My throat closes. I touch the lapel with shaking fingers, smoothing the scuffed leather. The line he used to throw at me every time he let me wear it comes out, without thought.
“I won’t get my makeup shit on it, Piotr.”
My vision blurs. I lean my forehead against the closet doorframe as my knees threaten to give out, the jacket holding me up in a moment I can’t hold myself. For the first time since the call came, I cry for real, cracked open, guttural. The kind of grief that feels like something tearing inside you and doesn’t care who hears it. Behind me, Aga callsmy name, voice wrecked, and I realize neither of us are going to survive this without the other.
When I get home, the house is dark and still. I sit on the couch, phone in hand, staring at the name I shouldn’t touch.
Rafe Ashton.
For a long time I just hold it there, the urge fighting the shame, the ache fighting the logic. But grief has no logic, and my heart’s already made the decision. I press call. It rings once. Twice.
Then his voice, warm and familiar. “Kas.”
That’s all it takes. The sound of it breaks me wide open. I can’t even form words at first. The sobs come hard and sudden, shaking through me, months of held breath tearing their way out, all the regret, the worry, and now the loss.
“Hey, I’m here. Just breathe,” he says softly, patiently, not pushing. “What happened?”
I tell him everything. About Piotr. About Aga. About the jack, the call, Mama’s scream, Natalia’s disbelief. My voice catches on every detail, but I don’t stop. I tell him how Dominik shut down, how I tried to stay strong, how I can’t stop seeing it when I close my eyes. He doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t try to fix it. Just breathes with me, until my own breathing starts to match his. When the silence finally comes, it’s different, gentle not empty.
“Kasia… I’mso fucking sorry,” he says. His voice cracks on the last word. “You don’t have to carry it alone. I’m here, okay?”
“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper.
“Here’s what you do,” he says gently. “You breathe, and then you give it all to me.Everything. I can handle it. Scream if you need to, sleep, ramble about anything—or nothing. You don’t have to say a thing. We can just sit here, together.Whatever you need.”
It’s such a simple thing. But in that moment, it feels like grace. So I sit there, curled around the phone, listening to the sound of him breathing on the other end, proof that somewhere, the world is still kind enough to hold me for a little while.
Chapter 76
It’s Just Water
Idon’t know when I fell asleep, but when I wake up in the afternoon, finally crashing after almost forty-eight hours straight without rest, he’s gone. Understandably. He stayed on the line. Let me breathe. Let mebe.
It’s more than I feel I deserve after hurting him over and over again, pushing him away. It felt unfair to reach out, but I don’t regret it. Whatever strength he lent me, it’s worked. I feel like I can at least shower, try to get through the day. Go see Mama and Tata. Try to help. As if there’s any way to help this.
The sudden ache to ask Piotr what to do hits hard, and all I can hear is him in my head, calling mesiostra.The sound breaks me open again; the sobs come heavy and fast. Rain starts slow, a whisper against the windows, before it decides to pour. It matches how I feel: everything hanging around my neck, in my chest. I check my phone. He’d sent a text hours ago.
Keep sleeping. I love you.
A smile wakes up along my face, maybe the first one since we lost Piotr. I head to the shower and try to stop the tears,to stop the downpour inside.
I’m still damp-haired and eyes burning, when the knock comes, followed by a voice saying my name. For a second I think I’ve imagined it, an echo of last night’s dream, of him on the phone saying it like something tender. Then it comes again, harder this time, urgency in the voice. When I open the door, he’s standing there.
Rafe.Drenched.
Hair plastered to his forehead, hoodie weighed down, the shirt beneath clinging to his skin, breath steaming in the brittle cold of late January.
“The taxi was stuck in traffic,” he says, voice hoarse, barely above the rain. “So I ran.” He laughs between shivering gasps. “It’s just water. It’s nothing.”
I can’t move. I can’t think. He’shere, the man I told myself not to call, the voice I fell asleep to.
“H—how are you here?” I manage.
“I don’t know.” He shakes his head, water dripping from his hair. “I just left. They told me to stay, to finish the next stop. I don’t give a fuck about any of it. The tour, the contracts, the lawyers, they can have every cent.”
His chest rises hard beneath the soaked fabric. “None of it matters, everything means nothing if I can't—I just needed to see you. I couldn’t stand to look at my hands on the piano knowing they should be holding you.”
He steps forward, then stops himself, jaw tight, hands trembling, like he’s fighting every instinct not to reach for me.
