by Bethany-Kris
“Still. I’m not even a danger to myself. I haven’t been. This is bullshit.”
Roman let out a sigh. “Yeah, I know. But it gets you in the door at first. Fast, that’s all I can say.”
And no matter how many times he tried to explain all of those details were nothing more than surface steps to a grander plan, he didn’t think she would care to hear it.
“I thought we were going to have another great day together, but instead, you’re leaving me here. You’re abandoning me again. What do you think that is going to do to me? You can’t keep telling me you won’t do something, and then turn right around and do it. What is wrong with you?”
He’d never been asked that before.
Not quite like she asked it.
Roman stared at her, unsure of what to say, so he stayed silent.
“I don’t expect you to actually give me an answer,” Karine muttered, not looking away from her lap where she picked at the frayed knee of her skinny jeans. “I expect you to turn around and leave me here, like you planned to do, anyway. So do that, then. Leave.”
Roman didn’t.
He couldn’t just leave it at that.
“You know why this place bothers you the most?” he asked quietly. She wouldn’t even entertain his question, never mind that he spoke in the first place, and continued to refuse to look at him, even when he uttered a low, “Karine.”
Still, nothing.
Fine, he thought.
“The truth is that you don’t want to be within a mile of a place like this because a part you knows this is what you needed a long fucking time ago. And maybe when you’re not drugged and dazed, you’ve got a little more control, babe, but that doesn’t help you deal. If Michelle gave you enough insight to understand what’s going on, then imagine what a team can do. Take the fucking label off it—stop hearing other people in your head because that’s what it is, isn’t it? You hear your father saying you’re a lunatic, or some other stupid shit. It’s not about him, okay? It’s about you.”
Karine let out a shaky exhale before asking, “I thought you said this wasn’t even about that? Earlier, that’s what you said to me. I wasn’t here for that. It’s about—”
“That’s not a lie, either.”
“But which is it—is it to keep me away from Dima and his father, or for my mental health?”
Roman threw his arms wide. “Karine, it can be both.”
“Except it wasn’t ... until you got me through the doors.”
Karine’s jaw clenched, and while her gaze remained lowered from his view, he didn’t miss the tears tracking down her cheeks. Guilt gnawed on his bones, killing him from the inside out.
Slow, and painful.
Just like he deserved.
“The thing is,” Karine said, her bottom lip trembling as she spoke, “I know I don’t get a choice in the matter, Roman, so just leave. Because you see, that’s the only choice I do get here—the very least you can do is let me make it.”
“Karine—”
“I want you to go.”
Dull and flat, her words stabbed at him. The heat of disbelief flared up the back of his neck when she still wouldn’t look at him the longer he stood there, waiting for even a goodbye. A simple bye.
Hell, a fuck you would do.
She wouldn’t even give him that.
“What, you won’t look at me now—you won’t say goodbye?” he asked, hearing the hurt in his bitter tone.
The thing he didn’t think anyone could understand about him and Karine was the fact she adored him, and he absolutely needed that. He wanted her idolization—her unyielding love just because she wanted him to be hers. She could spend her entire day staring at him in amazement, and she left him with just as much wonder. They were not exactly the kind of people who were meant to be, but damned if the universe didn’t just make it so for them both.
It probably wasn’t healthy.
Very few things he loved were.
“I want you to say goodbye to me,” he murmured, doing his best to keep the anger out of his voice.
And failing.
Miserably.
What he needed was to touch her. Wrap her in his arms, hold her tight, inhale her scent, and pray to a God he didn’t even believe existed that he’d be able to do that again someday. Just to help him last for the time they were going to be apart.
But she wouldn’t give him that, either.
He already knew it.
Her nostrils flared in rage. She shook her head once more, and the calm composure she had carefully cultivated came apart at the seams when Karine let out a screech of frustration, standing from the floor in a blur of wildly waving arms. Narrowed eyes turned on him, and for a second, he wished she wouldn’t look at him.
Not like that.
It hurt, too.
“Why won’t you just go? Leave!”
Mel and another member of the staff came to stand in the doorway at the sound of Karine’s raised voice. He didn’t even glance their way, refusing to break his wife’s stare now that he had it.
“I really do want to keep you safe,” he told her.
“Mr. Avdonin, I think maybe you should leave now,” Mel insisted.
“Karine, let me hug you before I go,” he tried again.
She shook her head.
Again.
Because they both knew the truth ... and once he put his hands on her, she was going to feel better—good again. She always did in his arms. And God, he wanted to do that for her right now, even if it wouldn’t last and it was only a lie. He needed to say goodbye, too.
Yet, there they both stood.
An invisible wall remained between them, and he couldn’t close that distance unless she let him first.
She didn’t.
Karine allowed herself to be coaxed away by the woman who had joined Mel in the doorway. The tears crept down her cheeks as she passed him by, not looking away to hide those blatant tears, but she didn’t give him a thing.
