Firebird (The Firebird Trilogy #1) Read online

  “One moment.”

  The door buzzed and clicked. The same feeling as the day she’d first walked through those doors and stood outside his condo, the same queasiness but none of the optimism and all of the dread.

  A woman in scrubs, one of those kids who didn’t have the grades for college and didn’t know what to do with her life except enroll in a CNA program, answered. This one had hit the jackpot. “Yes? May I help you?”

  “I’m here to see Alex. Alone.”

  Lines in her brow creased her otherwise smooth face. “He’s resting right now.”

  “Yeah, yeah, six months’ bed rest, I know. I was there when it happened.” How quickly she was losing patience with someone she had already perceived as a threat, despite her reason for coming in the first place. The girl helped bathe him, dress him. Bonded with him over that intimacy. She would not be able to help her feelings. Just look at him.

  Stephanie stifled a wail.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Let me in, please.”

  The girl stepped aside. “He’s in his room. It’s—”

  “Believe me, sweetie, I know where his bedroom is.”

  Stephanie swore she heard the girl mutter “bitch” under her breath as she trooped down the hallway. She entertained the idea of finding out what agency she worked for and filing a complaint, if only to necessitate Alex finding another nurse. Preferably a large man.

  She didn’t bother knocking. Alex was sitting in bed, his right leg propped on several pillows and his reading glasses perched on his nose. A stack of books tottered on the bedside table; another lay open on his lap. Flimsy white curtains concealed the sliding-glass doors to the deck. The one place in the entire condo they hadn’t had sex, and only because it had been too cold. They’d even christened the dining table.

  “Cerise, I need more…” His gaze faltered along with his words. “…water.”

  He’d almost managed to do it, to captivate her with those green eyes magnified behind the lenses. She steeled herself. “You’ll be happy to know I was fired.”

  He crinkled his nose. “Why would I be happy?”

  “I don’t know. You seem intent on making my life miserable right now.”

  “Stephanie—”

  “Whatever. It’s way too fucking late for apologies.” She took a deep breath to cleanse her mind, fortify herself. “My life is completely falling apart. I don’t have a job. I’ve lost everything because of you. I need to figure this out.”

  He had expected her to fight. To beg. She could read everything in his expression, hear him whispering in her heart. Whatever despicable creature had corrupted him in the hospital was gone, but he had destroyed her illusion. He was just a man after all, and had only ever been.

  “I didn’t stop you from being happy. Everyone has pain. The problem is you won’t take responsibility for any of your own. You have to find happiness in yourself, Alex. Stop putting that burden on me.”

  He leaned back against the headboard, his eyes blank. His lips quavered. “I’ve lost everything too. You’re all I have left—ˮ

  “That’s what I mean. I can’t be all you have. I can’t be the only thing that makes you feel like a human being. I can’t carry that weight.”

  “Please don’t leave,” he whispered.

  “The thing is, maybe this is what we both need. We’ve been so attached to each other, we don’t know how to function like regular people. Look what it did to you.”

  Alex closed his eyes and inhaled several deep breaths. He was grinding his teeth.

  “We were so obsessed with the idea of being in love, this special thing no one else understood, it got in the way of loving each other like normal adults. This kind of relationship, it destroys people. It’s too much, too fast. It burns us up until there’s nothing left.”

  He shook his head. “You know me, Stephanie. You know I didn’t mean what I said—ˮ

  “Alex, I love you more than anything, whether you believe that or not.” Tears clotted her voice, determined to strangle her before she could get the words out. “But I don’t know you. Not anymore. We have to figure out who we are without relying on each other to define that. We can’t go on thinking all we need to do is fuck and everything will be fine.” She set the keys on the bedside table. “Because it is very much not fine, and we’re not kids anymore.”

  The ring. Stephanie twisted it off and laid it beside the keys.

  Alex, his mouth half-open, stared at it then at her. “Please,” he pleaded through a wave of tears. His face crumpled, and though it tore her apart, she schooled her expression into a careful stoicism. “Why won’t you even let me talk?”

  “Because you already said everything I need to hear.”

  “You’re holding against me things I said on fucking morphine! How is that fair?”

  “You’re still on morphine, so what’s the difference?”

  “I didn’t mean it!” he howled, childlike, as though persistent repetition could make her forget or forgive. As though it would patch her back together and she could disregard the hatefulness. A child’s lie, repeated until it had convinced itself of its truth. The darkness was real, and he’d concealed it well. Too well.

  “I have to go,” she whispered.

  “Baby, please don’t—” He reached for her before remembering the cast on his leg. “I’m not your fucking father, Stephanie, and neither are you!”

  She fled the room before she could hear more.

  ***

  Aleksandr

  The front door slammed. He took off his glasses and lowered his face into his hands. In those first minutes of separation, he understood love for the sorrow it was. The clean snap of his heart as if it were bone echoed in his skull. Tears leaked through his fingers and spattered his shorts as he choked on his sobs. He rubbed his eyes and hoped his broken heart would stop fighting for survival. That he would not have to withstand any more of this pain, to which his injury was a candle’s pale flicker in the night.

