Words fumbled again. His face is cold, and she cannot read it.
Fucking talk,she screams at herself.Fucking talk—
Against the table, his fingers are curled into a fist.
She has this moment, and then it will be gone.
“I’m not...” Lili tries again. “I’m not doing this right. I’m not looking for anything from you, but I thought you deserved—well, no, more than that, I thought I owed it to you—not that this is like, some debt—Jesus,fuck, I’m sorry—what I’m trying to—”
“Why are you here?” Aleksandr interrupts, sudden. Interrupting her—something he did so rarely.
“I’d like to apologize,” she whispers.
A harsh sound rises up the back of his throat. He glances at his watch. “This is uninteresting to me,” he says. “Youare uninteresting to me.”
Lili’s hand spasms against the tablecloth. “Don’t you—wouldn’t you like to talk about it, or—”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
She flinches. Uncomfortable heat washes through her: shame, guilt, embarrassment, all deserved.
It’s selfish, how much of this apology is driven by her own wants. But how much of her entire life has involved pulling herself back from what she wants, for fear of the pain of its loss? Isn’t it somehow meaningful to stand here now and tell him—Aleksandr Petrov, a man whose name she’d carry with her own—how much he means to her, how scared she was—is—of losing him?
She cannot be a person that does not let others get close to her, any longer.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I know how little that means, but I’d like to tell you, still, how sorry I am—”
“This is ridiculous,” Aleksandr mutters, glancing across the restaurant.
But the blur of the tablecloth under her gaze resolves. She will fightfor this. “I made a mistake,” she says. It’s stupid, and simple, but true. “I fucked up, I—I know, and I knew it then, too, I’m not trying to wash my hands of that. But I—it wasn’t because of you, when I left that night—”
A flinch snaps across his face. A moment too late, Lili realizes what her words sounded like, as he stands, withdrawing a wallet from his breast pocket. “Wait, Aleksandr, please, that’s not what I—”
“Are you done?”
Lili winces. “I’m trying here,” she whispers, under the restaurant noise. “Please... I know you owe me nothing, I know that, but please—I’m making a mess of this, but let me explain, and then I’ll—I’ll go, and you won’t... you won’t have to see me again, I promise.”
Aleksandr throws cash on the white tablecloth.
“Fine.” The sense of gritted teeth. “You want to do this? Let’s go.”
The relief that washes through her is not entirely consoling.
“What?” she whispers.
“You heard me,” he says, already walking away from the table.
Lili stands, a split second later—disbelief, incredulous—and follows him.
His car is around the corner on Crosby.
“The office, sir?” Richard asks from the driver’s seat, as they get in.
The harsh crack of the door, as Aleksandr slams it shut behind him.
“No, the apartment.”
Richard nods, glancing in the rearview mirror to check traffic—then smiles with surprise, seeing Lili. “Miss Marwan! It’s good to see you—”
