Page 165 of Sexting the Pakhan

From the kitchen, Nadia says, “Mama?”

Zoya takes a breath, smooths her hair, and calls back, “I’m coming.” Her voice is steady. She turns to me once before leaving the room. “Don’t move again.”

I look at her. Her mouth is still swollen from nothing. From almost.

“I won’t,” I say.

She doesn’t believe me.

She’s right not to.

When she goes into the kitchen, both girls start talking at once, and Zoya answers them like she wasn’t just lying on top of me with her heart beating against mine.

I stay on the couch, leg burning, body aching, mind worse.

Six years ago, I let her go because I thought distance would protect her. Now she’s ten feet away, making breakfast for my daughters, and every dangerous thing in my life is moving toward this apartment.

I got the wrong man.

I let the right woman go.

And I’m beginning to understand that both mistakes may cost more than I know.

22

RUSLAN

The fever comesin the afternoon. The wound aches differently, my skin turns too hot, and the room begins to move at the edges.

Mila places a wet cloth on my forehead with great seriousness.

Nadia stands beside her with a notebook. “His temperature is high.”

Mila whispers, “Should we give him soup?”

Nadia says, “Soup is not medicine.”

“It’s emotional medicine,” Mila says.

I try to answer, but sleep takes me before I can.

When I wake again, the apartment is filled with sunlight. My mouth is dry. The blanket is pulled up to my chest, and the couch is more comfortable than it has any right to be. I have slept in expensive houses, guarded rooms, hotel suites, and cars with guns under the seat.

I sleep better here.

Voices come from the kitchen.

Karina says, “I can take them. I’m going that way anyway.”

Zoya answers, tired. “You have your own work.”

“I have an urgent meeting after drop-off. I’ll manage.”

“The school only reopened today. They may be nervous.”

“That’s why I’ll take them inside myself,” Karina says. “You stay here and finish your work. Also, someone has to make sure your couch patient doesn’t pretend he can walk.”

Zoya sighs. “Don’t call him that.”