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Chapter Twenty-Three

Petyr

A rooster crowed, as if the damn thing knew I was trying to pretend everything was fine. It wasn’t ours. The bird was probably at one of the neighbor’s dacha. If I had a knife, I’d race out into the morning darkness and silence the bastard.

My eyes cracked open and my head throbbed like someone had slammed a pipe against it. The dry taste of last night’s vodka lingered on my tongue, bitter and clinging. I was on the floor—Jesus, the floor—with a towel wadded under my head like a sad excuse for a pillow.

Someone was snoring, deep and wet, like their lungs were full of soup.

Oleg, probably. A woman muttered something unintelligible in her sleep.

I sat up slowly, careful not to knock over the forest of empty bottles on the coffee table.

Ashtrays overflowed like miniature volcanoes, cigarette butts crammed in like fallen soldiers.

The entire room stank of smoke, sweat, and vodka.

A narrow shaft of gray light slipped between the curtains, barely illuminating the wreckage of last night’s party.

A blonde—Svetlana? No, her name had started with a K.

Katerina. She was curled up on the sofa next to Oleg.

Her face was pressed into his arm, lipstick smudged down to her chin. Which meant Larisa wasn’t here.

Shit.

The bedroom door had been shut all night. Dimitri had gone in early, said he had a headache, but I knew better. It wasn’t his head that hurt.

God, had Larisa gone in there?

I ran a hand over my face. I didn’t want to finish that thought.

The other guys were flopped over chairs, slumped against walls, passed out wherever their bodies had given up on them. One of them, I think it was Pavel, let out a grunt and rolled over, dragging a blanket half off the armchair.

The rooster crowed again. Mocking bastard.

I wanted to rewind time. Just a single day. Make the visitors vanish, erase the laughter, the music, the mindless gossip. Let it just be us. Dimitri and me. Like it should’ve been from the start.

But I’d done nothing to stop it. I’d smiled and offered drinks. I’d played the perfect host. Like a good little comrade.

Was I really that much of a coward?

Maybe. Or maybe I’d just learned too well how to survive. Learned the hard way that men like me don’t get to have choices. We smile and play along, burying the truth so deep inside that even we forget it’s there.

But Dimitri hadn’t buried anything. He was still burning. Still aching with it. And I’d handed him a weekend full of noise and strangers and lies.

I rubbed my hands over my face again, digging my palms into my eyes like I could push the memories back into darkness. All I’d ever wanted was for him to be happy. Safe. But I’d made him anything but.

And still, I wanted to make it right.

Heavy footsteps creaked across the wood floor, slow and deliberate, like thunder wrapped in boots.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

The door to the bedroom opened. A pause. Then those same footsteps approached—closer, closer—until they stopped right beside me.

I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

I knew it was Dimitri. I could smell the faint traces of his soap that made my stomach flutter like a schoolgirl’s.

He exhaled loudly, a sharp, tired sigh that broke something in my chest.

The footsteps turned. Marched toward the front door.

It opened.

And then—

SLAM.

The floor shook. I flinched like I’d been kicked.

“What the fuck?” someone groaned.

I opened my eyes just enough so I could see what was happening around me.

Oleg, from the sofa. He dragged the blonde closer, her arm flopping over his chest like a dead fish.

Another voice muttered, “Is it already morning?”

The rooster answered for us, loud and triumphant.

“I swear to God, if that fucking bird doesn’t shut up, I’m going to kill it,” one of the guys grumbled, peeling himself off the floor.

I stayed flat on my back, eyes shut again, trying to will them all out of existence.

The man who’d stood went stomping off toward the kitchen, muttering something about tea.

Cupboards opened. Closed. Something fell. A loud clatter followed by, “Blyad! Where the hell is the tea?”

There was a collective groan from the room. A symphony of the damned.

“I could eat a cow,” Oleg groaned. “Hey, Katya, you think there’s anything left in the pantry? Bread, maybe?”

The guy in the kitchen returned. “Nothing. We finished it all last night. Even the pickled herring. If we want food, we’re gonna have to head back to Leningrad.”

Please go. Please.

Someone nudged my shoulder with their foot.

I cracked open one eye.

The blonde was towering over me, lipstick smeared and mascara smudged, holding her shoes in one hand like a weapon.

“You coming back to the city with us?” she asked, squinting at me. “We could stop somewhere, grab something to eat.”

I groaned. “No. Go. I’ll… I’ll stay. Thanks.”