Didn’t say a word.
“Karine,” he shouted at her back.
Her dainty shoulders tensed, but she continued walking until she was at the door. One more step, and she would be gone.
He had no choice but to let her go.
Heart dying.
The outburst of emotion came from Roman before he could stop it. Without thinking, he drove his fist into the closest wall, driving his hand wrist deep into plaster. He heard the sound of bone crunching when the skin of his knuckles split against the beam it found inside the wall. His blood stained the pristine white paint, but none of it helped.
None of it changed anything.
Nothing would now.
SIX
Karine was sure Roman was long gone by the time she had found a bathroom to hide inside. She quickly realized the door couldn’t be locked from the inside unless someone had a card for the electronic reader, and it was just one more reminder about what this place really was.
How stupid could she be?
How many cameras did Karine overlook? Why hadn’t she thought to ask about the heavy doors, and the locked corridors that hadn’t been open during the tour?
No, she’d been ... all too willing to follow Roman like a lost puppy. Straight into a new cage, with prettier bars.
The woman who opened the bathroom door to peek inside at Karine wore plain white scrubs, and a lanyard around her neck with an ID badge that Karine suspected controlled things like the card. At the sight of Karine sitting on the bathroom floor next to a row of pedestal sinks, the lady said nothing about the outburst earlier.
Karine’s face still burned with shame all the same.
“Do you just need a minute?” she asked.
Karine nodded, but didn’t look up from where she picked at her fingernails. “Please.”
“Not a problem. You’re not going to be forced to do or take anything here that you don’t want, Karine. Not unless you’re a danger to yourself or others. You’re welcome to your privacy, b
ut I did have to check. I’ll be out in the hall whenever you’re ready.”
The door clicked closed without the woman waiting for a reply. Not that Karine had one, anyway.
For a long while, she simply sat there alone in her heartache. Silent and angry. Didn’t she have a good reason to be, though?
Why did it have to make her feel guilty, too?
In the meditation room, Karine had decided she would be as calm and controlled as she could be—she had to be. It took mere minutes for her to figure out the plan that had unfolded around her by her husband’s hand.
There was no way out.
No other option.
Karine had never once found herself in an institution. Despite the threat of it sometimes lingering over her head when Maxim thought she was getting out of hand, she’d managed to avoid it. She had enough knowledge about places like these to know once she had been involuntarily committed, fraudulently or not, leaving was not as easy.
But that was the thing ...
Once she understood why they were really there, she didn’t need to know anything else.
Roman had already made the decision. When she thought they were creating something real—when her traitorous heart believed they had a shot at love—he was actually plotting to lock her away.
Essentially.
The other details didn’t really matter—his reasons weren’t as important as what he’d done in the end. She wasn’t convinced this was the best option for her.
How was keeping her far from her husband, somewhere she didn’t know with people she couldn’t trust, the right step to take?
Karine cursed herself for opening up to Roman. She shouldn’t have told him so much about her past. Nonetheless, despite being aware of her triggers—he still chose to abandon her.
And not like before ...
Not like the lodge when she was still fresh from Chicago, and scared of her secrets that were no longer hidden. No, this time he’d let her wrap him around her heart only to squeeze it to death so slowly that she hadn’t even realized she was dying.
Roman made her love him.
And then he did this.
Didn’t he know how difficult it was going to be to keep control of the fractured parts of her mind that had already started screaming between her ears? Once again, she could hear the echoes of voices.
It would be easy.
To give in, and go to sleep. Let them handle all the fears, and the darkness beginning to creep through her mind.
She didn’t, though, instead forcing herself to meditate and clear her mind as best as she temporarily could on the tiles floor of an unfamiliar bathroom with a row of silver stalls facing her.
And she thought of him.
Roman.
She’d gone into that last conversation wanting him to understand what he had done, what he was really doing to her. She had needed him to know there was no coming back from this.
His betrayal.
But then she saw him.
He’d looked almost afraid—like he was falling apart, too.
Just like her.
Karine had tried hard to keep from giving into her weakness for him. All those thoughts and the pain she wanted him to hear her say jumbled together, stumbling over her racing heart, and nothing came out right.
As much as she had tried, she couldn’t get him to see the damage he was doing. He apologized and made excuses, but she didn’t think he could see how he was breaking her. All the progress she’d made, the trust she had in him—everything fell apart.
Just like that.
She didn’t even bother asking him how long she’d be here. Where he was going, or if they would see each other soon. Could she call him?
Nothing.
She didn’t ask him anything.
Karine had to make herself walk away from him because he didn’t deserve her affection. She wanted to despise him.
If only she didn’t already love him.
*
Eventually, Karine did leave the safety of the bathroom. They brought her to the room that was supposed to be her living space indefinitely—only big enough to fit the dresser, bed, two-person dining table, and a small sitting area in front of big bay windows that faced the dry land outside. There was a flatscreen behind glass inside the wall, and a camera in the corner.
