucking clear. My presence would only make things worse.
Still, I can’t look away. Yasmin rocks Eliana back and forth. Like comforting a child.
I did this. I’m the root cause. The poison in her veins. And for the first time since the night it all went to shit, I feel something other than numbness.
I feelshame.
13
ELIANA
turn /t?rn/: noun
1: a seating cycle at a table.
2: the moment you realize you’re going back to him.
I tell Yasmin everything while we’re still sprawled on the floor. The words come out in barely comprehensible gasps between hiccups. “Bastian’s alive.”
“Bastian is— Wait, what? Eliana, what are you talking about?”
“The funeral—it was a lie— He’s alive, Yas. He was in the apartment when I got home.”
Her arms tighten around me. I can smell the grease from her shift, that heady combo of croissant butter and industrial cleaner that means she pulled a tough double. And here I am, dumping this fresh hell into her lap, like the asshole I am.
“He staged it,” I continue to splutter, “because his brother—Aleksei, the one from the Bratva—has his little brother Sage, he’sholding him hostage or something, I don’t know, and Bastian came here asking for my help, and I?—”
The hiccup turns into a sob that drowns out anything else I might try to say. Yasmin rocks me harder.
“I told him to leave,” I whisper. “I told him no.”
“Good,” Yasmin says fiercely. “You should have.”
“But Sage?—”
“—is not your problem.” Her hand strokes my hair, the gesture so sisterly that it makes my chest ache. “Bastian made his choices, El. You don’t owe him anything. He’s just a selfish bastard and you don’t owe him a single damn thing.”
“I hate him.”
“I know.”
