The silver lining in all of this was that my father and Eline were out of town and wouldn't be home to witness the worst of the bruising. I could feel the extra weight of the swelling add on to my face as I walked home in the moonlight.
It was only Petra at home at this hour. She wouldn't stay up waiting for me, would she? Had the driver called home? Was anyone looking for me at this point?
I didn't have the words to explain what had happened. I didn't know if I was ready to admit that they had stolen my phone. My father would want to press charges. The situation would snowball into a mess that would have everyone in Dronesk choosing sides. I couldn't have that. My plan was therefore to sneak into Adriana's room and lay low for the night. Granted no one caught me wandering the corridors in the Benofs's villaâthere couldn't have been a surer way of worsening the consequences.
My father would be alerted in the middle of the night, forcing him to fly-in to Rujga and take the first train to Dronesk come morning. My aunt, in the same breath she wielded her threat to my father, would demand I be taken to the hospital, and then straight to the police station. News of what had happened would spread like a forest fire over town. I saw it play out in front of my eyes. The newspapers the following day with my battered face on the cover inciting further Arash-Brommian tensions; my father promising a compensation for those who turned in my phone; my classmates whispering about me at school.
I drew my jacket closer to my body, huddling in on myself. The cold pierce through me as another strong wind pushed at me from the front. Overhead, the trees of Elhem rustled a loud roar.
I left the colourful buildings in Stan and made my way up the asphalted two-way lane to Ljerumlup. It was the longest road in all of Dronesk. It started downtown and bisected through Elhem until it practically ended at my doorstep.
A lifetime ago (or so it seemed in retrospect) our driver had stopped Yuri Karamov on this road in the middle of a storm, and had offered him a ride to school. Following that incident, we had walked this passage after I had been caught eavesdropping on him in Mr. Unjis's classroom, and many more afternoons after that.
Lost in the memory of my awkward self from that time, I didn't hear them approach over the rustling of the leaves. My steps faltered as the wind carried a buzz of noise that grew into audible murmurs. I couldn't discern them in the faint moonlight, but by the sound of their footsteps, it sounded like a group of people. So far, I had only heard one female voice. Something about her lilt awakened a vague recollection within me, making my heart lurch awake.
They were drawing closer, hiding just out of sight behind a shroud of trees where the road curved.
Not many people lived in these parts of the woods. I dreaded running into the people I knew. We didn't have neighbours in Ljerumlup, but lower down the altitudes of Elhem, there were several smaller neighbourhoods made up of clusters of six, sometimes seven houses. One of which belonged to a certain blue-eyed Brommian I would rather avoid meeting.
The barks of a dog greeted me as the silhouette of a girl came into view. I didn't catch much of her before I hastily shook my hair in front of my face and looked down. I sped up my steps, being careful to trod as lightly as I could on the crumbling asphalt, as to not call their attention to me.
She was speaking in Brommin. The dog's barks persisted. They felt directed towards me although I couldn't really tell since I didn't dare look up. The girl hushed the dog by calling its name. Inu. My whole body flinched in an uncoordinated response. I stumbled over a rock in my surprise.
Curiosity won and I cast a glance out of the corner of my eye to the where the dog stood halted in motion. He was staring at me, his stance alert and hostile. I confirmed it was a mix-breed, and although it was too dark to tell its colour, I caught enough of its size and shape to say with confidence who it belonged to. Gritting my teeth, I picked up my pace.
I was hoping that by some miracle the inevitable of us meeting would draw out until it became infinitesimal âthat, or that I found a witty way of breaking the ice. Isn't it comical how it's always in times of need the universe chooses to remind us of our insignificance? It took them less than a second to notice me. I caught how they came to a standstill out of my peripheral vision. It was just two of them. A girl and a boy. The silhouette of the girl was holding the leash. She was too large to be anyone other than one of the twins.
- Ru?
I didn't stop. It seemed vital that I keep my feet in motion.
