12. Bronwyn

12

brONWYN

Sunlight was trying to force its way under my eyelids and there were voices. I cracked my eyes open a slit and saw a mom pushing a kid in a stroller up a vertical cliff.

My brain reoriented itself. I was lying on the floor, looking at everything sideways. People were walking past outside, because it was morning. And I was naked.

I looked down at myself in disbelief. Yep. I was stretched out naked under a blanket. Luckily, only my head was poking out from behind the counter. Unluckily, my clothes were strewn all over the floor.

Cursing, I waited for a lull in the people walking past, then wrapped the blanket around me and ran around the store grabbing my clothes. I made it to the back room and closed the door just as the next person walked past. Then I dressed, put some coffee on and walked back into the store. I looked around at the burned, soaked books Doyle and Yoz had left. The crack in the door glass from when Radimir had hurled it open. The place on the counter where we’d…

I ran a hand through my tangled hair. My joints ached but I felt deeply, completely, well-fucked in a way I’d never felt before.

That’s when I saw the note on the floor. I’d missed it, in my panic to get some clothes on.

Krasavitsa,

I will never forget you.

R.

Only five words but I read them over and over, trying to squeeze more meaning out of them. He’d never forget me...but he left in the middle of the night? He’d never forget me...and that was it, forever? I had so many questions and I knew I wasn’t going to get any answers.

And all at once, I felt it. Like a hairline fracture in the surface of my skin that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t close. Ice water poured in, soaking right to the center of my soul and filling it up. I sagged against the counter, wrapping my arms protectively around me. I’d felt this before. When my parents died. When Nathan bailed on me. When Baba got sick.

He was gone, and I was on my own again. And I was a fucking idiot to think that he ever wanted me, to think there was some feeling there beyond just sex. I was an idiot to think that I was enough.

Hot tears pricked at my eyes but I furiously blinked them away and threw myself into tidying the store. I’d get everything cleaned up, order new stock to replace what was destroyed, get a new fire extinguisher, check Jen was doing okay, figure out some nice, safe explanation for why Radimir wouldn’t be back, and that night, I’d go to see Baba.

I’d cram the day full and that way, there’d be no time to think about him.

A little before ten that night, I was trudging home from the care center. It had warmed up enough for the snow to turn to a heavy gray rain that pummeled my shoulders and hissed off the sidewalk. My coat was waterproof, but my jeans were soaked and my teeth were chattering.

I suddenly stopped and stared. Wasn’t that... Radimir?

He was crossing the street ahead of me and hadn’t seen me yet. He had his head down against the rain, but I’d have recognized his angry, impatient walk anywhere. And he was heading for my apartment building. He must have gotten my address from my old landlord. He’s coming to see me! My heart lifted. He’s going to apologize. Explain. Only he was going to find I wasn’t home. I hurried across the street to catch up to him, but my joints were burning and stiff, and I couldn’t move fast.

Then Radimir walked straight past my apartment block. Where’s he going?

I followed him to the end of the street and across the intersection to the next. The buildings here were a little flashier, and he hurried up the steps of one of them and started fiddling with the door lock.

I hung back in the shadows. Who is he going to see, this late at night? But the answer was obvious. A woman. Is that what he does, come down to our part of town and find women to fuck? Is she just like me? I blinked rain out of my eyes. I had no idea why I was so upset. We weren’t even dating, we’d just met a handful of times. But…

But I’d thought it felt...special. God, I’m so stupid.

Radimir pulled the door wide and disappeared inside. I started forward and then caught myself. What the hell am I doing? Was I a crazy stalker ex, now? I’d already followed him for almost a block. I couldn’t go in there!

The door was slowly swinging closed. Go home, I told myself. Don’t be stupid.

It was just so unfair: he had all the power. He could stop by the bookstore anytime, but I couldn’t just show up at the front desk of Aristov Incorporated. And I needed answers.

I cursed, ran up the steps and grabbed the door just before it shut.

The lobby was much nicer than the one in my building, with a desk for a security guy—who wasn’t there—and thick red carpet. I could hear Radimir climbing the stairs, already a floor ahead of me. I guiltily wiped my feet and started after him.

On the third floor, he turned left and went to a door at the end of the hallway. I hunkered down on the stairs, watching him through the railing as he quietly inserted first one, then another metal thing into the door lock and fiddled with them. Wait. Is he...is he PICKING THE LOCK?

The door swung open and Radimir crept inside, leaving it open. I stared at the doorway. Okay, enough. Whatever was happening here, I wanted no part of it. I turned to walk back down the stairs. He’d never know I followed him and tomorrow, I’d go back to my normal, boring life.

Then I heard a grunt of surprise and a muffled yell from inside the apartment. The shuffle of feet, more grunting. A fight! What if Radimir was being attacked?

I crept over to the open door. I was looking across the apartment’s hallway and straight into a bathroom. Radimir was wrestling with a huge, bald man who was soaking wet and wrapped in a towel. He had his hand over the bald man’s mouth, muffling his cries. As I watched, Radimir forced the man to the ground. Then he took hold of the man’s head, lifted it?—

Radimir brought the man’s head down on the tiled edge of the shower stall. There was a sickening noise I’ll never forget, like a boiled egg cracking. The man’s body went utterly still. I looked at his chest. It wasn’t moving.

And that’s when Radimir looked up and saw me.