  “Mr. Volynsky, do you—?”

  “Get out!” he roared. She stared at him before pulling the door shut. The agency had no doubt warned her about him. He ought to wear labels. Warning: Extremely Volatile. Danger: Contents under Extreme Pressure. Warning: Do Not Irritate.

  He swiped his eyes again and took a deep breath to compose himself. “Cerise!”

  A timid knock. “Mr. Volynsky?”

  “Come in. I want to take a shower. And…I’m sorry.”

  She slipped inside and entered the en suite to set up the collapsible shower bench. “A little yelling is nothing compared to some of the things my clients have done.” With his arm over her shoulders, she helped him hop into the bathroom and lowered him to the bench. He pulled off his T-shirt.

  “Have they hurt you?” Casted leg or not, his size alone intimidated most people. He depended on her for the next six weeks; he hoped she did not fear him.

  “We’ve all been hit or verbally abused at some point. A lot of them aren’t in their right minds, you know. Lift up a little.” She tugged at his shorts and underwear. He obeyed. She inched the plastic cast umbrella over his leg, checked the seal at the top to ensure it was waterproof.

  Old men, flaccid and liver-spotted. Dementia. Fat men with diabetes and prosthetic feet. Adults with the IQs of toddlers. Not pro athletes in the prime of their lives. The one most likely to do her harm.

  “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

  “Should I be?”

  “No. I’ve never hurt anyone. Outside of a hockey rink.” And whom I didn’t love more than my own life.

  She started the shower, brought it to his preferred temperature, and handed him the showerhead. Then she sat on the bench by the door and waited for him to finish.

  “Can I ask you a question?” he said as the water jets battered his skin like tattoo needles.

  She pursed her lips in a way that said she was keeping it strictly business.

  “It’s not inappropriate. I promise.�
��

  “I…guess so.”

  “Let’s say you had found someone again after a long time apart. And something bad happened, something that changed your lives forever, and things were said that shouldn’t have been. And maybe I was never going to see you again, because I had this stupid idea it was better than you seeing me like…this. What would I have to do to get you back?”

  “Let her have her space. You know, if you love someone, set them free? If it’s meant to be, they’ll come back to you.”

  He stared ahead at the black tiles. “What if I can’t let go because she’s the only woman I’ve ever loved?”

  “That’s very romantic, Mr. Volynsky. Does she know?”

  “I thought she did, but…I really fucked things up.”

  “Lots of guys talk about their feelings these days, but most of them are the same old assholes. Pardon my language. I don’t mean to pry, Mr. Volynsky, but you don’t seem like the crying type, and…well, you were crying after she left. It’s her, right? The woman who was here.”

  “Da. By the way, she doesn’t want you to see me naked.”

  Cerise chuckled. “Maybe you should’ve asked her to move in.”

  Alex clutched the side of the bench and watched water bead on the cast umbrella. “Da. I should have.” He set the showerhead down. “I think there’s something wrong with me,” he murmured, but if Cerise heard him, she did not respond. She shut off the water.

  “Careful. Left leg first. Put your weight on it.”

  He leaned into her. Cerise dried him off and wrapped the towel around his waist, then he hobbled into the bedroom. She assisted him into a pair of shorts and into bed, and piled three pillows under his foot. She dispensed a fifteen-milligram morphine tablet and set it beside the water glass.

  “You okay for now?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  Everything they had built in that short time, crumbling to dust. Blowing away like the last fragments of a dream. No drug could temper the fact he was dying inside with each passing moment.

  He needed her more than she needed him. It had always been that way.

  And if he loved her, he had to let her go.

  ***

  Stephanie

  After a few moments’ quarrel with herself, she dialed Joe.

  “Hello?”

  “Don’t hang up.”

  “What do you want?”

  She gripped the phone until her knuckles ached. “Did you do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “The story in the City Paper.”

  He uttered a malicious chuckle. “I’m still pissed at you, but I’m not that petty. I started seeing someone too. I don’t want you back. I don’t want a cheater. You should make better choices in life, like not fucking someone you knew was an ethical liability.”

  “Fuck you, Joe.” She slammed her phone onto the desk. Maybe Rhonda had let it slip. Most likely, she could trace the culprit back to Shawn.

  Stephanie stared out the window as icy rain clanged against the BMW. She hadn’t been able to part with the damned thing, sentimental idiot she was. Or anything of his. Not even the photos on her phone. Meanwhile, Alex was probably fucking his nurse to cope. He didn’t need his foot for that.

  The New Year had arrived a couple of days earlier with little fanfare on her part. There was nothing to celebrate. There were only the ghosts of her dead dreams, who continued to outstay their welcome. She sank into her desk chair and listed cities she could stand to live in, now that Seattle had proven a total bust. Tomorrow morning she’d start researching jobs in their respective media. Start fresh. Forget the Emerald City nightmare. With any luck, she’d be gone before her birthday next month.

  She glanced at her legal pad. Alex’s name scribbled all over it, complete with hearts as if she was some lovesick tween crushing on the latest boy band. She made herself sick. She crumpled the paper and tossed it into the wastebasket. The perpetual ugly duckling enamored with the popular boy who had deigned to pay her attention.