- Konstantin? This time louder. My steps faltered. I hesitated, weighing the risk and benefit of being that outright rude. It wasn't that one outweighed the other, that wasn't why I stopped, it was the words that followed.
- Ru...is that you?
I heard her says something in Brommin to whom I assumed could be no other than her brother before I caught the sound of her footsteps approaching me. I turned to look over at her and confirmed it was one of the twinsâmore precisely, Anja.
She had the hood of her rain jacket drawn over her head. It would have been easy to have mistaken her for Katka at that moment, but there was something in the way her expressive eyes widened that gave her away. I hadn't seen her and her sisters since graduating middle school, but she hadn't changed at all. Her expression was as intense as ever. Her dark hair, styled in a braid, peeked out of her hood.
She drew a few steps closer but stopped as if a great force had pushed up against her. I clenched down on my teeth. From the look of absolute disbelief that came over her face as she took me in, I realised I'd made a mistake in not ignoring her.
-What happenâ
I turned on my heel and started walking away from her. She lunged for the sleeve of my jacket.
We came face to face.
- What happened to your face? Who...
From the corner of my eye, I saw her brother approaching us. I looked down at my feet, purposefully shielding my face with my hair that fell down to the bride of my nose. I yanked myself free from Anja's grip and started distancing myself from Yuri's approaching step.
My heart thudded in my chest. I shoved my hands into my pockets and felt the reassurance of the cigarette pack. I squeezed all the pent-up anxiety out of fingers. I didn't care that I crumpled the cigarettes. I wasn't so much a smoker anyway, more like a nervous wreck who needed something to fiddle with.
I heard Anja say something hushed and frantic to her brother. I had left them down at the curving slope. I didn't glance back at them, but I was sure she was telling him about the state of my face. I cringed.
It was better this way, I reasoned. I really didn't want to see him. Not right now, not when I couldn't even take a guess at the extent of my injuries.
Whatever hope I had stored up in my diaphragm seeped out of my chest in one sharp exhale when I felt his presence. I felt him like an eclipse, a great shadow that fell in line with the moonlight. He couldn't have taken more than five strides to reach me.
To be honest, I had been counting on him to stick to the script, to turn around and show disinterest like he had done all these years. I wasn't prepared to confront him. Every comprehensible thought dispersed from my mind like bursting soap bubbles. I slowed down to a standstill. He mimicked me.
Yuri Karamov said nothing. I felt his gaze burn into the side of my face. There was less than a meter between us. I took a step away from him. My every instinct was shouting at me to sprint, to get away. Yet foolishly, I dared do the opposite. I looked up at him.
I felt reduced to the size of an ant under his scrutiny. It was as if he was seeing me through the lens of a microscope. A masochistic part of me rejoiced at him not seeming to be able to take his eyes off me.
What do you make of me now, Karamov?
I straightened my posture and did my best to assemble a control I wasn't feeling. As always when we came face to face, I projected this persona that was as much a stranger to me as it was to him. The real me hid behind my perfectly constructed white walls.
- Too late to walk the dog, don't you think? I asked him.
Karamov's mouth pursed into a tight line.
- What happened?
I felt a smirk tug up the healthy side of my face. - Yuri, we haven't spoken in so long...do you perhaps find me repulsive? I mimicked in the same cryptic way he had asked me that day at the end of the tunnel.
If I had hoped that Yuri would be discouraged, or perhaps even offended, I was proven wrong. He stepped even closer. I had to fight the urge to take a step back. He was too close. Too close. Too close.
- Was this in Rujga? He asked.
- Why do you care?
I took a step back.
- Of course, I care.
I scoffed. My hands were trembling.
- Your sister is waiting for you. I nodded to where Anja was looking at us pensively.
I turned away from him. I wasn't expecting him to pull me back. It wasn't what we did. I didn't even think it was within the possibility of our new reality. I had to rein in my surprise when his hand grabbed hold of my forearm.
- Papa is out cold, we can sneak in through the backdoorâ, Yuri stopped in the middle of his sentence as if he too realised how ludicrous he sounded.
