Page 13 of The Den of Sin
I put the pillow on top of my head, ignoring the persistent buzzing.
“I know you are in there,” a familiar female voice yelled. “You can’t ignore me anymore.”
Could it be-
Shifting off the bed, I headed towards the door and peeked through the hole.
“Oh my God,” I swung the door open. “Tatiana!”
“Yes, it’s me,” she announced, strolling into my small apartment.
I quickly shut the door and locked it. I wouldn’t put it past those damn paparazzi to come in if they found an unlocked door.
“What are you doing here?” She lived between New Orleans, D.C., and New York. We barely saw each other anymore.
“I saw what happened,” she replied, like that explained it all. When I continued staring at her blankly, she let out a deep sigh. “You needed saving. I sent you like twenty messages, and you didn’t reply to a single one.” I stared at those pale blue eyes so much like her brother’s. I really, really tried not to remember those eyes and that night, but it was hard not to when looking at my best friend. It was probably why I avoided her and her brother, Sasha, so much. I loved them both but the risk of running into Vasili and their resemblance had me running and hiding.
A lot of good did that to me. I still ran into him.
I headed to my little kitchen, Tatiana right on my trail.
“I’m sorry. My phone has been blowing up. There are thousands of messages and calls. I just-” I tried to justify myself but what could I say. I was just too depressed after losing my boyfriend and my job in the same week. “I didn’t feel like going through them all.”
“You are just hiding,” she announced, without beating around the bush. “But you should have at least read the messages from me.”
I took a deep breath. She was right, there was no point in denying. I was hiding and not in the best frame of mind. I have been publicly humiliated, my entire life ripped to pieces, and to top it all off, I couldn’t even throw myself into my job. Because I lost that too.
“I lost my job,” I muttered.
The expression on her face was that of shock.
“What?” Her voice was screechy when she got upset. “Why? How?”
“The reporters and paparazzi were swarming the ER.” Wrapping my arms around me, I felt like such a failure. “Faking injuries, making real injuries, and it just wasn’t safe. For anyone.”
“That’s bullshit,” she spat. “And you just let them fire you?”
“Tatiana, I wouldn’t have, but nurses were having to work sixteen hour shifts because of those idiots. It wasn’t fair, and Janet, our head of ER, was just trying to look out for everyone.”
“She sure as hell wasn’t looking out for you.”
I shrugged my shoulders. There was nothing she could do really. I just knew I had to find another job and finish my residency training. It was the last step required, and I was almost at the finish line.
“I’d offer you something to drink,” I muttered, “but the fridge is empty, and I’m all out of coffee.”
“Do you have any wine?” I shook my head in response. “Any kind of alcohol?”
“Maybe a Kahlua,” I muttered.
I hadn’t been to the grocery store in weeks. Initially, it was because I was too busy, and now, because I didn’t want to show my face anywhere. Between my job and Ryan, I barely ever ate at home, so I kept the bare minimum in the fridge. And my alcohol supply was pretty much nonexistent. I definitely regretted that this past week.
Tatiana strode to me and took my face between her hands. God, when she did that, she reminded me of a mother. And Tatiana was just a few months older than me.
The memory of my mom always hurt. I missed her. She never got to see me graduate from college. It was another blow after Vasili squashed my heart with a hammer. And all my ideals about my mother. There were so many secrets that lurked in the past, and sometimes I wished I remained ignorant of them all. But thanks to Vasili, they all came out in the open. A few months later, Mother was diagnosed with stage five cancer and passed away two short weeks later.
It was the worst time in my life. I had a fairly happy life, but that last year of college, after that Halloween night, things turned dark, and it took me a long time to get through them.
But no matter what, I still loved my mother. She was a good and caring mother to me my entire life. I couldn’t punish her for something she had done when she was barely twenty. People make mistakes. God, just look at me! How many mistakes have I made?
