“I should have called,” Maria continued, fingers fumbling with the zipper of her jacket. “I don’t know what I was thinking. It was stupid.” She barely seemed to be listening to me. It felt as though the words were directed at herself.
She glanced up, but she didn’t meet my eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I don’t - You’ve already got company. You should focus on Kira. On whatever -” She waved a hand, gesturing at whatever was happening between me and my ex-girlfriend.
“You’ve got nothing to apologize for,” I promised. Maria wasn’t listening. I couldn’t stop her from leaving, not when I could tell that was what she wanted to do. But I couldn’t help wishing that that wasn’t what Maria wanted to do. All of this could have gone better.
Before I could think of other apologies, or anything else I could say, Maria was already bidding her goodbyes, telling me to apologize to Kira for interrupting and wishing me a good night. I wanted to reach out, to stop her and tell her how my night would be better if she stayed.
But to no avail. Maria was already out the door.
I had whiplash from the speed at which events had unfolded. Kira was still in the living room so I could hardly go after Maria. Besides, I got the impression that it wouldn’t achieve anything right now.
Instead, I’d have to go and deal with Kira.
Over dinner later that night, Kira and I had our first truly honest conversation in years. We talked about how this was the end of us - the romantic us. She cried, but it wasn’t the sort of crying I was used to. It felt more like acceptance.
An end of an era, it felt like. But an era I didn’t mind putting behind me.
Despite it all, what I wanted to do was tell Maria about it.
Chapter Sixteen
Going over to Lev’s house uninvited was a rash decision. I instantly regretted it. I wanted to show myself that I could be normal around Lev. It was important to prove that my feelings for him wouldn’t get in the way of being the good friend he wanted me to be.
I hadn’t expected to find him sitting cozily on the couch with Kira. I realized at once that having a key and making unexpected visits couldn’t continue to work. Even if I hadn’t interrupted anything - and Kira staring daggers at me didn’t convince me that I hadn’t - it was inevitable that one day Lev was going to want more privacy than my having a key allowed.
Lev didn’t want me. Whatever his reasons were, I couldn’t assume that his reluctance to be more than my friend meant he was never going to date. He was a handsome, successful man. Even if I didn’t tempt him, I couldn’t expect him to be celibate forever.
I hadn’t known that it would hurt as much as it had.
Rushing from Lev’s house after seeing Kira in his arms gave me a sickening sense of vertigo. I should have known better. But I hadn’t. My feelings were getting in the way.
I wanted to be able to push them aside. I wished for nothing more than I wished that Lev and I could continue as we were. I had enjoyed being his friend.
But a friend shouldn’t feel sick to her stomach at the thought of Lev kissing someone else. I had tried my best to play gooseberry to Lev and Kira with grace. I had known even as I was trying to draw her out that it was a temporary measure. I couldn’t sit there and pretend it didn’t bother me to see them together.
Lev didn’t deserve a friend who was secretly wishing for him not to find happiness with his ex-girlfriend. And I didn’t deserve having to witness my heartbreak first hand.
It wasn’t until the next morning that my phone started to ding with messages from Lev. I ignored them. I’d need to talk to him. First, I needed to work out what to say.
I went to work. Losing myself in figures and facts for a few hours helped to clear my head. My emotions were still there, raw as a new wound, but I could look at them with more distance.
It hurt to watch Lev kissing another woman. It hurt to think about him asking Kira out on dates, choosing where to go based on her wants and wishes.
My heart would get over the hurt - eventually. But I couldn’t be Lev’s friend while I got to that stage. It would mean hurting myself every time I saw him smile at another woman or every time he mentioned Kira’s name. The longer I allowed that to happen, the slower my feelings would seal themselves over.
It was the last thing I wanted, but I knew I had to tell Lev that we couldn’t keep hanging out.
Maybe one day, I’d be ready to be his friend.