She blinked at me, shrugged, and turned away.

A moment later, Larisa emerged from the bedroom, yawning and stretching like a cat in heat. She was wearing one of Dimitri’s shirts.

My stomach clenched.

“Where did Dimitri go?” she asked, rubbing her eyes. “He wasn’t there when I woke up.”

Oleg grunted. “Probably walked back to town in the middle of the night. We’ve got, what, five kilometers to the bus stop? He’s a madman.”

“Guess he didn’t want to wait around for the tea party,” someone joked.

They all laughed.

I didn’t.

They gathered their things—shoes, coats, someone’s random scarf—and shuffled out the front door in a fog of grumbling and hungover mutiny. The door shut behind them with a solid thunk.

And then—finally—silence.

Just me. The smell of stale booze. The dacha, wrecked like an afterthought. Ashes, bottles, blankets on the floor.

And no Dimitri.

I sat up slowly, heart hammering, dread pressing on my ribs like a weight.

Where the hell had he gone?

* * *

The silence was deafening.

I stood in the wreckage of the living room, staring at the mess.

Empty bottles, crushed cigarette packs. A filthy ashtray was tipped over on its side, scattering gray flakes across the table like snow.

Makeup and who knows what else smeared the couch cushions.

Someone had spilled pickled tomatoes on the carpet—it reeked of vinegar.

I couldn’t sit in it anymore. Not in the smell, not in the mess, not in the consequences of my own damn cowardice.

So I started cleaning.

I moved like a man underwater, slow, fogged, and numb. I stacked bottles into a crate, wincing every time a glass clinked too loud. My head pounded. My hands trembled. I scraped cigarette butts into a tin, sweeping ash off the table with the edge of my sleeve.

It was stupid, pointless. A hangover ritual to distract from the actual damage. But I needed something to do. Something besides thinking.

Because if I thought about it too much, I’d remember the look in Dimitri’s eyes last night before he retreated to the bedroom. That flicker of pain. The way he’d smiled like he was already disappearing.

I hadn’t followed him, and I hadn’t stopped the others. I’d let Larisa—fucking Larisa—walk around wearing his shirt like she had any right to it. Like she’d earned a place next to him.

Maybe I had stood still too long. Maybe I’d let the tide sweep him away while I clutched a tray of vodka shots like a good little host.

God, I was such a fool.

I moved into the kitchen next. The sink was full of cloudy glasses and dirty plates. Someone had left half a herring head in the pan. I dumped it in the bin, turned on the tap, and tried to scrub away every scent, every stain, and every mistake.

But the worst mess was still behind the bedroom door.

I hesitated.

My hand hovered over the doorknob like it might bite me.

And then I opened it.

The room was dark and stale, curtains drawn tight. The bed appeared like it had lost a fight. Blankets tangled, pillows on the floor. One corner of the sheet hung down like it was trying to flee.

And there it was.

His shirt. Crumpled on the edge of the bed like a discarded secret.

I crossed the room before I could think better of it, crouched down, and picked it up. It was made of soft blue cotton, with the second button missing. I’d watched him wear it so many mornings, sleeves rolled to the elbow, collar open just enough to make my throat go dry.

I held it to my face and inhaled.

Dimitri.

The sharp, clean scent of his soap. The faint musk of his skin, familiar now in a way that made my heart clench.

But underneath it—

Something sweeter. Artificial. Cloying.

Perfume.

Her perfume.

My stomach turned.

I dropped the shirt like it burned me.

It hit the floor in a quiet heap, limp and pathetic. Just like me.

God, what the hell was I doing? What kind of man lets someone else wear the shirt of the man he loves and then thanks her for coming?

I sank down onto the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, hands buried in my hair.

I loved him. It was that simple, and that impossible.

I loved him in a way that made everything else feel dull and distant, like the world before him had been in black and white. And he’d brought the color. The music. The madness.

But I didn’t know how to keep it.

Everything we had existed between shadows. Hushed voices, secret glances, brief touches behind locked doors. A life lived in the margins. How long could anyone survive like that?

My breath hitched, and I rubbed my chest like I could scrape out the ache.

And that’s when I heard it.

The front door opened.

Closed.

The floor creaked.

My head snapped up.

Dimitri.

The sound of his boots on the floorboards made my chest seize. Slow, measured steps, like he was trying to keep himself calm. Like something might break if he moved too fast. Or maybe that was just me.