“Why did you do it?” he asked as he got inside. “Why did you follow me there?”
I shrugged, not meeting his eyes. “I wanted to spend New Year’s Day with you.”
He ran a hand down his face, and his fingers tapped on the steering wheel. “Katya, this is no good.”
“The club or the now?”
“Does it matter?”
“…You killed people, Vitali,” I mumbled. “A lot of innocent people. Of course it matters.”
He said nothing.
“It could have been me… it could have been Elena.”
“Are you going to leave?” he asked, and there was that note again—the pained scratch at the back of his throat like a record player skipping. “It won’t be easy now, but I’ll pay for whatever you need. I didn’t want to put you in this position.”
I nodded, but I didn’t see it as agreement, only acknowledgment, and he must have misread that because he hit the steering wheel with the force of his entire body behind his fist, the horn going off as a split-second reminder to compose himself. He didn’t look at me, just rubbed his chin and continued staring at the road.
“I’m not leaving,” I said. “I’m not. I just need… I need to sleep. And I need to process things. And I need to sober up.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No…” I said, and only at that moment did I feel the cut near my temple ache. “Just scraped up is all.”
“I’m sorry, Katya,” he said quietly.
I started to instinctively say‘it’s not your fault,’but this time it was, and what do you say at a moment like that? “Me too.”
“Does Mama know?”
I shook my head. We rode in silence for a while. Neither of us tried to turn on the radio or play a CD, just listened to the crunch of winter tires and the other cars on the road. When we stopped at my building, he didn’t move to get out. His not opening the door for me is probably what divorce felt like.
I reached for the handle, but he firmly gripped my thigh.
“Don’t do that. Don’t ever do that,” he said. “If I ever see you try to open a door again, you’re going to lose your unlocked-car privileges. Why did you go after me?”
The day, the very worst day (so far), had been very long, and I was still buzzed, and so, so tired. Sergei was right; emotions ran high, national tragedy and all.
“Because I was jealous,” I said. “I thought you were seeing someone else, and I didn’t want you to see anyone else.”
“And did you? See me with someone else?”
“No…”
“That’s because I don’tseeanyone but you, Kotik.” He gently squeezed my leg with fingers fully capable of leaving bruises.
But, I definitely was still drunk because the words‘is it because you drank the vodka?’ still left my mouth, and were such a bad, tasteless joke that I immediately started cackling in horror. He waited for my fit to end.
“I’m not going to have a serious conversation with you like this, Katya, but wewilltalk about it.”
“Can you just leave me alone…”
He turned his head sharply just as he was about to get out. “What?”
“Can you just leave me alone for a while… I’m not okay…”
The moment dropped several degrees lower than the Siberian winter outside.
