and my sisters got to fly away, but I never will. Because I didn’t protect them.
In this moment of clarity that’s what it all comes back to. I always thought that it was punishment. That’s why I survived. Why I was left behind.
My hair is a halo around me, like silk beneath the water, tangling over my face and arms. Just like mom’s was that day. A bubble of air escapes my lips. A test.
An urge to be close to them.
But something keeps pulling me back. Into the light and away from the darkness. A nagging hope. That maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’ve always been wrong. And maybe it wasn’t my fault.
But hope isn’t what saves me today.
This time, it’s a strong pair of hands, heaving me out of the bathtub and shaking me from my stupor.
When I open my eyes, it isn’t Alexei I find. It’s someone else. A small boy. Horror and unforgiving pain etched onto his face.
“Why are you doing this to me?” he roars.
The force of his grip is painful. His muscles are shaking, and it isn’t me he sees when he grips my face and screams at me.
“Why?”
When I don’t answer, he discards me on the floor and bends over to drain the tub. And then he pauses, breath heaving, and punches his fist into the porcelain with a level of violence even my eyes have not seen before.
When he turns around again, I’m in the corner, watching him cautiously. His fist is bloodied and swollen. Fingers probably broken. Because of me.
But it’s the expression on his face.
Hurt and rage.
I did that.
It bothers me. And it is my fault.
As soon as I come to grips with that, he is gone.
20
Talia
Magda’s radio silence is bothering me.
She’s dressed me carefully. With a flashy black dress and tiny sheer strips of fabric that show my skin beneath. Black heels, and jewelry too. My hair is washed and curled and falling in a veil around my shoulders. Makeup carefully applied.
And yet I’m not looking at myself when she pulls me to the mirror. I’m looking at her, in the reflection.
“I told you,” I say to her reflection. “I told you I would disappoint you.”
She meets my eyes in the mirror, and her shoulders sag.
“You have not disappointed me,” she states. “You have reminded him.”
Of what, she doesn’t say. But I know now that it’s true. I’m the salt in his wound. And I should have seen it before. That Alexei is a masochist, like me. Trying to drown his sorrows in the cognac he drinks. Trying to lock himself away from the world and whatever it is he doesn’t want to face.
People cope in different ways.
And when those ways are not what society deems respectable, then you are pushed even further to the fringes. Like Alexei. And like me.
They all want me to be scared. To be timid and soft. To whimper and cry when men touch me.
Only, I want the men to touch me. I want them to fuel my self-hatred. And I use them to do it. I want to use Alexei too. I want him to fuck me and use and degrade me like the trash that I am. Like the trash society always said I was. It would make me feel better. I crave that validation from him.
But when I look at Magda right now that isn’t what I see in her eyes. It isn’t shame, or frustration, or the inability to understand. It’s the complete opposite of all of those things. It is love and acceptance.
My lip trembles, and I want to push her away. The way that I always do. Because hope is the most dangerous thing of all.
“Come here, child.”
She pulls me against her and hugs me. And I don’t know what to do. So I just let her. There is pressure behind my eyes, but I won’t allow it to seep out. My throat aches from the years of repressed words and emotions I have not given voice to. The deep insecurities embedded in my DNA.
“He chose me because he knew he could only ever hate me,” I tell her. “Because I remind him of what he doesn’t want to remember.”
“It isn’t that simple,” Magda tells me. “You are more alike than you know.”
She takes me by the hand and leads me from the room. Downstairs to the sitting room. Where Alexei is sitting on the sofa, his back towards us. Glass of cognac in hand.
Magda shifts uncomfortably as though she