13
Polina
The cigarette smell wakes me.
It is faint enough that it could be drifting in from the street, but I know better. I reach for Lev before my eyes are fully open, and my hand finds cold sheets.
I lie still for a moment and listen. The apartment is quiet in a way that tells me I’m alone in it, and the deadbolt turn on the side door is vertical when it should be horizontal. He didn’t lock it on his way out, so he must be close enough to keep watch.
I consider letting it go. There’s a version of this where I roll over, pull up the blanket, and pretend I didn’t notice the empty bed or the unlocked door. It would be simpler, and I have always been good at choosing simpler when the alternative scares me.
Two months ago, I would have stayed in bed. Two months ago, I also didn’t know what it felt like to have someone pay attention, like everything I say and do is worth remembering.
I’ve spent my adult life being the most competent person in every room, and somehow, that’s always translated to peopletreating me like I didn’t need anything. Lev has never made that mistake. He notices when I’m running on four hours of sleep before I say a word. He shows up with food when I forget to eat, without making it a thing or waiting to be thanked. He listens to me talk about a patient I lost and doesn’t try to fix it or minimize it or tell me I did everything I could.
He's just present.
I don’t have a logical reason for why that undoes me, and I’ve stopped trying to construct one over the past few days.
So, I get up, pull the cardigan off the back of the chair, and go find him.
He’s on the fire escape. I can see him through the glass before I push the door open. His back is to me, and a cigarette is burning between two fingers. The cold blasts against my skin when I step outside.
“I thought you quit,” I prompt.
He doesn’t startle, which means he heard me coming. “I did.”
“And yet…”
“And yet.” He takes a slow drag without looking at me.
I lean in the doorway and cross my arms. He’s in yesterday’s trousers and the shirt he wore over here, untucked with the sleeves rolled despite the temperature. The cigarette is half gone.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing that requires your attention at two in the morning.”
“You’re on my fire escape smoking a cigarette, which you only do when something heavy is on your mind. It requires my attention.” I wait. “Lev.”
He takes one more drag, then flicks the cigarette out into the dark. When he turns around, he looks exhausted.
“My family is asking questions,” he explains, “about my priorities.”
I have gotten good at reading the space between his words. I step onto the fire escape and let the door fall mostly closed behind me. The metal grating is cold through my socks, and the city spreads out below us in every direction.
“Are we in danger?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer right away. I watch him decide how much to give me, which part of the truth survives the distance between his brain and his mouth. That pause tells me more than any answer would, and my stomach registers it first.
“Come here,” he says quietly, and opens his arm.
He pulls me into his side and wraps his arm around my shoulders, and I feel him press his lips to the top of my head before he looks back out at the city, where a cab rolls through the intersection below us and disappears.
I swallow hard to gather my courage. “I need to tell you something.”
“All right.”
I pull back enough to look at him. “We both know what our names mean. I need you to stop pretending otherwise. Whateverthis is between us, I won’t build it on silence. Especially not with the wolves at our door.”
