Firebird (The Firebird Trilogy #1) (20 page)

“Lots of guys talk about their feelings these days, but most of them are the same old assholes. Pardon my language. I don’t mean to pry, Mr. Volynsky, but you don’t seem like the crying type, and…well, you were crying after she left. It’s her, right? The woman who was here.”

“
Da
. By the way, she doesn’t want you to see me naked.”

Cerise chuckled. “Maybe you should’ve asked her to move in.”

Alex clutched the side of the bench and watched water bead on the cast umbrella. “
Da.
I should have.” He set the showerhead down. “I think there’s something wrong with me,” he murmured, but if Cerise heard him, she did not respond. She shut off the water.

“Careful. Left leg first. Put your weight on it.”

He leaned into her. Cerise dried him off and wrapped the towel around his waist, then he hobbled into the bedroom. She assisted him into a pair of shorts and into bed, and piled three pillows under his foot. She dispensed a fifteen-milligram morphine tablet and set it beside the water glass.

“You okay for now?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Everything they had built in that short time, crumbling to dust. Blowing away like the last fragments of a dream. No drug could temper the fact he was dying inside with each passing moment.

He needed her more than she needed him. It had always been that way.

And if he loved her, he had to let her go.

***

Stephanie

After a few moments’ quarrel with herself, she dialed Joe.

“Hello?”

“Don’t hang up.”

“What do you want?”

She gripped the phone until her knuckles ached. “Did you do this?”

“Do what?”

“The story in the
City Paper
.”

He uttered a malicious chuckle. “I’m still pissed at you, but I’m not that petty. I started seeing someone too. I don’t want you back. I don’t want a cheater. You should make better choices in life, like not fucking someone you knew was an ethical liability.”

“Fuck you, Joe.” She slammed her phone onto the desk. Maybe Rhonda had let it slip. Most likely, she could trace the culprit back to Shawn.

Stephanie stared out the window as icy rain clanged against the BMW. She hadn’t been able to part with the damned thing, sentimental idiot she was. Or anything of his. Not even the photos on her phone. Meanwhile, Alex was probably fucking his nurse to cope. He didn’t need his foot for that.

The New Year had arrived a couple of days earlier with little fanfare on her part. There was nothing to celebrate. There were only the ghosts of her dead dreams, who continued to outstay their welcome. She sank into her desk chair and listed cities she could stand to live in, now that Seattle had proven a total bust. Tomorrow morning she’d start researching jobs in their respective media. Start fresh. Forget the Emerald City nightmare. With any luck, she’d be gone before her birthday next month.

She glanced at her legal pad. Alex’s name scribbled all over it, complete with hearts as if she was some lovesick tween crushing on the latest boy band. She made
herself
sick. She crumpled the paper and tossed it into the wastebasket. The perpetual ugly duckling enamored with the popular boy who had deigned to pay her attention.

She tamped down the guilt gnawing at her for leaving him at his most vulnerable. To rely on another person for happiness was a dangerous game they had played too long. She could no longer afford the luxury of “someday.” She had already spent too much time living in a future constructed from fantasies and pipedreams.

Alex was better off not knowing when she had gone.

Chapter Nineteen

Stephanie dove for her phone, her heart outshouting her brain for one painful, childish moment in which she thought Alex might be on the other end. She did not recognize the number, though it bore the same area code as his. “Hello?” she answered.

“May I please speak to Stephanie Hartwell?”

“Speaking.”

“Hi, Stephanie, this is Jeff Ryan. I’m a managing editor with SWN Buffalo. We received your resume recently, and I was wondering if you had some time to talk about the position.”

Buffalo. That
would
be the first city to get back to her. There was no escaping him, and maybe that was the point. In all other universes, they had already completed each potential outcome of their relationship, while in this one they floundered toward a conclusion yet unspecified. The one constant was their dogged determination to keep orbiting each other’s lives.

“Yes, absolutely. Thank you for calling, Mr. Ryan.”

“My pleasure. You have excellent qualifications, and I see you studied at USC.”

“Yes. I graduated with honors.”

“And you worked at
King County Today
for three years?”

“Correct.” She chewed on a hangnail.

“I read your story on Aleksandr Volynsky. He’s still quite a hero here.”

“It was a difficult story to get, but I’m very proud of my work.”

“You should be. As you know, we love our hockey here, and we could use someone with your skills. I understand you played hockey as well.”

“I did. I think it gives me a unique perspective in covering the sport, especially as a woman.”

“What’s your reason for leaving Seattle?”

My life imploded, all thanks to that career-making story.
“I’d like a fresh start in a city with a strong hockey fan base. I’m sure you know the Seattle Earthquakes have been controversial from day one.”