  She tamped down the guilt gnawing at her for leaving him at his most vulnerable. To rely on another person for happiness was a dangerous game they had played too long. She could no longer afford the luxury of “someday.” She had already spent too much time living in a future constructed from fantasies and pipedreams.

  Alex was better off not knowing when she had gone.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Stephanie dove for her phone, her heart outshouting her brain for one painful, childish moment in which she thought Alex might be on the other end. She did not recognize the number, though it bore the same area code as his. “Hello?” she answered.

  “May I please speak to Stephanie Hartwell?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Hi, Stephanie, this is Jeff Ryan. I’m a managing editor with SWN Buffalo. We received your resume recently, and I was wondering if you had some time to talk about the position.”

  Buffalo. That would be the first city to get back to her. There was no escaping him, and maybe that was the point. In all other universes, they had already completed each potential outcome of their relationship, while in this one they floundered toward a conclusion yet unspecified. The one constant was their dogged determination to keep orbiting each other’s lives.

  “Yes, absolutely. Thank you for calling, Mr. Ryan.”

  “My pleasure. You have excellent qualifications, and I see you studied at USC.”

  “Yes. I graduated with honors.”

  “And you worked at King County Today for three years?”

  “Correct.” She chewed on a hangnail.

  “I read your story on Aleksandr Volynsky. He’s still quite a hero here.”

  “It was a difficult story to get, but I’m very proud of my work.”

  “You should be. As you know, we love our hockey here, and we could use someone with your skills. I understand you played hockey as well.”

  “I did. I think it gives me a unique perspective in covering the sport, especially as a woman.”

  “What’s your reason for leaving Seattle?”

  My life imploded, all thanks to that career-making story. “I’d like a fresh start in a city with a strong hockey fan base. I’m sure you know the Seattle Earthquakes have been controversial from day one.”

  “Indeed. Even more so when they signed Volynsky. Still, it’s a tragedy, what happened to him.”

  Her stomach curdled. “It was a horrific injury and a terrible accident.”

  “No desire to stick around and do a follow-up story?”

  “No,” she said, flat as a new dollar bill. Keep it together. “He was hard enough to work with. I can’t imagine this injury has improved his personality.”

  A chuckle on the other end. “You’re probably right. Listen, we don’t usually do this, but your work speaks for itself. I’m offering you the website’s hockey insider position plus full benefits. How soon can you be out here?”

  “Give me a week to wrap up some loose ends.” Her sweaty palm slipped against the phone. “And a few days to get there. I’ll be driving.”

  “Let’s call it two weeks. I’m looking forward to working with you, Stephanie.”

  Look, Joe. I finally got that East Coast opportunity. You and Alex can hang out and commiserate over how I ruined your lives. “Likewise. Thank you so much, Mr. Ryan.”

  Stephanie disconnected and assessed the apartment. She’d sell what could not fit in the car. With a notepad, she moved from room to room, taking inventory of all the things that must go, the things that had brought her pain. She could put the rest in storage and stay at a hotel until she found a new place.

  How surreal to say good-bye to all her comforts, to cling to nothing anymore. How brave at last.

  ***

  With a wad of cash from selling most of her worldly possessions, Stephanie gave the key to her landlord, then sat inside the BMW loaded with boxes of books, two suitcases of clothing, her Surface Pro, and a few other odds and ends or essentials she would nee
d. She could make it in under two days if she drove nonstop, loath as she was to spend more money than necessary until she’d signed the paperwork and received her first paycheck. But according to the weather reports, she’d be arriving in a snowstorm either way, so she ought to stay alert. She’d stop on the second day, somewhere cheap.

  Seattle faded away behind her. Tears pricked her eyes when she could no longer see the Space Needle in the rearview but made her more determined to forget. Every ending was a beginning, after all, and she had many lives yet to live.

  ***

  Aleksandr

  Alex’s hands trembled as he thumbed through his contacts in search of her number. Like a fucking child. Her birthday was next week, and he hoped they could be on speaking terms again. He pressed his thumb to the phone icon beside her name.

  “Hello?”

  It was all he could do not to crack at the sound of her voice. “Hi, Steph.” He forced down the lump in his throat. “It’s Alex.”

  A long silence on the other end. Too long. Maybe she had hung up.

  “I know, silly,” she said.

  “I’m getting the cast off today and…Can we talk?”

  “We’re on the phone. Talk.”

  “I meant in person.”

  She sighed. “Alex, I moved to Buffalo last month. I was offered a job here.”

  What remained of his heart went into freefall. He sucked in a shuddering breath. He hadn’t told her when he had moved to Buffalo, either. Never gave her a chance unless it was on his terms. You selfish fuck. You spoiled fucking prick. You’ve ruined the only thing that ever mattered, and you fucking deserve it.

  “Alex?”

  “Oh. I-I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t tell anyone. Thought it was better that way.”

  “Better for who?”

  “Both of us. Alex, I don’t want to fight.”

  “I don’t, either. That’s why I…” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  “You didn’t—”