038— "HOW LONG?"

My heart was going so fast I could feel it in my teeth.

I grabbed my clothes from the floor and pulled them on with hands that weren't cooperating.

Buttons in the wrong holes, zip catching, everything taking three times as long as it should while he stood there and watched and said absolutely nothing.

I hated him for that too, for the watching, for the silence, for the way he just stood there looking at me like I was something he was waiting to understand.

I didn't look at him.

I walked to the door.

His hand closed around my wrist.

Fast.

I stopped.

"Listen," he said. "You—"

"Let go of me." Louder than I intended. Not louder than I meant.

"You don't…"

"Let go of me Volkov."

He did.

The pause before he did it was so small I almost missed it.

I walked out.

                 …

The corridor was bright and completely ordinary.

I walked down it with my heart slamming and my dress still slightly wrong on one side and I told myself — anger. This is just anger. Simple and clean and nothing else.

My hands were shaking.

I pressed them against my thighs and walked faster.

‘What is wrong with me?’ The thought came before I could stop it. 

‘You gave in like that. That's easy. Like you hadn't spent weeks building every wall you have. Like he hadn't called it a mistake and yelled at you in the painting room. Like any of that didn't happen.’

I got to my room and shut the door and sat on the edge of my bed. I pressed my hands flat on my knees and breathed.

‘What is wrong with me?’

I didn't have an answer.

I lay down and stared at the ceiling and told myself I wasn't going to think about it.

I thought about it for three hours.

                 …

Two days passed.

I barely saw him.

He was there. I knew he was there, the mansion had his presence in it the way a room had temperature, but he didn't appear at breakfast and he wasn't at the rink and when I passed his office the light was off.

I didn't ask anyone where he was.

I wasn't curious.

I was absolutely not curious and the fact that I checked his office twice was purely incidental and had nothing to do with anything.

Elena noticed. She had the decency not to say anything which I appreciated. Niko showed up twice, talked about hockey, and also didn't say anything, which meant he definitely knew something and had been told not to bring it up which meant Kai had said something to him which meant—

I stopped that line of thinking.

He'd left. 

Just walked out of his own mansion for two days and left like it was nothing and I was not affected by that. I had wanted distance. Distance was good. Distance was what I'd been asking for since the terrace.

The distance felt like something with a shape.

I didn't examine the shape.

On the second night I sat on his private ice alone at midnight and skated until my legs gave out and then sat at center ice in the dark and looked at the ceiling and thought about nothing.

I went to bed at 2am.

I didn't sleep well.

                    …

Third morning.

I was at the breakfast table with my pancakes and Elena was talking about something Niko had said.

I was nodding at the right intervals and everything was completely fine when the energy in the room changed.

I knew before I looked up.

He walked in.

His face showed absolutely nothing. Moving through his own kitchen with that unhurried certainty.

My pulse jumped so hard I had to set my fork down.

He looked at me.

Not for long. Just a flat look, like I was… nothing — and then away and then back, and there was something in that second look that I caught and immediately lost and couldn't be sure I'd seen.

"Meet me in the car when you're done," he said.

Then he was gone.

I stared at the doorway he'd walked out of.

Then I stabbed my pancake with my fork.

Elena made a sound into her coffee. I looked at her. She looked at the ceiling.

I ate the rest of my breakfast very slowly. Not because I was hungry. Because I wanted to and he had said ‘when you're done’ and I would be done when I decided I was done and not one second before. 

I had another coffee. I considered a third and Elena refilled her own cup quietly.

I took my time.

                      …

He was in the back seat when I got to the car.

Not driving. The driver — someone I'd seen twice, quiet, professional, was already behind the wheel and Kai was in the back. 

I got in beside him and the car pulled out without anyone saying a word.

I looked out the window.

He said nothing.

I'd expected something. Some version of the cold clipped voice he used when I'd done something that annoyed him. Some tightness in his jaw. Some indication that the last two days had happened and he had opinions about them.

Nothing.

Just the city going past outside and the silence between us and his hands in his lap and my hands in mine.

Twenty minutes of absolutely nothing until the rink appeared.

                 …

Anya was at the boards when I got on the ice.

She looked at me.

Not the usual look. Something quieter than that. She turned back to the ice before I could read it properly and I filed it and started my warm-up and told myself I was imagining things.

Luka looked at me once. I looked away first which I hated and couldn't help.

Kai was nowhere to be seen.

Coach Petrov blew his whistle and gathered us and I skated over and stood beside Anya who was looking at the ice with her arms crossed.

"Alright," Coach said, with the energy of someone about to announce something he was significantly more excited about than his face suggested. 

"Change of plans for the next six days. The team is going on retreat. Mountain location, two hours out of the city. Training, team building and fresh air." He looked around. "Mandatory."

The team erupted.

Mari grabbed someone's arm. Sarah started asking about rooms. Three people spoke at once.

I stood there.

Mountain retreat. Six days. The whole team.

I was obviously not going.

I looked at the ice and thought about the back seat of that car and twenty minutes of nothing.

"Anya," I said beside her. "You good?"

She didn't answer.

I looked at her.

She was watching the team celebrate with her arms still crossed.

I tried to joke. Something about the altitude. It came out flat and she didn't respond and the silence after it had a texture I didn't like.

Practice started.

I watched Anya from across the ice when I could do it without being obvious. 

She was skating well. Better than well. But every time I caught her eye she looked away first and that had never happened. Not once. Anya never looked away first.

When Coach blew the final whistle she was moving before the sound finished.

I followed.

"Anya."

She kept walking.

"Hey." I caught up. "What's going on? Talk to me."

Nothing.

"You've been quiet since—"

"I'm always quiet."

"You are genuinely never quiet."

She stopped.

I almost walked into her.

She turned around slowly. And I looked at her face properly for the first time today and my stomach dropped because her eyes were wet. Not crying. Holding it. The way she held things when she'd been holding them for a while and was running out of room.

"Anya—"

"How long," she said.

Her voice was very even. Like she had practiced the sentence.

"How long have you been living with Kai Volkov?"