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I didn’t see him again until two years later, when I was in the halfway house they put boys like me after we were released from detention. Boys who had nowhere else to go. Boys just as damaged and sadistic as any I’d found inside juvie.

I knew it was time to go. All I needed was an opportunity.

That opportunity came in the form of Roman Stevanovsky. And it came on the same day I saw Yakov lurking across the street from the halfway house, watching and waiting.

It was Roman who got between me and the older boys Yakov had paid to bring me back.

Following Roman out the door and onto the street was the first and only time in my life that I ever ran. Not because I was afraid. And not because I was running from Yakov.

I ran because Roman was a future that I could run toward.

He didn’t show fear. He knew how to survive.

And somehow, I knew he was just as lonely as me.

Roman became the home I held in my heart. Until I met Abby, he was the only home I knew.

And then Abby left.

I shift uneasily behind the wheel, reluctant to even go back to that sickening moment.

The memory comes anyway, in gut-wrenchingly vividdetail. Suddenly I’m back in that Madrid apartment, staring at the empty bed, the envelope from Abby on the bedside table. I’d known what the letter inside it would say before I even opened the envelope.

In fact, it was days before I could brace myself to open that fucking thing.

I pick up a bottle of water and pour it over my face as I drive, then gulp the rest, more to calm my racing heart and the sick feeling in my stomach than because I’m either hot or thirsty. All I can hear is my mother’s voice:I will be back as soon as I can...

Abby might not have said those words, but they were the only ones I heard when I read her letter.It said that she’d be in touch after three months. But as far as my fucked-up subconscious was concerned, Abby was simply gone.

And she was never—ever—coming back.

Because whilestand and fightmight be the mantra I use for war, when it comes to love, I don’t have a creed to follow.

That’s why I didn’t fight for you, Abby.Because I never fucking learned how to.

Hardship and pain—yeah, those I learned. All too fucking well.

This is how we survive, malysh . . .

I know my mother tried to prepare me for whatever she imagined I might have to face. I’m old enough to understand that she meant her words to sustain me, to show me the way when there was no way. And hard as her words might sound to some, I’m old enough to know they were also the only thing that kept me alive after she left.

But I’m not a lost kid anymore.

And Abby isn’t my mother.

Iwillfind her.

And maybe, when I do, it won’t change how she feels. Maybe I will find her, only to fucking lose her again.

But by Christ, this time I will stand and fight. Harder than I have for anything in my life before.

Because this time, I’m not fighting because I’m agood fucking soldier.

I’m fighting for my life. For my heart.

And for the only home I’ve ever truly loved.

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