I pulled away from his grip.
- You forgetâ
- You'll need something for that, he cut me off, pointing to my face. I had no way of knowing what was staring back at him. But the determination in his eyes was a sure sign of the graveness of my injuries. I felt my defensive stance falter.
- Some ice andâ
Anja's approaching steps tore our attention from the conversation. She walked over to us. The mutt in the leash sniffed the ground at my feet and looked up at me with large, intelligent eyes. He too seemed to take pity on me.
- I think we have some rubbing alcohol and peroxide at home...I don't know about his eye though, it might need some examination, she addressed Yuri.
Both their gazes landed on my face. It was impossible not to feel self-conscious when they were looking at me with such focused intent. It made me wish that I had some way of seeing myself.
- I need to head home. I'm late as it is, I told them. - Goodnight.
I veered on my heel.
-Wait, Yuri called, - isn't your father going to be angry?
It would have irked me that he took the liberty to presume things about my lifeâwhich he no longer knew anything aboutâif it wasn't for the fact that he looked genuinely concerned. The Brommian must really have done an ugly number on my face. Why else would Karamov care what happened to me?
- He isn't home.
I don't know why I told him the truth. Yuri was looking at me. I couldn't recall the last time he had really seen me. His eyes held a quality which reminded me of a time long buried. A time when I had held his injured body in my arms and his screams had rung through the valley.
- I think that's for the best, he said, pulling me back from a wave of memories which made my chest tighten uncomfortably.
- Ru. Yuri's eyes were intent, - I think it's best if you would come with us. Wash your face and then I'll take you on the scooter back to the castle if you would like that. Just...listen to me when I say you don't want to go anywhere near your family looking the way you do right now, okay?
- Is it that bad? I felt my left cheekbone with the tip of my fingers, and if pain was any indication, I already knew the answer.
- It might look better tomorrow...but it's too early to say. You need to wash off some of-, he blanched, - the blood.
- I can do that at home.
I wasn't so sure about that. If Petra was asleep by this point...Well, I didn't even know where we kept the first aid kit.
The Karamovs saw the hesitation on my face. It was Anja who spoke up first, - Ru, it's either you come with us, or we go with you. We're not gonna part ways like strangers. That's not the kind of people we are. Not when you won't even tell us what happened to you.
A mean-spirited laugh threatened to climb up my throat. Do you even know what your brother did? I wanted to hiss at her. But I was unable to muster the anger, the disappointment and the guilt, required to utter those words. Not when Anja was staring me with so much compassion and vulnerability.
I was momentarily taken aback by the determination in her eyes. Why did they care so much? It was just a bruise. It would fade.
I looked over at Yuri, whose expression had drawn back into a corner of his mind. His jaw was clenched.
- We'll help fix the worst of it so that it won't be as noticeable tomorrow...hopefully. I'll walk you back home...or Anja will...if you'd prefer that. It's up to you.
I took a hesitant step away from them, - Thanks butâ
Anja cut me off by grabbing hold of my wrist, - I don't know what happened between you two-, her eyes darted between us. - but can't you just get over it just this once? It's nearing midnight and it's freezing. Hurry up.
It seemed like Anja had already made up her mind. I would be coming with them and that was the end of it. I let myself get pulled in by her persuasiveness. At that point, it wasn't that I didn't want to. Deep down I did, but I was nervous. Would their mother be awake? What would she say if she saw me like this?
I didn't dare out of the possibility that I might be overstepping my bounds. I swallowed. I think they noticed my internal struggle, because Yuri said, - It's just Katka awake at this time...or maybe not. By the time we head back, she might have fallen asleep. We'll go through the back door, you can use the bathroom upstairs.
I said nothing. Hesitation grew roots under the soles of my feet.
Anja yanked at my hand and I stumbled forward. She smiled, - Don't be a stranger Ru.
I found myself nodding, letting myself get persuaded.
Yuri smiled, relieved.
- Good, let's get going.