Page 84 of 10 Days to Surrender

I study the anchoring grip on my jeans. Smell her shampoo clinging to the bedsheets. Hear the hum of the villa settling around us—Jasmine’s soft snores down the hall, Belle’s wind chime clinking in the storm.

Traitorous things, all of them. Witnesses to this unraveling.

“I know what you’re afraid of,” she whispers. “I heard you talking to Zoya.”

My first thought is to get the fuck out. My second and third thoughts are more of the same.

But the longer I stay there and look at Ariel’s face—open, honest, completely free of judgment—the more I feel little clock gears in my face winding down. A cuckoo bird of the heart chirping that now is the time for this kind of thing.

She sits up, sheets pooling around her waist. The swell of her belly catches the lamplight.

“How do you do it?” I ask hoarsely. “How do you stay… good, after everything your father did to you?”

She lets out a shaky breath. “I don’t know if I am good. Sometimes, I wake up terrified that I’ll look in the mirror and see him looking back.” Her free hand curves over her stomach. “Thatthese babies will grow up seeing the same monster in me that I saw in him.”

“You could never be?—”

“That’s my point, Sasha. Neither could you.”

The silence stretches between us, filled with all the things we never say. All the fears we pretend don’t exist in the dark.

“I’m just as scared as you are, you know,” she says. “They already look like us. Your nose. My chin. What if they get your eyes, too? Or my stubbornness? Or our stupid, reckless grief?” She turns her face up to me. “Or worst of all… What if they’re perfect, Sasha? What if they’re so utterly, completely perfect that it takes your breath away just to look at them—and then we ruin them anyway?”

The lamp flickers as power dies from the storm outside. Shadows dance across the ultrasound taped to Ariel’s mirror—two blurry shapes curled like commas.

Our mistakes. Our miracles.

“Ariel—”

“It’s okay.” She presses a finger to my lips. “I’m not really asking. I know you don’t have the answers. Just… stay tonight. No sex. No jokes. Just… stay.”

Her breath steadies first. Soft. Even. Trusting.

Idiot woman. You don’t know what you’re asking me.

But when she tugs me toward the bed, I follow.

32

ARIEL

The heat is unbearable. I’ve never been more miserable in my life, which is saying something considering my track record. Sweat drips down my spine as I fan myself with an old magazine, watching Sasha and Kosti fiddle with the ancient air conditioning unit for what feels like the hundredth time today.

“Try it now!” Kosti calls out. Mama flips the switch, and the unit makes a noise like a dying cat before sputtering into silence again.

“For God’s sake,” I groan, shifting uncomfortably on the couch. The twins are particularly active today, probably unhappy about being trapped in their own personal sauna. “I’m going to melt.”

Jasmine appears with another glass of ice water, but the ice has already started to melt before she can even hand it to me. “This is ridiculous.” She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand. “We’re all going to die of heatstroke. They’ll find puddles where we once stood. Human soup.”

Kosti abandons the A/C unit and lights a fresh cigarette, seemingly unbothered by adding more heat to the atmosphere.“When I was young, during particularly hot summers in Greece, we would sleep outside. The stone terrace should be much cooler than in here.”

Sleeping outside sounds shitty. On the other hand, I’ll take anything that’s not another night of tossing and turning in my sweat-soaked sheets.

The last week has been unrelentingly brutal. No storms have rolled through to break up the monotony, so it’s just wall-to-wall heat without pause or respite. We’re all going a little stir-crazy. So Kosti’s suggestion finds more receptive ears than it would have otherwise.

Before I know it, we’re all dragging loungers and blankets outside. The sun is setting in a tangerine sky, and—I’ll be damned—there’s finally a hint of a breeze.

The stars wink to life one by one as darkness settles over our makeshift bedroom. Jasmine and Mama are huddled together on their loungers, their soft murmurs mixing with the chorus of crickets. The occasional click of chess pieces punctuates the night as Zoya and Kosti face off by lantern light, their by-now-familiar bickering carried away on the breeze.

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