She would later discover another camera in the bathroom. The place had every inch covered, no matter how humiliating. The women who escorted her to the room, Mel and the nurse from earlier, ran through the rules that Karine didn’t care to hear. It was only once she sat on the rubbery sheet covering the bed and realized it was like that so someone couldn’t use the fabric to make some form of ligature, that she really shut down.
She could have asked Mel how long she would be there for, but she didn’t bother—why when she would either be refused an answer, or lied to. Clearly, there was something at stake for the staff handling her. Money, reputation ... freedom, even.
What was the point, anyway.
Even if not knowing did both to her ... even if not knowing made her dark thoughts worse, and her self-hatred spiral. Maybe Roman had committed her for life. Maybe he couldn’t deal with her just like her father.
Perhaps, had she known that the last few days would be her final days of freedom, Karine might have done things differently. Now, she was a prisoner to somebody else. It was starting to feel like she was nothing but a scrunched up piece of paper being passed around from one pair of grubby hands to the next.
Each one left her more used, and dirty.
The wrinkles weren’t coming out.
“Do you like the room?” A voice interrupted her thoughts.
Karine winced, and turned to look. A middle-aged woman stood by the door, her hands clasped together and her head tilted gently to the side as she regarded the young woman resting in the bed, lost to her mind.
When she didn’t say anything, the woman continued, “I asked for you to have this one because of the view—I hoped it would allow you a place to meditate without interruption. We don’t typically see much movement out there.”
She gestured at the windows.
Karine didn’t bother to look.
She couldn’t help but wonder what it was with all these women—first Masha, then Michelle and now this lady. Why did they all think they were going to fix her? They couldn’t.
“I’m Sylvia. I’m going to be your therapist here. I know it’s your first day, but I would really like it if we got to know each other, Karine.”
Her soft voice and quiet demeanor only added to her friendly smile. She wasn’t trying to hurry Karine in to doing something—so, at least that was a relief. That didn’t mean she wanted to talk.
When Karine still didn’t speak, Sylvia continued.
“I promise it won’t take you very long. At the start, it can all be a little overwhelming. It’s a new place, and you don’t see anybody you recognize, but that will all change soon. I always like to give people as many days as they need to get accustomed to their new environment. Don’t worry, we don’t have to start working any time soon.”
She made air quotes with her fingers as she said working, and the smile never left her face.
Ugh.
No, thanks.
Karine gritted her teeth.
Why was she being spoken to like she was a child? Did these people here assume she was incapable of having an adult conversation?
Karine jerked her face away from Sylvia to look out the window, hoping her displeasure and disinterest was finally crystal clear.
“It’s okay,” Sylvia said. “We don’t have to talk right now, either. There’s a button next to your bed, your door, and in your bathroom so you can reach a member of our staff at all times. Don’t hesitate to use it, okay? Anything you need.”
Karine almost laughed out loud at that.
Did she really want to know what Karine needed?
Free will.
A different life.
A future.
Roman.
She squeezed her eyes close to drive those thoughts away. She didn’t want to think about him. She wanted to forget about Roman, hoping that would help with the pain of his betrayal.
“Is there anything I can get you right now?” Sylvia continued.
Karine opened her eyes, narrowing them at the woman who was still smiling.
That only annoyed her more.
“Yeah, you can,” she said.
Sylvia brightened. “And what’s that?”
“You can fuck off.”
Karine rolled over, back facing the door.
That was that.
*
They came for her the next morning.
At least, she was grateful the staff gave her the night. Karine had spent the past twelve hours in relative peace, if one could consider the hellish state of her mind peaceful. Regardless, they left her alone other than stopping long enough at her door to leave a tray heaped with food. It did look good, but she couldn’t even force herself to move let alone eat.
Her room had everything she could possibly need, so technically, she had nothing to want for. And seemingly nothing to use should she want to end her misery. While it wasn’t a thought in her mind, really, Karine was disturbed by the rounded edges on every piece of furniture and how not one single thing could be moved. All of it was bolted down.
On the surface, the room seemed clean, modern and inviting. Like a standard hotel room, not cheap but not expensive, either. Except when she looked closer, the bright white walls meant to be welcoming were made of stone and felt like they were going to swallow her whole.
This was exactly the life she had led at her father’s home, too. Only with different walls and familiar faces keeping her company. He made sure she had everything to stay alive, which included a woman to care for her closely, and always under a watchful eye.
That wasn’t what Karine wanted anymore.
She wanted a life—to really live. Because hers thus far had seemed to consist of being a pawn someone else moved from here to there. Tiring, honestly. She wanted freedom, possibly even an adventure.
The man who said he would give it to her had been just another liar.
Karine spent the night oscillating between grief and rage—the constant rollercoaster was nearly too extreme for even her to manage. Except it never stopped. It didn’t give her the chance to get off the goddamn ride. She battled the voices in her head that were threatening to leap out. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep them at bay.