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“What are you doing here?”
“I came to see a friend.” He arches an eyebrow at me. Another silent question.What are you doing here?he asks without asking. It’s spooky how he can do that. Whole conversations with just a brow.
I put a hand on my stomach, which is starting to pop a little bit even with clothes on. “Had an appointment with my OBGYN. Routine check-up for the baby.”
“Everything okay?”
I blush and glance down at my toes. “Everything’s fine. The baby’s healthy.”
“And you?”
“I’m healthy, too. Physically, at least.”
He frowns. “What do you mean?”
I cringe internally. “Nothing. Bad joke. Continuation of a bad joke, really.” Forcing myself to look back up at him and smile, I ask, “So, um, you said you were here to see a friend? Nothing too serious, I hope.”
His frown doesn’t dissipate, but he doesn’t press the issue. “He was shot.”
I laugh, but my laughter breaks off when his glower remains in place. “Wait. You’re not kidding.”
Kolya shrugs. “He’ll live.”
I decide that it would be impolite to point out that he doesn’t seem all that concerned with his friend’s condition. “Do you mind if I ask how he got shot?”
“Wrong place, wrong time.”
“Ah. Right.” I start out trying to pretend like I know what he’s talking about, but then I realize that I actuallydoknow what he’s talking about. Hadn’t a doctor said those exact words to me two years ago?You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, honey. Nothing to be done about it.
I’d carried those words around with me for months after The Accident, trying to make sense of them. Trying to make them work for me instead of against me.Copingwith them, you might say.
In the end, they didn’t do me much good.
I fidget in place, running the heel of my shoe up and down a groove in the tile. The conversation has reached a dead space, and it’d be perfectly acceptable to say my goodbyes and be on my not-so-merry way.
But I’m staying, and I don’t quite know why.
I tell myself it has nothing to do with Kolya specifically; it’s about what he represents. He is about my last lifeline to Adrian and all those little secrets, those tucked-away memories that he’d taken to the grave with him.
I’d always taken it for granted that I’d get the answers eventually. After all, we were going to spend the rest of our lives together, right? I didn’t need all his secrets right off the bat. They’d come out when the time and place were right.
I open my mouth, let it fall closed, open and shut it again. I feel like a dying fish. I probably look even dumber than that.
Kolya watches me coolly. Then his expression shifts just a little. His eyebrows slant down, along with the corners of his mouth. “You want to talk about Adrian,” he rumbles.
I wince. “Is it that obvious? It is, isn’t it? And it’s selfish. I know you’ve gotta be so worried about your friend. This was super inappropriate of me to even think of asking, right? Forget it then. I’m sorry. I’ll just—”
“Do you always do that?” he asks abruptly.
“Do what?”
“Have conversations with yourself.”
I let my shoulders sag forward. “I need a cup of coffee. Do you need a cup of coffee?”
“You’re pregnant.”
I raise my eyebrows, my cheeks reddening with embarrassment. “Oh, wow. I am. Duh. This makes me sound like a horrible mother, but honestly, I really do forget sometimes.”
