Looking at those sad, sad eyes, I could see the boy who was broken before he had a chance. A boy building electronics out of trash. Afraid to love a stray cat—and then forced to love toohard. A lonely way to live, and no way to die.
I won’t pretend that I fully understood him at that time, because I didn’t. But I saw his heart. I’ve always seen his heart. And over the years that followed, I never once regretted that moment. Sitting in that kitchen with Vitali Konstantinov and telling him that I accept him, all of him, remains the best decision of my life.
Even though I never became Mrs. Konstantinova.
“Katya,” he said, cradling my face as he knelt beside me. “If I could remake myself just to be with you, I would. And God knows I am trying. I know I’ll never be good enough, but I can promise you that I’ll never stop trying. I’ll give you everything, and if you want more—I’ll find a way to give you more. Be mine, because if you don’t want it, it doesn’t count.”
His forehead rested against my own, anchored in place and fully enveloped by him. I swallowed the hiccups between my ugly tears, barely aware that I’d let them spill.
“You’re enough,” I managed through the sobs. “Vitali, you’re already enough.”
“Katya,” he whispered, breath mingling with mine in the space closing between us. The kiss was soft, and heartbreaking, and so raw and loyal and everything that I needed at that ugly moment.
The same ugly moment I was sitting with my elbow propped up on a table with a large stack of his almost-ex’s photographs that I found while trying to saw myself off a leather leash with a piece of a broken mirror.‘Vera and Vitali’sounded stupid anyway, the names didn’t go together at all…
No music played, but it felt like it should. Instead, there were the upstairs thumps of people getting ready for their days and the soft whine of a poorly insulated kitchen window. And us. That wet, hot point between us that forgave everything we hadsaid and done.
When our lips parted, he wrapped his arms around me in that tight, awkward way one does when they’re kneeling beside you.
“Kotik,” he said. “We found Elena.”
His tone didn’t need further words. My tears never had a chance to dry. I fell asleep in his arms three hours later, just past eight o’clock, exhausted with my face red-raw.
Vitali paid for her funeral four days later. I didn’t even have to ask.
39
Vitali: Who Was Vera?
Vera, as infaith.
It’s appropriate because I don’t actually know if she’s real—all I have to go off of is her smiling face on a pamphlet to some weight loss or soul-healing seminar called ‘Insight.’I picked it up off the sidewalk on my way home.
It’s my eighteenth birthday, and I’m sitting alone on the bottom bunk of an otherwise empty room, picking at the skin peeling off as the tattoos heal. I shouldn’t be picking at it, but it’s so goddamn itchy I can’t stop. Still an improvement from my last birthday, I’m not sure I even knew when it passed by, but it’s better that way.
I stare at the pamphlet, and I’m frustrated because I hate the way it makes me feel. I just want to throw away that piece of paper, but I can’t, so instead I go to Insight on the appointed date.
Vera.
They run these meetings once a month, and it turns out they just bring in foreigners to talk about spiritual healing, theneveryone gets a candle and waves it around in the dark. I take a candle, too.
Vera is in the front row nearest the podium; she has her eyes closed, and they’re twitching a little as they do when you’re in prayer. Seeing her makes the back of my skull itch, like the tattoos, but in a way that sends zaps down my spine. I feel as though I know her from somewhere and have for a long time, but that can’t be right.
I don’t like what happens at these things; it seems like a religious thing, and my relationship with God isn’t great. But it doesn’t matter because this isn’t God, just candles and people’s dead relatives telling them what animal their spiritual self would be.
I got to be a cat.
I followed her after, because it seemed important. I made sure not to step on cracks in the sidewalk because it might kill her somehow.
It only got worse from there.
I needed the entire picture, so I found out where she worked. She’s a baker, so she gets up early, and this works for me because I can go straight to work after seeing her off. Sometimes I’m late because I smoke a few cigarettes across the street and watch her at the register. The bread smells nice, but I never go in.
My head is ticking. Kind of how bombs tick on TV. In reality, if there’s a clock on one, it’s quiet. You don’t want people to know it’s there. Most kinds don’t even have that, but if you put your ear real close, you can hear the wires settling.
At times, I’ve thought myself born a contained explosive. The flesh and thoughts and dreams just grew around it, encasing it in something that could house the promised destruction. But that doesn’t mean it’s safe, only hidden, and all it takes is a hithard enough to set it off. I’ve been hit many times, by many things, but the explosion never makes it out—only shreds and shapes the form around it until all I am is a consequence of not being handled with care.
I lose some time because my brain flashes, and suddenly there she is, and she’s looking at me, and we’re in an alley. I panic, because I’m too close and she’s frightened. She doesn’t know me yet like I know her, and she mouths a ‘please.’ She didn’t see my face; it’s dark. I take off running because I don’t know how I got there, and I’m scared I’ve already said something wrong. Sometimes I snap, and everything loses focus, and that’s how bad decisions happen but I’m not around for that.
