Poison the Well

Parker was the first to tell me about Calloway, but Emma came soon after.

“Adrian chatted her up a little,” Parker said when he ran into me looking for her. “It looked like she put him off, though.”

I did not even need to ask Emma. As soon as we were alone, the party winding down, she described the conversation dutifully. “It was awkward,” she admitted, nuzzling into my arm to hide the pink of her cheeks. “I think he just…doesn’t have people to talk to much.”

She was usually so good at seeing the conflicting truths of people. But that, him, the truth of how he felt about her? She did not like seeing it. “I’m sure he does,” I said, putting my arms around her and resting my chin on her head. “But you are like a little beam of light. He wants you to shine on him.”

“I don’t know,” she mused, ignoring the compliment even though her ears were pink. “He felt more open, and not just to me. More interested in the actual discussion, not just asserting his opinion for everyone to agree with. Maybe he’s matured.”

I scoffed, but the comment stuck with me for some time after. I did not know if Calloway had really matured or was just trying to look good to her. But that was not important. All that mattered was he had been open and honest with Emma, and I had not. In the late hours of that night I lay wrapped around her, failing to doze off while she slept peacefully.

I had to tell her.

I still had no plan, nothing I could offer her to soften the blow. But she deserved better than what I was giving her, deserved more. Even Calloway, thorny and forbidding, could see that and step up. I could not do any less.

I’m not sure I slept at all that night, wrestling with what I would say, how to say it. Also where, when.

That morning was Saturday and we had no plans. I was running out of excuses. I was running out of time.

But how do you start that conversation?

We ordered breakfast delivery, ate it on the couch, a weekly treat I insisted on and made sure fit in her ridiculous spending limit. I loved seeing her use and eat and wear things I gave her, but her need to be cared for in bed was matched by her fierce independence everywhere else.

I hated that limit. I wanted to give her everything I could, while I still could.

But she did not know that yet.

I tried to work myself up to the topic all through the meal. I wanted to say anything but the dreaded “we need to talk.”

But Emma noticed my agitation, of course. “Is something wrong?”

She asked it gently as she set her plate on the coffee table, leaving room for me to answer or brush it off. I know she never wanted me to feel trapped. Which was a joke when all I wanted was to never leave this apartment, as long as she was here.

“Not exactly, I…” I faltered, bouncing my knee, fear and shame crackling inside me like lightning and thunder as I watched her watch me. “Yes,” I said finally. “Yes, something is wrong. Has been wrong. And I…should have said so sooner. Much sooner.”

She took a long breath in, let it out. Squared her shoulders like she had been waiting for this moment. She probably had. “Okay,” she said. “Tell me.”

I paused, trying to decide where to begin. “I have not talked much about my family,” I said. “But you know that my father is…connected.” I began to explain just how connected—the CEO and managing partner of one of Moscow’s biggest private equity firms. Sokolov Kapital Grup had quiet hands in almost every industry, in every industrialized nation.

She asked no questions as I lurched awkwardly toward the real problem.

“My father has expectations for me,” I said. I swear I could feel my heart valves twisting in knots. “He plans for me to follow him into business. Or, that’s how he sees it,” I added bitterly. “But he doesn’t mean for me to just work at his company. He means follow in lockstep. Do whatever he wants.”

“So? I don’t care what he wants, I care what you want.” Emma tilted her head. The way a family like mine worked was more foreign to her than any Russian word.

“I…never wanted that,” I said slowly. “Fought it. Did anything I could to poison the well, make myself look too foolish for business. A fool on stage, like Petrushka, remember?” I did not detail the exact depths I’d fallen to while courting the bad opinion of my father’s associates. “But my father, he is smart. He knows people. He knows leverage.”

She shifted in her seat uncomfortably, perhaps beginning to see where this might be going.

“I told you about my sister, Dariya, how she wants to play violin,” I continued, slumping in my seat. “When I was seventeen, my father gave me a…what’s the word? An ultimatum. Get in line, or there will be no support for Dasha’s dream.” I watched her face pale in real-time, but I could not stop now. “So I told him, give me four years,” I said.

I watched her expression tighten from perplexed to alarmed. “Misha—”

She reached for me and I shook my head, staring down at my hands in my lap instead. “I told him, four years of freedom. Send me away from Moscow, let me—let me get it out of my system.” It felt stupid now. “He agreed. Sent me here. Let me do as I please, until graduation. Until May.” I could not even look at her. I did not want to see whatever hurt, anger, disappointment might be in her eyes. “Then I go back and do as he pleases.” I heard her take another breath and clenched my hands into fists, bracing myself.

Author’s Note

B-Side Track: Queens of the Stone Age – No One Knows

So, there it is. Misha should have told Emma earlier. He knows it, but he’s told her now.

FUN FACT:

No fun this time. Not even bonus content. Sorry, these chapters hurt a bit to write.