Page 154 of You + Me – Against the World

“No, Felix and Clémentine can testify, and so can I! And Cheyenne—she knows the truth! We can bring Keith down; we just have to want it badly enough. But for that, you have to want it too.”

“Alma, please, listen to me. I was already alone in life, and I’m even more alone here. I don’t have family to help me. No powerful connections. My best friend has no sway before a judge. And everything I may have done in the past will be used against me. The only thing I had was you. And I don’t want you getting mixed up in this. No way. I want you to go home and forget about me.”

I’m stunned. It takes me a few seconds to react.

“Why are you saying that? Why are you trying to hurt me even more? And what about You + Me? Isn’t that important to you?”

“I don’t regret anything. Fuck, if you only knew how much I…” He stops before he even finishes his sentence. “But if I had to choose, I’d prefer never to have met you rather than have it end this way. It kills me that I ruined everything. Please, leave. And don’t come back.”

“Vadim, don’t do this to me…”

I watch him replace the receiver, stand up behind the glass that separates us, and wave to the guard waiting behind him. His back is turned. I can no longer even see his eyes, the only part of him that could tell me the truth. The opposite of what he just threw in my face.

My hand slams against the glass partition. I’m no longer crying. I’m absolutely furious. I find myself caught in a whirlwind of rage and despair.

“Vadim!” I repeat, my voice cracking.

***

I spend the next two days curled up at the bottom of my bed, huddled in a corner of my room, or pacing the streets, the park, the little square. As if all the places that once held my love could somehow give me the impossible answer that would save him. Feverishly, I wait for the response to my request to visit Vadim, assuming he hasn’t taken me off the list. I dwell on the last words of my lover… if I can still call him that.

Clémentine sometimes joins me, to keep me company. She tries to reassure me that the hearing hasn’t happened yet, that we would have heard something, that Vadim will inevitably change his mind, that it can’t end like this. She doesn’t know anything about it. She is powerless and almost as desperate as I am.

Good news in the midst of this chaos: Clem dumped Keith. She told him to his face what a bastard he was. Apparently, he laughed. He thanked her for her “good and loyal service,” told her to go back to her “gang of thugs,” gloated that his “plan was working perfectly,” and that he didn’t need her—or any of us—anymore.

She’s still kicking herself for not thinking to record the whole conversation. But I’m not sure even that would have changed anything.

Clem suddenly bumps me hard with her hip. “Hey! Isn’t that Cheyenne over there?”

“Where?”

My eyes quickly scan our surroundings.

“On the sidewalk across the street, neon yellow shorts and pool slides. Since when did the budget sportswear look become fashionable?”

Pure instinct takes over. I abandon Clem and her commentary on current fashion trends, and take off after Cheyenne. The second my target spots me, she starts running too. Under normal circumstances, she’d probably beat me easily, but she doesn’t have my sneakers—or, crucially, my rage. I catch up to her at an intersection and grab her by the thin strap of her backpack.

“Let me go!”

“Or else what?” I reply, out of breath.

“Unlike you, I know how to use my fists.”

She yanks on her strap and takes back what is hers, her threatening gaze fixed on mine.

“I just want to talk to you. Vadim is in jail, and he’s going to stay locked up for years if we don’t do anything about it. I know you know Keith and that you were in on it. But you’re my last card, Cheyenne. You’re all I’ve got left.”

“I’m nothing at all. And you should stay out of this, too.”

She’s already backing away.

“Why will no one get involved? Why does everyone think it’s normal for him to take the fall instead of Keith? Why does no one want that bastard to pay for what he did?”

“Because no one can,” she whispers, moving closer to me again. “He’s untouchable, okay? You don’t know him—he’s capable of anything.”

“Are you afraid of him or what?”

“Be careful, Lancaster!”