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Only this time, it’s not Martin I’m contending with.
I stumble from the toilet back to my chosen corner of the room and slide back down into a crumpled fetal position against the wall. Things feel more comfortable this way. Like I don’t deserve any better.
I was too trusting.
Too relaxed.
Too attached.
I let Demyen become part of me and my life in ways no man should have any business being, if I weren’t so stupidly desperate for an ounce of love.
Now… now, the memory of what we might have had is growing inside me.
And as the door suddenly opens, as Demyen’s tall frame darkens the doorway, I decide that if I do go down…
I’m going down fighting like the hell he’s putting me through.
23
DEMYEN
I’m going to diagnose the sudden churning in my gut as indigestion. Bad shrimp, or whatever the fuck.
Surely nothing at all to do with the sudden realization that Clara is, and has been, living in this tiny closet of a windowless room since we returned.
Nothing at all to do with the sight of her huddled in the far corner, in the dark, shuddering when she glances up at me.
And nothing at all to do with how she instantly looks away like I repulse her.
I expect her to snap at me. “What do you want” or “Go away” or “Leave me the fuck alone.” Something imbued with the fire I’ve come to know she keeps hidden inside herself.
But instead, she’s silent. I can barely hear her breath, she’s staying so still.
I like that far less than her snark.
“Bambi will schedule a court hearing for your recantation.” I might as well plow ahead with what I came here for. “You will appear before a judge and tell them you lied?—”
“I didn’t lie.”
Her voice is so quiet, I almost don’t hear her. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” Clara still doesn’t look up at me or raise her voice. “I didn’t lie.”
I sigh and resist the urge to pull my own hair out. “Yes, you did. We’ve been over this?—”
“I was coerced. My testimony was coerced. Under duress. But I didn’tlie.”
“Fine. Whatever you want to call it, it happened. It happened, and it tainted Tolya’s entire court proceedings, so you’re going to go in front of a judge and undo everything your testimony did. And then you’re going to tell them about the coffee and how you were the one who actually killed Michael Little.”
Clara picks at something on her knee. “No.”
I run my tongue over my teeth and take a deep breath. “And why not?”
“Because I didn’t kill him.”
I need her to cooperate, so I decide against punching my fist through the door. That annoying whisper in that annoyingly achy spot in my chest keeps whispering to not be such an asshole.
Get over yourself. Listen to Pavel. Listen to Bambi.
