And suddenly I understand with perfect clarity how badly this could still go if one more wrong word gets said.
So before Ethan can find one, I step back and say the first practical thing I can think of. “He needs to lie down.”
It sounds absurd after what just happened, and yet somehow that absurdity helps. It gives the moment something ordinary to lean on. A task. A next step. Something other than the lie still hanging in the air.
Alina nods once, tight and furious and pale. “Yes,” she says. “He does.”
She starts steering Ethan down the hall, not gently, and this time he goes. Not because he’s calm, but because the moment has shifted beyond him and he finally knows it.
As they move away, Ethan looks back once.
At me. Then at Viktor.
I don’t know what he thinks he’s done. I only know the damage of it is not in the words themselves. It’s in the fact that they were spoken at all.
I’m still standing there, hands shaking now that I’m no longer holding on to anyone, and I can feel Viktor across from me like a second pulse in the room.
Things just keep getting worse. That’s the only coherent thought I have.
I don’t know whether to speak first or stay still or apologize for something that wasn’t mine to say and wasn’t true anyway.
In the end, all I manage is, “He’s lying.” My voice sounds smaller than I want it to.
Viktor looks at me, then turns and walks away without another word.
For a second I just stand there.
Then I go after him. “Viktor.”
He doesn’t stop.
The corridor feels too long all at once, the carpets swallowing my footsteps, the lamps throwing too much light on everything I don’t want seen. I catch up to him just before the turn near the back staircase and reach for his arm. “Viktor, wait.”
He stops then. When he turns, his face is controlled in a way that scares me more than anger would have. Not cold exactly. Worse. Shut down. All that attention of his turned inward instead of toward me.
“You lied to me,” he says.
The words land low and heavy.
I shake my head at once. “No.”
His mouth tightens. “You told me Ethan meant nothing.”
“He doesn’t.”
He looks at me for a long second, and the hurt in his face is quiet enough to be worse than shouting. “You didn’t tell me the truth.”
I swallow. That part is true. Not the part Ethan said. But the part underneath it. I didn’t tell Viktor that Ethan was my ex. I let that stay hidden because I knew exactly how ugly it was, how tangled it would make everything, how impossible it would feel once it was spoken out loud.
“I didn’t tell you everything,” I say. “That’s not the same thing.”
His laugh is short and joyless. “That’s a very convenient distinction.”
“It matters.”
“To you, maybe.”
“It matters to me because Ethan doesn’t matter,” I say, and my voice shakes despite everything I do to keep it steady. “Not like that. Not anymore. He didn’t tell the truth back there.”
