"Because I said so."
I stare at the back of his head and feel something snap inside me, some thread of tolerance that's been stretched too thin for too long.
"That's not an answer, Fyodor. That's you being an ass because you're having a bad day."
He spins around on one heel, and I see the anger flashing in his eyes before he even opens his mouth.
"I'm working, Noemi. I don't have time to take you shopping."
"I'm not asking you to take me shopping like it's some kind of leisure activity. I'm asking you to provide basic necessities for your son, who is sitting in there wearing the same clothes he's had on for two days because we had to leave everything behind."
"He's fine."
"He's not fine. He's depressed and disconnected and you've stuck a video game in his hands like that's going to solve it. He needs structure. He needs routine. He needs his father to actually show up and be present instead of hiding out on the balcony making phone calls about killing people."
My words are hurtful and I mean every one of them. I'm so tired of walking on eggshells around him, so tired of trying to manage his moods while he does nothing to manage them himself.
"You don't know what you're talking about," he says dismissively, and his eyes refocus on the horizon.
"I know exactly what I'm talking about. I've been watching you with him for weeks now, and you still don't get it. Even if you're having the worst day of your life, Sasha is still your child. Even if I walk away tomorrow and never look back, he's still going to need a father. Do you want him to grow up feeling the way you feel right now? Do you want him to be angry all the time, biting everyone's head off because he never learned how to deal with his emotions?"
Fyodor turns to look at me with an angry glare and says, "You don't know anything about how I feel."
"I know you're miserable. I know you're scared and overwhelmed and you don't know how to ask for help becauseyou've been trained your whole life to think that needing help makes you weak. But taking it out on me isn't going to fix anything, and taking it out on Sasha is going to destroy him."
He steps toward me, and I hold my ground, refusing to back down even when his body is close enough I can feel the heat radiating off him.
"You think you can just walk out here and tell me how to raise my son?"
"Right now? Yes. I absolutely do. That's what you brought me here for?—"
"You're not his mother."
The words hit me like a slap, and I feel my eyes sting with tears I refuse to let fall. "No, I'm not. His mother is dead, Fyodor. She's gone. And you're so busy working or whatever the hell you think you're doing that you can't even see what's right in front of you."
"Get out."
His voice is so loud that it echoes off the walls of the motel, bouncing back at us from the buildings around the parking lot. I hear movement behind me and turn to see Sasha standing at the balcony door, the controller dangling from his hand, his eyes wide and scared as he looks between us.
"Papa?" His voice is small, uncertain. "What's happening?"
Fyodor doesn't answer him. He just stands there glaring at me like I'm the enemy, like I'm the one who's been making his life difficult instead of the other way around.
Something breaks inside me. The last piece of hope I've been holding onto, a foolish belief that I could reach him, or help himbecome the father Sasha needs. I wanted so badly for this to work. I wanted him to like me, to trust me, to let me in. I wanted to be the one who changed him, who softened those hard edges and showed him that there was another way to live.
But he's too far gone. The walls are too high and the damage is too deep, and I can't keep throwing myself against them hoping they'll crumble.
Those men out there, Koslov's people, they're not coming for me. They're coming for him. And as much as I care about Sasha, as much as it kills me to leave him here with a father who doesn't know how to love him properly, I can't stay in a place where I'm treated like this. I can't keep letting him tear me apart because he doesn't know how to handle his own pain.
I walk back into the room without looking at Fyodor. I won't give him the satisfaction of seeing how badly he's hurt me, my whole body shaking with anger and heartbreak. Sasha watches me with those big, dark eyes, so much like his father's, and I have to look away before I start crying.
My purse is on the chair where I left it, my journal tucked inside along with the few things I took with me when we got breakfast. I pick it up and sling it over my shoulder, then turn to Sasha and crouch down so I'm at his level.
"Hey," I say softly. "Come here."
He steps toward me hesitantly, the controller still in his hand, and I reach out and brush the hair back from his forehead the way I've done a hundred times before.
"I have to go away for a little while," I tell him. "But I want you to know that I care about you very much, and none of this is your fault. Okay?"
