Page 55

People are so greedy, so voracious. I used to want only money. As long as I could pay down my parents’ medical debt, make rent on time, and keep Milo’s lunchbox full of the things he likes, I could do any job at all. I would wash dishes and serve drinks and smile at impossible customers who cursed me out without one word of complaint.

But Lev let me taste something else for a while, something forbidden. Romance light as bubbles, warm, needy passion, and the strange new feeling of being safe with my cheek on his bare shoulder. And then he proved to my face that not one bit of it was ever mine, the sly bastard.

I don’t know how long I cry. I don’t stop until the clock on the wall reminds me that Milo will be home soon. My legs have gone numb under me, so I massage my thighs and lean against the shoe cabinet until the feeling crawls agonizingly back into them, then stumble to the bathroom and splash cold water over my face.

The woman in the mirror has swollen eyes, a red nose, and lips bitten with nerves that still carry the trace of being kissed. I scrub at them hard, trying to erase the memory of his stubble scraping gently over them. My skin goes pink, but the imprint of him feels burned somewhere the water cannot reach.

“Fuck,” I mutter to my own reflection.

The crude little word, my one small way to blow off steam, makes everything pressing down on me feel a fraction lighter.

Before Milo gets home, I change my clothes, gather up the tissues, and put a pot of pasta on to boil. He bursts through the door in the middle of a story about some vexing dodgeball rule in gym class. I ruffle his hair the way I always do, fight the urge to hold on to him, and tell him to go and wash his hands.

“Were you crying?” He stares up at me for two whole seconds, tipping his chin upward.

“It was the onions,” I reply lazily, as if it is nothing.

“You didn’t use any onions,” he says proudly, and glances over at the pot on the stove.

I don’t know what to tell him, and my feet refuse to move.

Milo doesn’t push it, a sign that he senses how on edge I am. He just walks over and wraps his arms around my waist, cradling me for one small second, and then he runs off to wash his hands as though the hug never happened at all.

My throat closes all over again as something coils around my ribs and squeezes. This is exactly why I cannot quit. Not because of Lev. Not because of that ridiculous, rogue infatuation. Because of this hug. Because of the bills stacked on the table. Because of the activity fee notice sitting in Milo’s backpack for next month. I don’t have the luxury of being selfish or tempting fate.

Later, once Milo is asleep, I sit on the couch and open the Medical ID on my phone. There, under emergency contact, sits the number I once saved as Maksim’s, the one a single wrong digit dropped into my life and that turned out to be Lev’s. I press edit, ready to put Margo, the sister I never had, there instead. My thumb hovers over his number, the nostalgia already sharp.

One wrong digit put him there. One small tap would take him out of my phone for good, out of the one place in my life where his name still lives, masquerading as safety.

I stare at it for a long time, keeping my eyes locked on his name. Then I lock the screen without changing a single thing, and I despise myself for it.

The next morning, I carry my things back to Sablo House, feeling beaten half to death.

The floor is louder than I remembered it being, the sconces brighter. Maybe that’s because I’ve just come from the top floor, where everyone drops their voice on instinct the second Lev is near, even when he only stands there with his hands in his pockets. I’d almost forgotten what a working bar is supposed to sound like.

Within minutes the whole floor knows I’m back. The whispers don’t bother keeping themselves quiet, and the rats don’t bother hiding who they are. Some of them say I failed Lev’s probation. Others say his stunning girlfriend sent me packing. The gossip lands under my skin no matter how still I keep my face.

I keep my head down, glance over my shoulder only once, and set up my station. Glasses on the left, garnish trays into the fridge, every maneuver automatic. If I keep my hands busy enough, I can pretend those words are not burrowing straight into me.

Dana leans against the counter with a slow, devilish grin and cannot resist herself, of course, but before she gets very far, Margo steps in front of my station and rocks back onto her heels.

“This is a bar, not a tabloid office,” Margo says, and she rolls her eyes. Her smile is sweet, and her tone could cut through glass. “Any of you goons with time to kill can come over here and polish six hundred wineglasses for me.”

The chatter dies down to the clink of glassware.

I don’t explain myself. I just tie on my old apron, roll my shoulders, take my old section, and force myself into the private event they have already dumped on me. It’s on my clock now. As long as I keep moving, I don’t have to think.

I confirm the event timing, typing effortlessly. I check with the kitchen about the host’s last-minute change to the menu. The phone rings all afternoon. The seating chart for the private room still has problems in the back rows. But no matter how busy I keep myself, my mind keeps sliding straight back to yesterday.

At noon, Margo finally has enough of watching me. She reaches over and takes the seating chart out of my hands.

“Come on,” she says. “Lunch first,” she adds with a knowing glance, “before you fall over.”

She drags me to our usual place, a cheap little restaurant one block over. The server knows us, says “Your usual?” without looking up, and puts us in a booth at the back, far enough to keep us off their radar, where our coworkers’ stares cannot follow us inside. I order soup without really thinking about it. Once the server leaves, Margo turns the full force of her attention on me.

“What happened to you?” Her voice is gentle enough that it makes me want to cry all over again. “You look like you didn’t sleep for a second, and you look rounder in the face, all puffed up from crying.”

“I don’t know,” I whimper. That’s the truth, and it is the worst part of the whole thing.