The Prelude (27 page)

You should believe him.

Why? He’s a liar. All men are this way.

I stand and head toward the door. Alek grabs me around the waist, pulling me to him. “Don’t leave, Erin. Please. We can work through this.”

“No! We don’t have to work through anything,” I answer, my voice rising more than I’d intended it to do. “Your father pretty much left mine to die. Did you even hear what you just said?”

“I don’t need to hear it. I relive that day almost every night, Erin. What was I supposed to do? My father knocked me out. When I woke up, I was in Mother’s bed with a patchwork quilt lying on top of my body, and he was gone,” he answers.

“I need some air, Alek. I don’t understand why you waited so long to tell me. And I can’t fucking breathe,” I shout, my voice finally cracking. I head toward the door, but Alek stands in my way.

“We can get through this, Jaybird. I know it.”

“Don’t call me that. You have no right to after what you just told me,” I snap. “Move. Better even, go back to Nadya and make your mother happy. I just want to be left alone.”

“No. We need to face this together, Erin. Please.”

“You’ll move, or I’m going to scream until everyone in this theatre comes running,” I threaten.

It was never about you
, Erin. The girl he fell for, the reason he stares at you the way he does was because he wanted your sister. She was the one he preferred. I told you not to go too far with this man, and you didn’t listen. Now look at you.

I slam my hands over my ears. I don’t want to hear anymore voices, especially not Alek’s. The world spins around me and I feel like a little girl on a merry-go-round filled with demonic horses just like I saw in that old horror
movie Jada made me watch one day. “Let go of me, damn it!”

Wrenching out of Alek
’s grip, I slam out of the door and run down the hallway. I leave the voices in my head and everything else painful behind me.

* * *

I play
The Rose
almost a thousand times over the next five days while I hide in my apartment and smoke cigarettes. At this point, I feel pretty damn confident that I can create my own melody and chorus for that song.

For the past couple of nights, I’ve dreamt of Jada. We sit in a field, hiding from our parents while we smoke cigarettes we stole from our aunt’s purse. I’m eleven and she’s twelve.

“I’m Ava Gardner,” Jada says and throws her head back so she looks elegant just like the actress.

“Oh, she’s pretty. Who am I today?” I ask, eagerly awaiting her response.

Wincing a short moment, she finally says, “You get to be Vivien Leigh.” I don’t like her answer. I cross my arms and pout. I’d just watched
Gone with the Wind
with Mom again. She watches that movie almost every day. Sure, the woman who plays Scarlett O’ Hara is beautiful, but she’s also a bitch who treats people badly.

“Why do I always get to be the mean people?”

Jada puts her cigarette down, reaches over, and takes my hands in hers. “Don’t you see, you get to be the best actress out of the two.”

“I don’t understand,” I answer.

She playfully rolls her eyes. “Ava has a beautiful career and travels everywhere. That’ll be me someday. But Vivien gets to marry the man of her dreams.”

I think about that answer a bit before I respond. “What if I don’t want to get married? I think I’d rather have a bunch of clothes instead.”

“Hm. Maybe you’re right. I think I got the better girl.” She releases a long string of smoke and swings her head, throwing her hair over her left shoulder.

She handles her puffs so well, it makes me think she’s been smoking forever. I can almost feel the fumes hitching inside my lungs, making me feel as though I’m going to choke to death. I cough so hard and long that Jada gets scared and runs to find Mom.

I thought I was going to die from coughing so much that day. I didn’t die though. I once asked my therapist why all of the beautiful people, the ones like Jada, are taken away. While the rest of us, the ones who can’t seem to get their shit straight get to keep living? We need the smart and beautiful ones to stick around and help us get this life thing right. She couldn’t answer me. No one has ever answered my questions; which is why I chose to find out for myself one dark day five years ago.

Drifting back to the present
, I release a long string of smoke. No, I’m not normally a smoker; and I’m not getting ready to start. Before people begin to wonder if I’ve lost my freaking mind, I’ll say that I’m only doing this because it reminds me of Jada. The smoke burning my insides, the smell of tobacco, me hiding inside my dark apartment: all of these things keep her memory alive in my head. I don’t choke on the cigarettes this time. It hasn’t even brought on an asthma attack. Life has toughened me up, and my lungs too, I guess. I handle the smoke like a pro this time.

The new life coach, the one who took Petre’s place is a woman who reminds me a lot of my therapist back home. She has left me one message out of the five days I’ve been in my retirement from life. The doorbell rips me out of the feeling-sorry-for-myself stupor I’ve been in.

Luca, Carla, Rafe, and even Alek have all left messages. A couple of them have tried to stop by. Usually, I sit on the floor and watch the door until the person leaves. I wonder if I’m doomed to spend the rest of my life in an institution the way mother wastes away her days.

I surprise myself with a bit of bravery. I actually feel as though I’m ready to face whatever life plans to surprise me with today.

Feeling a bit dazed from smoke overload, I put out my cigarette, walk toward the door, and open it. Adriana barrels through the doorway and throws her arms around my neck. “Wow. I didn’t think you still knew the way over to my house,” I say before she has the chance to scold me. She spends all of her time with Luca now.

She embraces me, choosing to ignore my depressed looking outfit that consists of a white tee shirt and a pair of sweats I ordered from Aeropastale online.

Yeah, I know, I’m a traitor.

My hair is one long braid that tangled up days ago. I didn’t feel like dealing with it then no more than I do today.

“You smell and look awful, Erin,” she says, but still choosing to hug me a while longer. I miss her. I won’t lie.

She reminds me of the sisterly comfort I no longer have, the girl that Alek’s father, Sergey, found on the road and then left to die. The pang still hits me in the chest when I think about it, even after a week of vacationing from life.

