Page 218 of Sexting the Pakhan
Her chin wobbles. “You fell.”
I can only imagine how traumatizing that must have been for her. “I’m here, kiddo. I’m alright.”
“You’re hurt again.”
“It’s the good kind of hurt,” I say, and I really mean it. I would gladly give up my life for them.
Mila makes a tiny broken laugh, then presses her forehead to the back of my hand.
That nearly finishes me.
Zoya stands quickly. “Girls, come on. Let him rest. We’ll go get water and ask the nurse about the pudding.”
“I want to stay,” Mila says immediately.
“We will come back,” Zoya tells her.
Nadia looks at me. “You will still be here?”
The question is too serious for a child.
I give her the truth because she deserves that more than comfort. “Yes.”
She studies me for a moment, decides she believes me, then takes Mila’s hand and lets Zoya lead them toward the door.
Before Zoya leaves, she turns back. Her eyes meet mine.
There’s so much in her face that I can’t separate it properly. Love. Fear. Anger. Exhaustion. The remains of six years and one night that almost took everything.
“I’ll be right outside,” she says.
“I know.”
She looks like she wants to come back and kiss me, but the girls are there and the room is full of machines and nurses and whatever we are now is still new enough to bruise if handled too quickly.
So she leaves.
The door closes softly behind them.
The bathroom door opens.
Stepan steps out.
He looks worse than I do in some ways, though no doctor has touched him. There’s dried blood on his collar, a bruise along his jaw, and a tiredness in his face that didn’t come from one night. His gun is gone. His coat is wet at the hem. He looks like a man who spent the last twelve hours burying one life and making room for another.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks.
Then he says, “You look like shit.”
I close my eyes briefly. “You said that already.”
“It remains true.”
He comes closer but doesn’t sit. Stepan has never been good at sitting in hospital rooms. He treats chairs like traps.
“Dima?” I ask.
“Dead.”