Or maybe I wouldn’t. Changing out of my work clothes and into a comfy sweater and jeans, my fingers brushed across the Russian letters that sat over my ribcage.
Lev couldn’t be my soulmate. If he was, he’d have felt for me the same feelings I felt for him.
But knowing that did nothing to stem the flood of tears. I threw myself onto my bed, crying into my pillow in a way I hadn’t done for years. Not since Vasily.
Did the Russian letters on my skin mean I was doomed to keep letting Russian men break my heart?
I cried myself out until there was nothing left, just empty sobs. It had been hard enough to let go of the idea of Lev as my boyfriend. Coming to terms with the loss of him as my friend felt ten times more cruel.
My heavy heart ached. Every time I thought of telling Lev we couldn’t be friends anymore, my resolve wavered. I couldn’t hurt him like that. But if I didn’t, I’d be hurting myself in the long term.
I needed someone to hold me to the only sensible course of action. There was only one person I knew who was fit for the job.
One glance at Emily’s sympathetic face when she answered the door was all it took. I burst into tears all over again, wrapping my arms around her and drenching the shoulder of her shirt.
She let me cry. Her arms wrapped around me, guiding me to the couch and offering me Kleenex when I started to sniffle.
“I’m sorry,” I moaned, once I’d mastered myself a little. “I honestly thought I’d cried all the tears in the world. I didn’t realize there’d be more.”
Emily’s hand rubbed my back just like it had done when we’d been little. She had always been such a good older sister. I was sure she could help me now, too. “Come on, I’ve got a bottle of red just for this sort of thing,” she told me.
Before long, there was a glass of wine in my hand and a box of Kleenex on the coffee table. Filling up her own glass, Emily sat down next to me, her body pressing into mine comfortingly.
“This is about Lev?” she guessed.
I sniffed, dabbing a Kleenex to my nose. “Yeah.” My voice sounded so dejected, even to my ears. I couldn’t seem to help it. This felt like the hardest thing I’d ever had to do - and I hadn’t even started yet.
“I went over last night, and he was with his ex-girlfriend.” I choked down a fresh wave of sobs. “I didn’t think it would be that hard to see him with someone else.” If I was honest, I hadn’t thought about seeing Lev with anyone at all. I should have done. Then, maybe, I could have prepared myself. Or not turned up unannounced.
I shook my head. “I don’t think I can be friends with him. Not right now.”
I looked pleadingly at my sister, heart hoping that she could see a way that Lev and I could stay friends. My head knew better.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Emily said in such a nice tone that I couldn’t help the tears that rolled down my cheeks again. She set her wine glass down and moved in closer to me, pulling me into a hug. “I’m sorry things are rough right now,” she told me gently, rubbing my back. “I promise they’ll get better.”
I wanted to believe that promise. Right now, it seemed impossible that there might be a time when I didn’t feel this way towards Lev.
“Maybe you should tell him,” Emily suggested. “Both about how you feel and how you need time to overcome those feelings. Time during which you can’t be friends with him.”
My heart squeezed painfully hard against my ribs. I didn’t want to imagine the hurt on Lev’s face if I told him that I couldn’t be his friend right now. He would give me time
if that's what I asked for. I trusted him to do that. But he would still be hurt. He would miss me, and I would miss him. The thought tore my self-restraint to ribbons.
I hiccuped, rubbing the back of my hand over one wet cheek. “Yeah,” I agreed miserably. “I think I need to. But I hate thinking about us not being friends.” Lev was my best friend. Or at least, my best friend that I wasn’t related to.
Even knowing it was for the best, it was hard to imagine how I would get through it. “Why do things that are necessary have to be so hard?” I asked past the sudden lump in my throat.
Emily gave a small chuckle at that but drew me in even closer. “I don’t know, Maria,” she said soothingly. “But I do know that things will get better.” The confidence in Emily’s tone made me want to believe her. So did the hurt I felt right now. I wanted to believe that things would get better, that my feelings for Lev would just go away.
