Page 59 of Ruby Mercy

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t pry.”

I bark out a surprised laugh. “You were born to pry. It’s your natural state. And I want to tell you everything, just… Is the condensed version okay for now? The details are too much to get into.”

She nods quickly. “Yes, please.”

If a person could live on gossip alone, it would be Natalia.

“Okay, so Kirill saved me from Steven because he was watching me. On any normal day, that would be a bad thing. Today, it worked in my favor. Kirill saw through the windows what Steven was trying to do and stopped him.”

“Thank God they essentially live in a greenhouse.”

“I hated cleaning those windows, but they saved me today,” I admit. “So that happened. Then I almost fell off a cliff, which is how I scratched my hand. Kirill took me back to his house and then I called you and then I found my phone and had the calls from the school and—”

“Holy shit.” Natalia waves her hands in front of her face. “A cliff? Yeah, you can stop now. That’s too much to process.”

“I told you.”

She sighs. “Long story very short, you might have just had the worst day in history.”

I laugh. “It’s up there. Though get back to me tomorrow. That might be my new worst day ever.”

“How is that possible?”

I drop my face into my hands and talk through my fingers. “Because it will be my first day back on Kirill’s staff.”

Natalia gasps so sharply that I’m worried she’ll swallow her tongue. “No way! He offered you a job! And you accepted? I’m not sure which is more surprising.”

“Again, long story,” I mumble.

As soon as Kirill said he was going to start making house calls, he had me cornered. If Yuliana handled a substitute teacher this poorly, how would she feel meeting her dad for the first time?

And then what? How will Kirill handle it if Yuliana can’t talk to him? I hardly knew Ilya, but so much of Yuliana reminds me of him. In the strangest way, it eases the pain in my heart.

I’m not sure Kirill will welcome the similarities.

Natalia pours steaming water over two tea bags and slides me the mug. “My instinct is to pour you a shot instead, but we might be getting too old to drink our problems away.”

“Probably. Not to mention, getting drunk isn’t how I’m going to regain my lost Mom points from today.”

“Mom points aren’t a thing, Rayne. You are doing a great job with her. She’s just…” Natalia sighs. “You got her in speech therapy, which helped, but have you ever thought that maybe Yuliana needs another kind of help?”

Yes.Constantly.

She is easily overwhelmed. She has emotional outbursts that can be self-destructive, even violent. In her routine, she’s fine, but if we deviate at all from our usual plans, it can invite a tantrum. I spend most of my time and energy trying to stick to the script as much as possible.

“What kind of help?” I ask.

Before Nat can say anything, there’s a little voice from the hallway. “I’m ready to talk.”

I turn around and Yuliana is barely peeking around the corner of the hallway door. Her hair is frizzy from being under the blankets and her little lip is pouted out.

I practically jump out of my chair and kneel down in front of her. The second my knees hit the floor, Yuliana bursts into tears and throws her arms around my neck.

A second ago, I thought we needed to talk this out. I wanted to lay out a plan for how she’d handle the new teacher. We were going to write a note to Melissa in the office and apologize.

With her little arms around my neck, though, I realize that first things come first.

I kiss her cheek. “Pizza and a movie in the blanket fort. You in?”

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