“I know why you’re here. It’s not going to work. Go back and tell him to stop sending people over here,” I blurt out before she has the chance to say a word. She follows me into the living room where about twenty empty crunchy cheese doodle bags lie on the floor. I plop down on the couch, turn on the tv, and pretend to be interested in the old Marilyn Monroe movie that’s playing on the television.

“Alek didn’t send me, Erin. I swear it. He’d probably kill me if he knew I stopped by today.” She sits down on the couch across from me and glances around the room. “Can I at least open some blinds? I feel like a vampire is waiting to jump out and grab me.”

“I don’t care,” I answer, shrugging. She hops right up and opens my windows. The full blast of daylight hurts my eyes. That’s how long I’ve been sitting in the dark. “Well, if I do have vamps, then that light will definitely fuck them over.”

“You’re cursing again,” she responds, sitting down.

“So what? That’s what makes me feel most comfortable, okay? Everybody needs to stop trying to change me. If I want to go outside and scream out every curse word I know, then that’s my deal.”

What a bitch. She came over here to make you feel better and that
’s how you treat her?

“I’m sorry,” I whisper and focus on my hands.

“Now that you’re done bitch-slapping me, I do want to say a few things,” Adriana answers. My head snaps back up, and I give her an incredulous look. No, scratch that, I’m fucking impressed.

“You just used profanity, Adriana. I don’t believe this.”

“Hey, in this business of glitz and glam and girls who stick tacks in the lining of your tutu, you have to be a little fiery. Either that, or you need to get the hell off the stage.” We both share a much needed laugh. She cracks me up in her attempts to use foul language.

“Okay, Adriana. I get your point.”

“You understand me in the same way as you do Alek,” she says quickly. The mood dampens, and I find myself wishing the vamps would come out and get her.

“Erin, I know he did something to screw up pretty badly. He has the world on his shoulders, though. Our parents made it this way, for both of us; but more so for him. Our lives have never been normal. You heard my mother that night she tortured you at the dinner table, she still arranges our dates.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty bad.”

“My brother hugs and kisses me all the time now. I don’t know what to think
. I felt his forehead. I thought he was sick. He’s not normally this affectionate towards people,” she beams. Her hands are all over the place as she tells me this story. I can see how much she cares about Alek, and the thought touches me. “Please try to understand, Erin. All of this monogamy stuff is new to him. He’s so scared. And he’s not exactly the type to go telling people about things like that.”

“Things are more complicated than you realize, Adriana.”

“What difference does it make? You two care about each other. I’ll even be the one to say, I believe you’ve fallen for each other. But both of you are too stubborn and just more stubborn to admit it. Some people search a lifetime to find what you have with my brother. Look at my parents.” She mutters a string of words in Russian as she shakes her head.

“Are you cursing me out without telling me?” I ask, giving her a knowing side glance.

“Maybe,” she answers, but playfully rolls her eyes.

“What he—the things he told me…damn it.” I can’t get my thoughts together. Adriana’s the kind of person who knows how to work her way through the deepest parts of your resolve to remain a hard ass. I suspect that’s how she has gotten as far as she has with Luca. I fully understand Alek’s desire to protect his baby sister. She has a uniquely positive outlook on life.

And I do believe that it’s contagious.

Sighing loudly, she glances at her watch. “I have to go. Got to get to rehearsals for
Seraphine’s
next showing. Will you think about what I said? Please?” She stands, walks over to me, and throws her arms around my neck. This simple gesture hits my chest. I don’t want her to leave. She’s a hell of lot better than sitting around and smoking Virginia Slims all day.

“What is that awful smoke smell?” she asks, leaning back and sniffing around my face. I figured she would ask about it at some point. “You don’t smoke, do you?”

“Course not,” I lie, standing. “I need some time to think.”

“You’ve had five days while you’ve been locked up in this house. People are ready to camp outside your doorstep.” She squints and then makes the fish-lip face only Adriana knows how to do so well. We both laugh. It feels good to be free of tears and smoke. “Why don’t you get out of here for a bit? Go downtown, sit in the park and read a magazine, or something. That always works for me. I remember now. Alek told me how you like sitting by that old fountain in front of the Sforza Castle. What’s it called again?”

“The Castello Fountain. That’s actually a good idea. I just might do that later on today.” I enjoy watching the evening lights settle over the water structures, especially the Castello Fountain because it reminds me of a waterfall.

At some point, I have to face the living. Even through all of the darkness I’ve surrounded myself with over the past five days, I still want to live. I’ll never just give up again. Jada’s memory deserves better than to be tainted by someone who doesn’t appreciate all she left behind. I finger the butterfly hanging around my neck. I haven’t taken it off since Alek and I split up. Whatever magic his sister holds has worked on me.

“Thank you, Adriana. I’ll think about what you’ve told me today,” I say goodbye to a person who has become as essential as my own sister was in my old life.

Alek

Erin stands beside the Castello Fountain, the place where Adriana said she might be. She’s close enough to the edge for the water to rain down on the short black dress she’s wearing. I watch her for a moment. With her head tilted back and her eyes closed, she appears to be smiling and crying at the same time. I want nothing more than to take her in my arms, to know all of her secrets, to make all of her pain go away.

“What are the water’s voices saying today?” I ask. Her head rips toward me because I caught her off guard.

I almost turn around; but the way she looks at me today is nothing compared to the pain I saw in her face five days ago.

“She set me up.” Erin scoffs a laugh and shakes her head. “I knew there had to be something more than a girl stopping by to sing her brotherly praises.”

“Adriana means well. Hear me out, Erin, please,” I begin. She crosses her arms, and stares at me.