I cuddled into Emily, hoarding all of her affection as if I could keep it with me to help me stay strong in the hard days ahead. “He’s going to be… I don’t know. Upset?” It didn’t seem like a big enough word. I would have been heartbroken if Lev told me that he didn’t want to be my friend anymore. I hoped that I would also have understood if our situations were reversed.
“I don’t want to hurt him. But I know that I have to.” It wasn’t going to be a fun conversation. It meant making myself vulnerable, as well as disappointing Lev. Neither was something I was very eager to do. “I wish I could tell him how much time I need. But I don’t know how long it’ll take. I’ve never -” I shrugged. I’d gotten over boyfriends. I’d just never felt as strongly about any of them as I did about Lev.
“So tell him that,” Emily suggested. “Just be honest. Tell him that he means a lot to you and you want to keep it that way. You just need to get over your more than friendly feelings towards him.” As she spoke, Emily stroked my hair, just like how dad had used to when I was little.
It brought me comfort in a way I hadn’t expected it to. Emily was right. I could do this. Lev would have to understand. And I had to trust him enough to do so.
It still made my heart ache. But I knew that I would get over it. I had to. Letting my eyes drift closed, I breathed out slowly, letting Emily’s touch and memories of dad both bring me some measure of peace. I wouldn’t be losing Lev forever. I could handle this, knowing that it was only temporary.
I thought about the Russian letters of my soulmark and felt my stomach turn over. It was hard to imagine ever feeling more than I already felt for a different man named Lev. Maybe I just wasn’t one of those people destined to meet my soulmark match. Right now, I felt like I’d rather imagine a future with someone with a different name entirely.
The question still lingered at the back of my mind. “I thought Lev might be my soulmate,” I admitted. I’d never told Emily what name was written on my skin, but right now I needed her to know. I needed her to tell me what I already knew - that if Lev were my soulmate, then he would have the same feelings for me that I had for him. “It wouldn’t feel like this, if he were, would it?”
I heard my sister give a soft ‘oh’. She didn’t stop petting my hair. I imagined she was a little surprised. After returning from Russia, I had never spoken about soulmates. Not really, anyway. I had told Emily about how different the attitude there was towards soulmates and implied that I was fine with that.
And I had thought I was.
Not finding my soulmate had never seemed like such a big thing. Up until now, when I couldn’t help but think how I wanted for Lev to be it.
“You need to talk to him,” Emily advised kindly. “We can’t make all the decisions. You’ll have to tell him the truth.” I didn’t know if she meant to tell him about the soulmark or just how I felt. That was, I supposed, my call.
I couldn’t see what benefit there could be to telling him that his name was the same as my soulmate’s. Not when it was so obvious that Lev wasn’t my soulmate. For all I knew, he had the name ‘Kira’ written somewhere on his body. Maybe that was why he was so determined to keep supporting her. Maybe he and Kira were meant to be together, and her difficulties were just the obstacle they had to overcome to find true happiness.
Or maybe neither of them cared about soulmates. It didn’t matter. I knew all I needed to know: Lev didn’t want to be anything more than my friend. Whether he was with Kira, single, or with another woman altogether. I wouldn’t waste my time - or my heart - chasing after a man who didn’t want me.
“I’m going to miss him.” It was the sad truth. “You think you and Tanya are up for keeping me distracted while I learn to get used to not having Lev to go on adventures with?” I asked, trying to inject some lightness into my tone.
“Of course!” Emily promised instantly. “Tanya and I will always be here for you,” she assured me, pulling me into another hug. “We’ll go on adventures with you. In fact, we’ll take turns so we don’t accidentally couple too much,” she teased. “You can take Tanya to see a play, she’s been bothering me about it for ages. You know how boring I find theater.”
That made me laugh. I enjoyed that Emily both had a plan and had found the perfect way not to accompany her wife to the theater.
