She takes the medicine and crawls into bed, and I watch her sleep fitfully, her face still flushed with fever, her breathing rough. I watch her for hours, unable to look away, unable to focus on anything else, even though I have work to do, people to meet, a life that's supposed to exist outside of this obsession.
But there is no outside anymore. There's only her, and the desperate need to make sure she's okay.
I've become someone I don't entirely recognize, someone who installs cameras in a woman's hotel room and watches her sleep and convinces himself it's protection. But I can't stop, because the alternative is not knowing if she's safe, not knowing if she's eating or sleeping or taking care of herself, not knowing if someone's found her, and I'm not there to stop it.
The alternative is losing her, and that's not an option.
It takes her a few days to recover, but I see her slowly getting better as she consumes the medicine, soup, and everything else that I make sure she’s well stocked with. I send her real, solid food once there’s more color in her face and she’s sitting up more often, and I try to put her out of my head when I’m doing business for Ilya or in meetings. I can’t let my life unravel because of her, and I know Ilya has begun to notice that I’m distracted. I’ve passed it off as tiredness, maybe even a little illness of my own, but that’s not going to hold forever. I need to get it together.
And, for a few days, I actually manage to pull myself back into some semblance of normalcy. I remind myself that if I come apart, Ilya will figure out what’s wrong and interrogate me until I have no choice but to tell him the truth. To keep Svetlana safe, to make up for everything I didn’t do before, I have to do better at keeping up appearances.
Until I check on the camera feed and see her in the motel room bathroom, holding a box that, even with the grainy feed, I can read the words that are on it.
I feel my breath catch, and my heart nearly stop, because I can see what she’s doing, but I can’t see the result. And in that instant, I’m consumed with a need to know, to be absolutely fucking sure of what’s happening right now… or what happened just a little while ago, when Svetlana was holding that box in her hand.
When she was taking a fucking pregnancy test.
15
SVETLANA
When the groceries appear, I have no idea what’s going on.
I come back from the convenience store to find a paper bag stuffed full of fruit, bread, fancy cheese, juice, and ready-to-eat meals with pasta, veggies, protein, and pretty much anything else I could need. There’s even ice cream. There’s no note, no indication of who left it, but my first instinct is gratitude so overwhelming it makes my throat tight.
Someone is looking out for me. A neighbor, maybe. Someone who's noticed the girl in room 204, who looks half-starved and desperate.
I bring the bag inside quickly, glancing down the hallway to see if anyone's watching. The corridor is empty, dim, and silent in the late-afternoon light. I close the door and lock it, then set the bag on the small table and stare at its contents like they might disappear if I look away.
Real food. Not the convenience store crackers and pastries I've been surviving on. One of the oranges, when I peel it and bite into it, tastes so good I almost start to cry—not just because of how good it tastes, but also because it feels like proof thatsomewhere out in this world that’s started to feel so horrible to me, there are still decent people.Kindpeople.
Someone noticed me and cared enough to leave it.
And it keeps happening—not just the groceries but delivered meals from restaurants, even good coffee and creamer. My hotel room is still a drab, miserable hovel, but the food and coffee and treats brighten it, and I start to feel more hopeful. Like maybe, soon, I can make plans to leave this city and start over.
Then, of course, right as I start to feel like I can make some progress toward whatever my future is going to be, I get the flu for the first time in years. It feels worse than I’ve ever had before, and I can’t exactly go to a doctor. But before I can force myself to the nearest pharmacy and spend some of my remaining money on cold medicine—which feels like adding insult to injury, especially when the money is dwindling faster than I’d like—a bag of everything I could possibly need shows up in front of my door.
There’s cold medicine, pain relievers, vitamins, soup, and orange juice. Again, no note. I’m grateful, but I’m also wary, because I haven’t seen anyone paying attention to me, and no one has tried to talk to me. Who would do this? And why? I don’t think anyone stays here for very long, but all of this has been coming for at least a week now.
I take the medicine anyway, and try not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I’m exhausted and nauseous, my body aching from what must be sickness brought on by stress and poor nutrition. A physical manifestation of everything I've been through catching up with me all at once.
The nausea is worse the next morning. I barely make it to the bathroom before I'm retching into the toilet, my whole body convulsing with the force of it. There's nothing in my stomach to bring up—I’ve barely eaten since yesterday morning—but thatdoesn't stop the heaving. When it finally passes, I slump against the wall, sweating and shaking.
The flu. It has to be the flu. I've been run down, stressed, not eating enough, or sleeping enough. Of course I got sick.
I pull myself up to the sink and splash cold water on my face, avoiding my reflection in the mirror. I don't want to see what I look like right now—pale and hollow-eyed and barely holding on. I drag myself back to bed, and go back and forth for a couple of days, sleeping and puking and taking medicine and trying to force soup down in between.
The flu passes after a few days, likely helped by all of the kind gifts. I don’t want to think about how long I would have been sick if I’d had to make it through all on my own, having to drag myself out of bed to go out and get more medicine and soup and anything else I needed. But even after the flu is gone, the nausea doesn’t let up. Someone leaves more solid meals for me outside my room, but at least one meal a day insists on coming back up, especially in the morning and later at night.
On the third day or so after the flu is gone, but I’m still throwing up, it hits me that I can’t recall the last time I had my period.
It’s been a few months, for sure. I had it when I was first sold to Iosef, a few months in a row like normal, and I was treated like shit every time. Only Grigory would still fuck me while I was on it, so he kept me in his room, treating me even more roughly when I didn’t act grateful that he was willing to touch me. After a few months, it stopped. I was terrified that I was pregnant at first, but when I had no other symptoms, I assumed it was stress and malnutrition. I used to lose it when I was a ballerina, and I thought it was more of the same.
But what if…
The thought that one of those men might have gotten me pregnant makes me sick all over again, violently. And then Iremember Kazimir, and the fear presses down on my chest until I think I could pass out from it.
What if it’shis?
