Page 53 of Rafi

“Seven years is a long time,” he finally says, his voice laced with curiosity and something else I can’t quite place.

“It is,” I reply evenly, keeping my tone calm despite the storm his question stirs inside me. The truth about why I left—and why I can’t go back—is something I’ve buried too deeply for him to unearth on his own.

I sigh, looking out at the expansive gardens as we reach the gazebo and sit side by side on one of the benches.

“Which one is yours?” I ask, indicating the homes. Rafi points out his house, sitting on the edge of the forest, a beautiful white Colonial that could belong in the pages of a magazine. “Do you spend much time there?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He looks at me for the longest time before he replies. “Because it’s empty. It needs life. It needs people. A structure without people is just a shell; it’s not a home.”

I nod in agreement. “And now you know why I don’t go back home.” As if that is explanation enough. It’s silly to think that such an answer would satisfy Rafi.

“You still have your father,” he reminds me.

“My father gave up on me a long time ago, Rafi. After my mother died, he bundled me up and shipped me off as far away as he could get me.”

“I’m sure he had his reasons.”

I shrug and give him a small smile. “Rafi Gatti, always the voice of reason.”

“I like to play devil’s advocate sometimes.”

“It suits you.”

“How did your mother die, Tayana?” He asks suddenly.

The question hangs in the air, heavy and inevitable. I stay silent, the words caught in my throat. It feels like an eternity passes as I stare at nothing, lost in the storm of memories I’ve tried so hard to suppress. How naïve was I to think this moment would never come? It was always going to surface—woven into the fabric of my past, waiting to be unraveled.

But how do I begin? How do I make him understand the nightmare I lived through, the terror etched into every corner of my mind? How do I explain the unspeakable, the weight of witnessing something so horrific that it reshaped the person I am today?

“I—” My voice falters, my chest tightening as the words threaten to escape. But instead of an explanation, all I can manage is a shaky breath.

His eyes remain steady on me, unrelenting but not unkind, as if he’s willing me to let the truth spill out, to give him a glimpse of the shadows I carry. But how can I when saying it aloud feels like giving it power all over again?

“She was murdered,” I finally whisper, the words trembling with the weight of everything I’ve left unsaid. “And I saw it. I saw everything.”

I can feel his gaze deepen, but I don’t meet it. Instead, I stare down at my hands, clenched tightly in my lap, as if holding myself together will keep the memories from engulfing me in flames.

The house felt suffocatinglyquiet that night, the kind of silence that presses on your ears and amplifies every sound. I lay curled on my bed, flipping through a book, though I wasn’t truly reading. The stillness made me uneasy, though I couldn’t say why; just one of those things I chalked up to gut instinct.

The sudden sound of my bedroom door creaking open sent a shiver down my spine. I paused, my heart thudding, as a shard of light spread across the floor. It was late—far too late for anyone to be visiting. Maybe my uncle had come home and was checking in on me as he usually did. Uggghhhh…creep. He would swing the door open, stand in the doorway as I slept, then softly retreat away from the room. Like he was never there. But I, with my back to the door, would blink into the dark, aware and alert of every movement, every creak, every intrusion, counting down the seconds until he closed the dooragain and walked away from my room. He never came into the room, but it was an intrusion, nonetheless.

He usually stayed on his side of the house, because he always had people over at odd hours. Sometimes, on the odd occasion, we’d cross paths when we’d meet in the main house and he’d put his hand on my shoulder and ask, “How are you, Malysh?” Then quickly walk away before my mother could see him.

She was forever warning me about Uncle Igor. I didn’t understand why we lived in the same house with him if she hated him so. Forever calling him her Alrich, warning me to spend as little time with him as possible. Maybe my hatred for him grew as a result of my mother’s conditioning. Or maybe it was because I myself could never figure out how I was supposed to feel about him.

When the door didn’t close in the timespan it usually took Uncle Igor, my senses were heightened and I paid extra attention to the aura of the room. Something felt off. Indistinct but off. When the door finally closed, I heard the heavy clunk of boots against the floor as someone moved through the room. I held my breath, too afraid to turn. Something didn’t feel right.

The sound of feet shuffling drew closer, and soon I felt a weight pressing down on the mattress beside me. My body stiffened, fear curling in my stomach. I didn’t recognize the voice—rough, slurred, and impatient. I slid off the bed, my bare feet brushing the cold floor as I stared at the man with one knee on my bed, as if he were climbing in.

“Who are you?” I demanded, my voice trembling. “What do you want?”

The man grinned, a twisted, unsettling smile that made my skin crawl. “Don’t be scared, little girl,” he said, stepping closer. “I just want to play.”

I backed away, bumping into my nightstand. The lamp rattled, teetering on the edge before it went crashing to the ground. “Stay away from me!”

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