“I’d love to,” I agreed easily. “As long as it’s not one of those plays about soulmates ending up together. I don’t think I could take that, right now.” Hopefully, there would be a good comedy that I could take Tanya to. “And you and I can go see the latest disaster movie,” I added. “Something with lots of earthquakes or explosions.”
Those might not be Emily’s favorite kinds of films, but I knew that she would sit through one for me.
Knowing that I had her support, and Tanya’s, made the nightmare situation feel more bearable. I would need to cry on her shoulder at least once more before I fully flushed the feelings for Lev out of my system. At least I knew that she’d let me.
I would still miss Lev, but Emily would be as good as her word. She’d keep me distracted for as long as it took.
But first, I needed to tell Lev. My stomach flipped horribly at the idea. There was no avoiding it. I cared about him too much to leave him wondering what had happened.
I’d text him tomorrow and see when he was free. And then, after that part was finally over, I could focus on trying to move on.
Chapter Seventeen
From the way Maria barely responded to my messages, I knew things were tense between us. When I received a message from her asking if we could meet, I was more worried than I was excited to see her. I was still excited to see her. It struck me that I was always excited to see Maria, even when we’d seen each other only a few hours prior.
Even when I worried she was unhappy with me.
I knew that I needed to explain to Maria that Kira and I weren’t... well, we just weren’t. We’d talked about it. I felt confident that Kira understood. I wanted Maria to know that.
Honestly, I wasn’t able to pinpoint why it mattered so much to me that she knew. That Maria didn’t think I was going to make the same mistakes again. But it did matter. I wanted her to know and wanted her to understand that I was making good choices.
I had offered to meet Maria at Babushka. She’d asked if she could come over instead. That worried me, too. I always enjoyed having Maria there, but she’d never asked to meet somewhere private.
By the time she got there, my stomach was doing somersaults. I didn’t even know why I felt so anxious. I hoped it wasn’t foreshadowing.
After some quick greetings, I led Maria through to the kitchen so I could offer her tea like a good host. “So, about the other night,” I started as the kettle boiled behind us.
Her throat moved as she swallowed. She couldn’t quite meet my eyes, her gaze darting everywhere around my kitchen, although she’d been in there a dozen times before.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t think to check you weren’t busy,” she exhaled in a rush. She’d apologized for that already. I wanted her to know that she didn’t need t
o be sorry. I liked Maria coming over, I would always be glad to see her.
Before I could say as much, she carried on. “I didn’t realize that seeing you with someone else would hurt so much.”
That was not what I expected her to say.
In fact, it was so much not what I had expected her to say that it took me a moment to understand what she was saying. “I’m sorry... what?” I asked dumbly. I saw the flash of worry that flickered across her face. I wanted to apologize. Even if I wasn’t sure what I would be apologizing for.
“Kira and I, we’re not together. She kissed me. Not the other way around. I don’t...” I realized that I was trying to explain myself, almost like kissing someone who wasn’t Maria had broken some sort of rule. But I knew it hadn’t. Yet, convincing my feelings of that was much harder.
Especially when she stood in front of me looking so worried.
Her lips parted, but nothing came out. I could see her fingers twisting the cute charm bracelet that she wore. Her expression looked as though she were at war with herself.
She sighed. “I don’t think that matters, Lev.” The way my name tripped off her tongue made that sense of foreboding I’d experienced all day solidify into pure dread.
“Even if it’s not Kira, it’s going to be someone, eventually. I -” She swallowed again. “You’ve made it clear that you only want to be my friend. And I want that too. But right now… I can’t. It’s not fair to you, and I’m sorry, but I can’t see any other way.”
Everything felt like it was moving at lightning speed around me. I wasn’t sure what Maria was talking about. Or at least not truly. Hearing her say that I had told her I only wanted to be her friend made my stomach turn. It wasn’t what I remembered saying. I... I didn’t want to lose her friendship, that much was certainly true.
Final Score (Madison Howlers #5) Page 16