Lili shakes her head. “Can you—could you read to me?” Reaching for the nightstand—hiding the wince elicited in her body: sharp twinge in her lower back, strain in her thighs—she grabs her borrowed copy ofCancer Ward.
Aleksandr tilts his head. “You’re reading this?”
“Yes,” she replies. About to frown, about to defend—
But he smiles, faint, as he takes the proffered book.
There’s a way people hold books they’ve loved: copies they’ve worn out. Not precious, but familiar; not careful, but welcoming. Sitting up, Aleksandr leans against the headboard, and draws a spare pair of glasses from the nightstand drawer. Lili settles her head against his thigh, the silk sheets soft against her cheek.
After he puts his glasses on, he runs an absent hand through his hair—the muscles of his chest, lithe under bare skin, shift with the motion. Lili hides a small smile, looking up at him. “What do you think of it?” he asks. The rustle of paper, finding the page she was on.
“It’s brutal. Much funnier than I expected, but it’s agonizing. Wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry sometimes.”
“Russians aren’t entirely sure if they prefer laughing or crying,” Aleksandr replies. Over the sheets, he rests his free hand on her hip.
“Top of the page,” Lili prompts.
“Alright.” He clears his throat. “‘Although Kostoglotov argued with her, he did it only as a defense against the excesses of medicine, as laid out...’”
It’s still raining. As dawn steadily bleaches the room, like the gray light that trickles into churches in early hours, Lili listens to the sound of the rain, Aleksandr’s voice.
There’s not insubstantial pain in her body. But there’s relief, in it. Like she knows the map of herself a bit better. Little hitches keep running through her: sharp, like aftershocks; washed up ashore—finding air; the lingering overwhelm of hurt, more than brushed against—drowned into. Felt until its last crack, its last exhausting spasm.
Something soft, in its wake.
And she’s never—she’s never thought of this, lying on the other side of being fully broken open.
Breath. Space, between shattered pieces—relief. After giving into what she’s repressed, pushed down so deep, tried so hard to outrun.
And the idea that maybe—just maybe, and it’s delicate—barely enough to be a hope, but more than it’s ever been—that she might be stronger than she thought: that when everything is stripped away, when she can’t run anymore, when she actually experiences her pain—some of it, not all of it, the tender, brutal beginnings—somethingremains. Endures, with meaning, irreducible, that’s only hers. That it—she—might be more than the hurt; that there’s more to her than protecting the bruise she tries to hide at the center of herself—that her grief might not swallow her, if she dares to touch it.
God, it’s so fragile—so fragile, and she can’t look too closely at it.
Lili keeps breathing, as Aleksandr reads to her.
While he reads, his voice slips between precise tones of his Oxbridge accent—clear, enunciated—and moments of something older, more natural, a rough rasp around certain words: Kostoglotov, Tashkent, Rusanov. She lets her hands settle on his forearm, his closeness comforting.
Holding onto his voice lets her drift, doze.
The new space adjusts between her and her pain, for now. An ease, a distance that could be healthy. Allowing it, rather than turning away. Letting it rest—in arm’s reach—and let it be.
And there’s another question, looming in that distance, looking at this gentle moment.
Is this what you deserve?
Lili tenses, familiar instincts.
But it’s somehow—barely—a little easier to whisper:Yes.
Aleksandr’s hand on her hip starts rubbing small circles. Lili realizes he’s stopped reading. Glasses set aside, finished the chapter. He’s watching her.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he murmurs.
“Yes,” she whispers.
He looks unsatisfied. “Do you—should we talk about last night—”
“No,” she interrupts, hurriedly. She doesn’t want to examine last night out loud; she doesn’t want to risk losing it, this drifting aftermath she’s never felt before. She only wants to linger in this unexpected, hidden calm as long as she can, this morning of rain, with him. “Let’s figure out breakfast, yeah? I’m good, I promise. Just hungry.”
