“Who did this to you?”
And there it is again, that stupid, quiet-voiced persistence, like he’s going to ask it a hundred more times until I answer. Which he will. I can see it on him. I’ve been married to a man who beats me to get his way, and Matvei isn’t even close to that, but he’s got something worse than repeated backhands.
He’s gotpatience.
I look at the ceiling so I don’t have to meet his eyes. “Does it matter?” I say finally.
“It does to me.”
“It’s kind of hypocritical, though,” I protest. “If I asked you who did something to you, you’d tell me to mind my business.”
“I’m glad to see you’ve learned that the world is unfair.”
I roll my eyes even as I laugh. It hurts my cheek, but I laugh anyway, because hurting at this point is just my default response. “Oh, I know. Unfair. And cruel. And dishonest.”
He raises a brow. “I’ll take two of those three things. But I’ve never been dishonest with you.”
At that, I glare at him. “Yeah, right. Maybe notdishonest, but definitely nothonesthonest.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re not exactly an open book, Matvei. I don’t even know your last name.”
“Satyrin.”
“What?”
“Matvei Satyrin. Now, you know.”
I blink at him. “That easy, huh?”
He nods. “That easy.”
I chew the inside of my cheek. Which also hurts. Everything hurts. I’m running out of parts of my face that aren’t on fire.
“Satyrin,” I repeat. It sounds nice in my mouth.
“Your turn.”
“You want my last name?”
“No, I wanthisname.”
He drags the stool another inch closer, until his knee bumps the side of the mattress. He’s close enough now that I can see the fine stubble under his jaw. He still smells like a forest river, even here in this land of disinfectant and plastic.
“I’ll ask you one more time,” he murmurs, those blue-black eyes fixed on me even though I refuse to look back at him. “I want you to tell me who did this to you. You asked for honesty, so I’ll give it to you: Once you tell me, I’m going to hurt him. I’m going to hurt them very badly. Because you were right that the world is cruel and unfair. ButIam the one who makes it that way, and I intend to make it crueler and more unfair to the ones who’ve made it that way for you. Let me do that, Cassandra.”
My eyes fill up. I try to keep them closed, to hold back the flood, but I can’t.
I justcan’tanymore.
A tear slides down the side of my face and into my hair. “Oh, goddammit,” I whisper.
Matvei doesn’t move. He doesn’t saydon’t cryorshhor any of the useless things people say. He simply sits there on his little rolling stool, hands on his knees, and waits.
Another tear follows the first. Then another. I’m not sobbing, not quite. It’s less dramatic than that. More of a slow, whimpering leak as I gradually lose control of my tear ducts.
“You don’t get to do this,” I whisper. “Show up and be…niceto me.”