Page 55 of The Marriage

Sylvia smiled, saying quietly, “He will call. I’m sure he has a valid reason for not doing so in a few days. Give him a chance to explain it.”

Which meant waiting.

But for what?

Even though Karine nodded her head, she wasn’t feeling as confident as Sylvia did. Maybe she had pushed him too far. Maybe, like her father, Roman wanted to wash his hands clean of her entirely.

She hated the part of herself that understood why.

*

Nighttime was the worst.

She used to never dream—or rather, she never remembered them come the next morning. Lately, she couldn’t escape the nightmares. Constant and vivid, they trapped her between sleeplessness and memories she didn’t want to relive.

It was even worse when she couldn’t tell the difference between being asleep, or awake. Karine gasped for air as she peered through the crack between the door of the closet. The faint ringing in her ears deafened all other sounds.

Katina and Dima’s voices were muffled. She couldn’t even hear her sister crying anymore or the crack of his fist when it fell against her skull for the final time.

Katina must have slumped down to the floor, but there was a blinding white light splashed all over the bedroom.

No, that’s not right.

Karine hadn’t been in the bedroom.

She blinked rapidly but still couldn’t see anything, but that was the first moment she’d come back into awareness, and left the nightmare. Not that it mattered, she still knew what happened. She had seen it so many times that she memorized every detail of the scene. Even the smell of her sister’s perfume.

She cried out for Roman when her body jolted awake all at once. She sprang up in bed, realizing her nightclothes were damp from her own sweat and so were the sheets surrounding her.

Where was she?

Where was Roman?

She shouted his name again.

Nothing.

No one answered her back.

The room was dark, and she jumped out of the bed searching for a switch along the wall. Stumbling in her fear and confusion because she couldn’t remember where she’d fallen asleep. She was blind in her dream and now that she was awake—she was blind still.

“Roman. Please.”

Her whispers disappeared into the darkness until her fingers felt the shape of a switch. A harsh yellow light flooded the room, and that’s when she remembered where she was. Finally, Karine could breathe, but her chest was still tight.

She stared around the sterile bedroom, realizing that the faint hope she would wake up to the hotel room had been another part of her nightmare.

Tears filled her eyes when she realized she was alone. It’d been a long time since she last saw him, and she was starting to forget what it was like to hear his voice.

When she searched her quiet mind, expecting Katina’s eager and commanding voice to ring through, she heard nothing.

Karine ran to the bathroom to stare at her own reflection, finding tear-stains streaking her cheeks and droplets still hanging from her lashes. When she blinked in the mirror, the tears fell. At least, the visible color in her cheeks that had been missing from her face for days was starting to return.

Not much else could be said for the exhausted, crying girl staring back at her in the mirror.

“You’re always beautiful, babe. Even when you cry.”

Karine’s eyes shifted to the reflection of Roman in the mirror. His figure stood behind hers in the doorway of the bathroom, his handsome chiseled face was set in a soft expression as he regarded her. His beard was neat and freshly cut. Even the longer part of his hair on top had been brushed into a high quiff. With his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his pants, Roman stood with his legs apart, firmly planted on the tiled floor.