“Indeed. Even more so when they signed Volynsky. Still, it’s a tragedy, what happened to him.”

Her stomach curdled. “It was a horrific injury and a terrible accident.”

“No desire to stick around and do a follow-up story?”

“No,” she said, flat as a new dollar bill.
Keep it together.
“He was hard enough to work with. I can’t imagine this injury has improved his personality.”

A chuckle on the other end. “You’re probably right. Listen, we don’t usually do this, but your work speaks for itself. I’m offering you the website’s hockey insider position plus full benefits. How soon can you be out here?”

“Give me a week to wrap up some loose ends.” Her sweaty palm slipped against the phone. “And a few days to get there. I’ll be driving.”

“Let’s call it two weeks. I’m looking forward to working with you, Stephanie.”

Look, Joe. I finally got that East Coast opportunity.
Y
ou and Alex can hang out and commiserate over how I ruined your lives.
“Likewise. Thank you so much, Mr. Ryan.”

Stephanie disconnected and assessed the apartment. She’d sell what could not fit in the car. With a notepad, she moved from room to room, taking inventory of all the things that must go, the things that had brought her pain. She could put the rest in storage and stay at a hotel until she found a new place.

How surreal to say good-bye to all her comforts, to cling to nothing anymore. How brave at last
.

***

With a wad of cash from selling most of her worldly possessions, Stephanie gave the key to her landlord, then sat inside the BMW loaded with boxes of books, two suitcases of clothing, her Surface Pro, and a few other odds and ends or essentials she would need. She could make it in under two days if she drove nonstop, loath as she was to spend more money than necessary until she’d signed the paperwork and received her first paycheck. But according to the weather reports, she’d be arriving in a snowstorm either way, so she ought to stay alert. She’d stop on the second day, somewhere cheap.

Seattle faded away behind her. Tears pricked her eyes when she could no longer see the Space Needle in the rearview but made her more determined to forget. Every ending was a beginning, after all, and she had many lives yet to live.

***

Aleksandr

Alex’s hands trembled as he thumbed through his contacts in search of her number. Like a fucking child.
Her birthday was next week, and he hoped they could be on speaking terms again. He pressed his thumb to the phone icon beside her name.

“Hello?”

It was all he could do not to crack at the sound of her voice. “Hi, Steph.” He forced down the lump in his throat. “It’s Alex.”

A long silence on the other end. Too long. Maybe she had hung up.

“I know, silly,” she said.

“I’m getting the cast off today and…Can we talk?”

“We’re on the phone. Talk.”

“I meant in person.”

She sighed. “Alex, I moved to Buffalo last month. I was offered a job here.”

What remained of his heart went into freefall. He sucked in a shuddering breath. He hadn’t told her when he had moved to Buffalo, either. Never gave her a chance unless it was on his terms.
You selfish fuck. You spoiled fucking prick. You’ve ruined the only thing that ever mattered, and you fucking deserve it.

“Alex?”

“Oh. I-I didn’t know.”

“Yeah. I didn’t tell anyone. Thought it was better that way.”

“Better for who?”

“Both of us. Alex, I don’t want to fight.”

“I don’t, either. That’s why I…” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“You didn’t—”

He jammed the End button, couldn’t jam it hard enough, and threw his phone at the couch. He hopped into the kitchen, snatched the ubiquitous bottle of Chopin by the neck, and hurled it against the floor. Glass and vodka showered his legs. He tore the shot glasses, the tumblers, from the cupboards and launched them at the breakfast bar. Something needed to break before he did.

“Mr. Volynsky!” Cerise, hands over her mouth, froze at the hallway entrance. Alex’s bare foot bled pink into the vodka on the floor. He tried to explain to her, to construct words, but could only shake his head. The last tumbler slid from his hand and splintered, and so did he.

“She’s gone,” he whispered. “She didn’t even want me to know.” He lowered his head to his hands and let out a despondent wail.
Not again. Please not again.

He began to sob, like a fucking child.

He gaped at the shattered glass around him in which reflected patterns of light and dark he recognized as his own face, as though viewing himself through an insect’s compound eye.

Cerise watched him with a mixture of fear and pity. “Mr. Volynsky, do not move one inch. You’ve already cut yourself. I’m gonna clean this—and you—up, and then we’re going to your doctor.” From the hall closet, she retrieved a Swiffer that must have belonged to the housekeeper. Cerise swept the glass and liquid, the former into a dustpan while the Swiffer’s cloth pad absorbed the latter. She vanished into the bathroom, then returned with Band-Aids. “Sit.”

