Anna
I managed to open a line of credit for myself, and I’ve mapped out the necessary steps to get out of Seattle and escape to Florida to stay with my friend. It’ll be a long and grueling journey, and I’m not sure how Rachel is going to respond to being ripped from her life here, but I don’t have a good feeling about trying to work things out. As much as I’ve enjoyed the luxury of being selfish, I have to be the adult again.
Luka’s been gone for unpredictable lengths of time during the day, so I know I need to act urgently to get out without having to confront him. I never know when he’s going to come home or how distracted he’ll be when he gets here.
Currently, he’s away, and I’m as ready as I’ll ever be to leave.
I run out to Rachel’s guest house as she’s arriving home from school, and she instantly knows that something is wrong.
“Holy shit, why are you so pale?” she asks.
I’m not sure whether to tell her I’ve been vomiting everything I eat for the past week or that we’re about to break away from a powerful mafia boss with basically nothing to our name. She’ll find out both sooner rather than later.
“I need to talk to you. Can we just sit down for a second?” I ask, patting the Swedish leather couch that likely costs more than both our human worth combined.
We both sit down.
“What’s going on? Are mom and dad dead?” she asks jokingly, and under different circumstances, I would probably laugh with her.
But with the hormones from pregnancy and the stress of a time constraint, I almost explode with anger. I cover my face with my hands in frustration, exhaling deeply as I beg myself to keep my composure.
“No, Rachel, this is serious,” I begin. “We need to get out of here as soon as humanly possible, and I’ve made sure that we have absolutely everything we could need to escape, so I need you to put some clothes in your backpack just like when we first came here so we can leave.”
I can almost feel her heart break in my own chest. Her eyes tell me she’s devastated, which is an expression she has never been good at hiding no matter how stoic and brave she acts otherwise.
“Why?” she asks, holding back tears.
“I’ll explain more later, but we really need to go as soon as Luka is gone for the night. He’s not here now, but he usually comes home for dinner before dipping out again,” I reply. I know it’s not a good answer, and it isn’t going to get me very far with her, but there’s not enough time for me to explain. I don’t have the space in my head to give her a good reason. The next twenty- four hours are all that matters to me right now.
Rachel shakes her head furiously. “No, I want to know now. You already made us leave the last house. I finally got comfortable here, and I actually have friends who aren’t scared to come over anymore. Are you trying to punish me for something?” she begs, and one tear rolls down her cheek as she wipes her other eye.
“I know it’s not fair, trust me. I know it feels like we were handed the best possible life ever, but none of it’s real, and we can’t let money get in the way of keeping ourselves safe. You know it’s not actually safe here, Rachel. It just looks nicer,” I reply, desperately hoping that I can get through to her.
“God, fuck this!” she shouts, kicking a metal water bottle off the coffee table. This form of aggression usually means she’s about to completely lose her shit, and all I can do is brace against it.
I try to control my own anger, clenching and unclenching my fists. “I’m trying to do what’s best for both of us, not just you. I want to be safe too, and you’re going to come with me and stay safe with me whether you want to or not. Do you understand me?” I say sternly, feeling the intensity of my anger burning from my eyes.
“I just don’t understand why we never get to keep anything good in our lives! Don’t I get to be upset about that?” she pleads, and I can see the betrayal in her face as she begins to remember how many times we’ve both been promised safety, to be taken care of, only to have it ripped away when we became inconvenient. This can’t feel much different.
“Rachel, these people are extremely dangerous. If they piss off the wrong person, something a lot worse than Alexei can happen to us. We’re lucky that Luka was there that night, but we should have never, ever gotten involved with him, and I’m so sorry that I dragged us into this,” I confess, tears streaking down my face as well. I can feel myself losing it.
I can see her considering my words. I’m sure she still feels tremendous guilt about the drugs, but I can’t let her believe that any of this is her fault. She’s just a new adult trying to make sense of the world, and the version of the world that she lives hasn’t made it easy for her. She probably feels responsible that we’re here in the first place, and now that it’s dangerous, she’ll feel overwhelming shame about putting us in harm’s way.
What a clusterfuck.
I grab her hands, holding them tightly and looking into her eyes. “Please, trust me. If it were safe here, I would never ask you to leave. Never. But it’s not, and I can’t live with myself if I continue to let you stay somewhere you could be seriously harmed,” I say.
“Okay, okay. Fine,” she replies. “But it’s only because you’re my sister. I could stay here if I really wanted to.”
A wave of relief crashes over my head. “Thank you, Rachel. I promise I’m not trying to boss you around. I know you’re your own person, and I don’t get to tell you what to do. I just really think this is the right decision.”
She nods in agreement, but she’s unable to hide the disappointment in her voice. “Yeah, I know.”
It’s seven PM, and I’m in my little studio working on a new painting when Luka enters. He seems weirdly apprehensive about approaching me, almost like he knows I’m planning something. I haven’t been the most open with him like I usually am, but it’s too difficult for me to pretend that I’m on good terms with him when I’m actually trying to escape from him.
“Hey, what’s this one supposed to be? I really like it,” he asks.
I laugh a little. “It’s not really anything. I just really wanted to use these colors and wasn’t sure what kind of nature scene they would be a part of,” I reply. It’s true, the painting in front of me is pretty much impossible to visually interpret, but it’s still beautiful to me.
He reaches around and embraces me from behind, pressing his chest into my back and pulling me close to him. I feel an immense surge of guilt in my stomach, knowing that he’s completely in the dark and is likely just trying to figure out what’s wrong so he can fix it.
“Well, then I like it,” he whispers in my ear, biting it a bit as he pulls away to face me. “How are you feeling?” he asks, brushing my hair behind my ear tenderly as he always does.
That same guilt pulls my guts down to the floor, and I suddenly feel nauseated again. “I’m not sure. I still just feel… off,” I reply, hoping that he hasn’t seen the drastic change in my face as I grow sicker by the second.
Saying I feel off is an understatement. I’ve spent the last week and a half at least puking up my food as soon as I swallow it, and I’ve had the subsequent nausea looming over my head the rest of the time. Not to mention the stress of choosing to leave a visually perfect life to plunge into one of complete uncertainty.
“Okay, let me know if you need anything, okay?” he asks, kissing me on the cheek and stroking my face before he leaves the room.
No matter how badly I need to leave him, I can’t stop thinking about the sex we had in the shower in Brazil. It was the most passionate, involved sex I’ve ever had with anyone, even with Luka. The way he looks at me when he’s inside me is something I’ve never seen from anyone else before, and if I were any less set on leaving him, that experience alone would be enough to hook me and keep me in forever.
This is going to be hell, but I have to think of the baby.