Vivid memories flood my head, memories filled with beer and stupid jokes.
“Is that why you’re here now?” I ask. “Because of some debt you think you owe Zach for being nice to you?”
Alina stares at me for a long time, reaching up to stroke the side of my face.
“At first,” she says quietly. “It’s different now.”
“How so?”
“Because before, I only had Zach’s letters to go by. I only knew your character through him. Now I know you for real.”
“And you haven’t run away, screaming?”
“You don’t scare me, Evan.”
“Maybe I should.”
“You’re sad,” she whispers. “Sad and lonely. You blame yourself for things you couldn’t control. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.”
I laugh out loud.
“There are a thousand other things that make me a bad person.”
“That’s not you,” Alina says. “That may be what you do now, but that’s still not you.”
“There are a lot of dead people who would disagree.”
“You need a place to belong, Evan. You need someone to belong to. The fact that you happened to find that in a man who asks you to do such things is just circumstance. It’s the same reason I ended up a street whore.”
“I don’t see how you can compare the two. You give people something they want and need. I take away their lives.”
Alina doesn’t answer. She just looks over her shoulder at the picture where it sits on the coffee table. I wonder if I should show her the other two I grabbed. I’m still debating that when she speaks up.
“Evan—where did you get that picture?”
Ah, shit!
With all the discussion of Zach and what happened to us both, I had just about forgotten how I came across the picture in the first place. She’d told me to stay out of it, and I’d gone behind her back and had taken care of things my way.
“Your father’s apartment.” There’s no reason to lie at this point. She’s going to figure it out soon enough.
She closes her eyes and looks away as she tightens her fingers around my shoulders. I don’t move, just watch her as she tries to control her breath and bites into her lip.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?”
I don’t answer. When she turns to meet my eyes again, I’m sure she can see the answer, but I won’t say the words.
“You did it for me, didn’t you?”
Again, I don’t respond. My silence will have to be enough for her.
Alina leans back on my thighs and places her hands on her knees. She looks toward the door as she balances herself there, and I tense. This could be it. She could decide enough is enough, get up, and pack her things. The new apartment and dinner aren’t enough to counter this.
I can’t regret what I’ve done. Not this time.
Alina shifts, and I prepare myself for her to depart, but she doesn’t. Instead, she leans into my chest and places her head on my shoulder. I wrap my arms around her back. I can feel the tears soaking into my shirt, but her cries are silent.
I hold her for several minutes, waiting for the other shoe to drop. When she does finally wipe at her eyes and speak, her words surprise me.