He propped himself on one of the stools. She affixed two bandages to the underside of his foot.

“Mr. Volynsky, have you been drinking? Because if you’ve been drinking while taking painkillers, we are going to have a problem.”

“No. You don’t understand.”

“And I don’t think I want to. Good Lord, they weren’t joking about your temper. Get your crutches. I’ll get your shoes. Let’s go.”

***

Alex sat on the examination table with his leg extended as the doctor cut into the cast and pried it apart. Inside, from knee to ankle, was some alien limb, pale and atrophied, a starving child’s leg. Ridiculous in comparison to the thigh above it thick with muscle. A black
L
flipped on its side, leering at him like a rotted mouth from a leg resembling a plastic toy, marked the surgical incision where his artery and tendons had been reattached.

“We’ll get you set up to start PT this week,” the doctor said. “We’ll need to rebuild the strength in your tendons as well as the muscles so you can walk. That’s our main goal. It’s about four months, depending on how you respond to treatment.”

“Then what?”

“Then you can resume light athletic activity. Nothing that puts too much weight on it or involves sudden stopping and starting.”

No morning runs and soccer. No afternoon basketball. No squat lifting. No dancing. No skating and thus no hockey. He hadn’t expected to run a marathon that afternoon, but the upper-body workouts were getting tedious, and he missed his routine. It gave him something to do, even if it served no purpose.

The doctor took him down the hall for X-rays, which revealed he was healing fine, then fit him into a walking boot. “Go across the hall. They’ll schedule your first appointment. Good luck, Aleksandr. I’ll see you in about two months.”

“Thanks.” He shambled into the waiting room and breezed past Cerise, who trailed him to the PT department.

“You’ll be back to your old self in no time.” She patted his shoulder, but it did not comfort him. He needed to be better than that. Someone else entirely.

***

Stephanie

A typical February in Buffalo, or so she’d heard. Four feet of snow, subfreezing temperatures and subzero windchills, and a layer of ice secreted beneath the harmless white fluff on the sidewalks. Thanks, Canada.

Stephanie had procured a one-bedroom condo downtown, in a historic renovation helping to revitalize the area. Rooftop deck, gym on the ground floor, her own parking space, all for under thirteen hundred a month and bigger than the place in Seattle. She had arrived far too late to sign up for the current season of adult hockey, but she applied as a free agent for the summer Weekend League, bought USA Hockey insurance, and crossed her fingers at least one team would be willing to take a chance on an experienced defenseman who happened to own a uterus.

The job was more than she could have hoped for too. No assholes. A team with a proud history and the perseverance to overcome their struggles until they had won it all. Inevitably, however, talk of the team dredged up a name too painful to dwell on for long, though their Cup run and ultimate victory had hinged on it. Somehow, she would have to cope. To not feel her composure crack at the mention of Aleksandr Volynsky.

“Happy birthday to me.” She uncorked one of two wine bottles she’d purchased on the way home, took a hearty swig straight from it, and ordered sushi before sifting through the mail. Birthday cards from her parents, Rhonda, even Dave, and one with no return address sent to her old place in Seattle. She listened to her voice mails. Parents. Rhonda. Why did people even bother sending cards?

Giving in to curiosity, she unsealed the suspicious envelope as her stomach flip-flopped. It would make sense. The one person who didn’t have her new address.

Two figures, a boy and a girl, ice-skating on a pond sprinkled with white glitter. Stephanie steeled herself and opened it. No preprinted poem, just a note in familiar, small block letters:

You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart…I’ll always be with you.

Love,

Alex

She stumbled back as if the card were radioactive. Winnie-the-Pooh. He remembered.

She flicked her gaze to her phone. The craving for him, ingrained in her like an instinctual response, flared to life. The hunger in his emerald eyes, the terrifying and awe-inspiring intensity of his love. But as contact between them had dwindled, faith in the inevitability of their lives together had flickered out like stars at dawn’s first light.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered, scrabbling across the counter to the phone only to break down before she could find his contact entry. She wilted to the floor and crossed her legs, and with her head in her hands rocked back and forth until the sobs had depleted her of the energy to speak.

She hadn’t slept through one goddamned night since moving, had spent each one curled up with the Pooh bear she’d kept despite her vow to destroy all remnants of him. Had not accepted what the vacancy beside her implied. If she slept, she had given up. Admitted defeat. Letting go meant she had reconciled their promise to each other as the dream of two lovestruck teenagers with nothing but naïve hope to keep it afloat. Adult relationships, unfortunately, required more than dreams to nurture them.

But she was so cold, like the empty space beside her, her body a shallow grave for her broken heart.