Aleksandr.
Back in one of the banquettes, near the window. Coffee, white saucer. A newspaper, theTimes.Good suit, glint of cuff links at his wrists. He’s focused, reading. A Friday morning.
One man, in a city of millions.
A held breath suffuses through her, as she takes him in—this intimacy, unseen for a few seconds longer. She could almost stand still and believe he’s waiting for her, in this moment before he’ll look up; could imagine that he’d smile, seeing her; that he’s hers still.
“Sorry,” Lili says to the host, “meeting someone. Thank you—”
She almost doesn’t want to see it: the moment when he notices her.
This was stupid,she starts to think, heart pounding as she weaves between the tables. She tries to wipe her clammy palms against her skirt—simple clothes, a thin sweater; all black, meant to be comfortable—and she tries to remember—think, Lili, think—the words she’d cobbled together when she was lying awake last night. What she might have said to him in the park, in Paris, on the phone, and the wordless things she’d cried into her pillow for weeks, and what she might say to him now: this man who might not speak a single word to her, who might leave before she can evenopen her mouth; this man who once held her so close as she grieved her parents with years-old pain, who pushed her too far and picked her up; this man who might already be done with her, and might leave her here now, with nothing but indifference, coldness, and her own empty hands.
Her boots scuff against the floor, almost tripping.
“Fuck,” she mutters.
A glance of dark eyes up from his newspaper, her fumble drawing his attention—the same instinct as when a server moves by fast with full plates, or sets down fresh coffee.
But he sees her, instead.
And oh,oh—that instant, when he sees her: unexpected in this restaurant, the part of his lips, taken aback, and the amount she sees in his eyes then, the openness of his expression, a gaze full of so much—disbelief, confusion, want—a sharp split second of an inhale shared between them again, before he hardens; before his expression shutters fast with intense hostility, fingers tensing around the newspaper.
But in that instant of a moment, before she is shut out—
There’s something here. Even if it’s just hate, and hurt, it’s something that cared about her, once.
That might—could—care still.
“Hi,” she says. Her voice is quiet, a little fumbling, but it is not weak.
He stares at her.
Lili clears her throat. “Could I sit? Please?”
His newspaper snaps as he throws it onto the table. “Are you lost?”
She flinches. His voice, last heard over voicemail—heated with desperation,fucking talk to me—is now so cold. “No, I...” She trails off, glancing at the floor: panicked heart, shaking breath.
Look at him, she snaps at herself.Look at what you’ve done.
Look at what you want, still.
Her grip tightens around her tote. “I’d like us to talk,” she says, meeting his stare. “If that’s alright.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” Aleksandr says.
His stare is steady; heavy,hateful.
And hate—she can do something with hate.
“Right, yeah.” She nods. “Could I—could I say some things, then?”
He does not respond, but he does not refuse.
She lunges after that not-refusal. Sitting down, she glances over the restaurant growing busier. Her stomach churns, empty and nauseous, with memories of their last time here, warm glancing moments of past lives.
“I didn’t mean to—” Her voice cracks; a stumble. “No, fuck, sorry, I... what I mean to say—what I mean—I—I...”
