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Rei gives me a look that says he doesn’t believe a single word. “Ilya—”
“I hope he stays gone,” I cut in quickly. “Forever. Moves to another continent. Finds inner peace in a cave somewhere. Takes up beekeeping. Whatever. As long as he doesn’t come back here.” I laugh, dry and unconvincing. “Frankly, my blood pressure has never looked better.”
Rei sighs and reaches out to squeeze my shoulder. “He’ll come back.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I just look away.
My gaze lands on a boy walking straight up to Dimitri, who’s standing a few feet away near the vending machines.
The boy leans in, smiling, and says something I can’t hear, but I think he is asking for Dimitri’s number.
Rei notices at the exact same moment I do. I don’t even know when he ends up moving, but suddenly he is grabbing the guy by the back of his collar and peeling him off Dimitri. “Remove yourself from him,” Rei says, his voice flat as polished steel. “Go.”
The boy stumbles, his eyes going wide. “What the—”
“Now.”
Smart choice: he leaves.
I start clapping.
“Beautiful,” I say, grinning. “Ten out of ten. No notes.”
Rei turns to glare at me, but there’s a faint flush creeping up his neck.
Dimitri, meanwhile, is staring at Rei with the most obvious heart eyes I’ve ever seen in my life.
“I didn’t do anything,” Dimitri protests, his voice higher than usual. “I was about to chase him off myself.”
“You were taking too long.”
I lean against the lockers, thoroughly entertained. “This is adorable. Are you two going to kiss now, or should I leave?”
Rei turns the glare on me. “Shut up, Ilya.”
“Make me.”
“I will.”
“Promises, promises.”
I blow them both a kiss and then just turn and walk away, my pulse hammering in my ears.
When I am home, I take the stairs two at a time, slip into my bedroom, and lock the deadbolt behind me. I just walk over to the mattress and let my knees give out.
Sitting against the pillows, exactly where I threw them weeks ago so I wouldn’t have to look at them, are two utterly useless piles of fabric.
The yellow plush cat with the lopsided stitched eyes and the oversized grey wolf with the dense synthetic fur.
They’re stupid. Childish. If Dimitri or Alexei walked in right now and saw me staring at stuffed animals in the dark, they’d laugh until they threw up. I should take a pair of shears to their seams and burn the remains in the fireplace downstairs.
Instead, I drag both of them across the duvet by their necks, pull them against my stomach, and curl inward until my forehead hits the wolf’s matted shoulder.
It smells like him, or maybe it’s just my brain hallucinating because it’s desperate enough to invent things out of nothing.
I drag the wolf higher, tucking it under my chin, pulling the cat tight against my sternum, curling my knees all the way to my chest until I am as small as a human being can possibly get.
***
