Page 18 of The One Who Won’t Get Away
As traumatizing as the whole thing had been, it allowed Ljuba to reclaim a little part of herself.Otherwise, she would've been in a worse shape right now, probably unable to even be inside.
I put the food on the coffee table and went to open a new bottle of wine.I wouldn’t get drunk, not when I was hanging out with my sisters, but I needed something to take the edge off.
After the first sip, I offered to pour Ljuba a glass, and she accepted.Unlike me, she only wanted half a glass.Vera took one too, and we sat down together with me eating my Chinese takeout while Vera and Ljuba stuck to the healthy stuff.
“So, get this, Larisa decides to do an ‘art night.’She just bought a bunch of acrylic paint and canvases and showed everyone how to do acrylic pours,” I said, after a while, just to see if I could force another laugh out of Ljuba.“It’s like she wants people to stop buying them or something.”
Ljuba cracked up, and I considered it a personal victory.
“I mean, she does keep talking about how much she hates space fillers,” Vera said.
She wasn’t wrong.We had plenty of acrylic pours and other art of that variety at the gallery, and most of it was at the front because it sold well, but Lara hated it with a passion.Worked in my favor, to be honest.A huge part of the reason she had hired me was because she liked surrealism, which was my whole personality.
Vera started collecting empty cartons and stacking them with terrifying precision, probably to build a tiny tower that would shame me into cleaning up.
After the “art night” story, a lull hovered.The TV flicked from a compilation of pet fails to a home renovation show, sound still jacked up, but the room’s energy had cooled.That was when the rain started.
It came suddenly, drumming on the windows and flattening the world into a wet gray.I watched drops bead on the window until it reminded me too much of tears, so I looked away and stared at my wrist instead.My thumb traced the trio of stars, one for each of us.
A door slammed somewhere in the hallway.Not close, but enough to make the apartment walls vibrate.Ljuba flinched.
Did normal people flinch?Or was this reaction reserved for people like us?
The next sound was the tap of chopsticks against my empty takeout box, and then the wet, choked gasp of some reality show host on TV.
“Can we do cake now?”I asked, already halfway off the futon and headed for the kitchen.Vera scowled but didn’t stop me.
“Only if you clean up your mess first,” she said, as she handed me the tower of takeout boxes.
“I like to think of this as art,” I said, gesturing at the chaos.“It’s a mixed-media installation.See how the hot sauce packets evoke the fleeting nature of—”
“Cake,” Ljuba interrupted.“Please.”
“Cake for the win,” I said, as I went to the kitchen, tossed the takeout boxes and got us each a slice of triple chocolate.
We ate in silence for a minute.The rain thickened, making it feel like we were in a submarine, or a bunker, or something else sealed against the outside.Against my ability to escape.
I wasn’t there anymore, damn it.I was free.
“Are you going to sleep here tonight?”Vera asked Ljuba, her tone the same as when she’d tell us to put on seatbelts or not to run with scissors.“I left the window open just a crack.The balcony might get too wet to sleep there.”
Ljuba made a noncommittal sound.“I think I’ll sleep at Dan’s.”Her eyes flicked toward the window.“I trust him to keep me safe at night, even from my nightmares.”
It hung between us.That unspoken, ugly thing: the knowledge that people could and had come for us in the night.
I felt my pulse spike.My brain lit up with the image of our old house— his house.The deadbolt, window alarms, all those useless measures because they hadn’t kept the real monster away.They had only trapped us in the same house as him.
Vera picked at her cuticle, then got up and started to wash dishes, as if she could clean the memory out of the air.
When I couldn’t stand the tension, I decided it was time for more alcohol, but the first bottle was already empty.I found a new one and worked the corkscrew with paint-stained fingers.My latest project had gotten a little messy, and the stuff hadn’t washed out yet.
“Cheers,” I said, raising my glass.
I would’ve said “cheers to new trauma,” but we didn’t talk about the T word around here.We all knew it was there and ignored it.
Vera gave me a disapproving look but didn’t say anything.Maybe she finally understood that I needed to drown my demons.Or maybe she was giving up on me.I mean, none of her lectures had worked in the past, so why would she think today would be any different?
We started a movie next.Ljuba picked some animated thing where dogs talked, and everyone learned the power of friendship.I watched Ljuba more than the TV, though.
