| |
––––––––
AS I STOOD THERE, IN front of the mirror, in that beautiful white gown, all I could see was the ghost of my own form floating in front of me.
I was meant to be picking out a wedding dress – the dress that I was going to get married in, the one I would tie the knot to my soon-to-be husband while wearing. The gaggle of women around me, tugging at the fabric and nattering away to each other in Serbian, seemed excited, but there was a deep hollowness in my chest as I tried to make sense of what I was going to do.
“This one?” the shop assistant asked, sounding exhausted. I didn’t blame her. We had already been through a bunch of dresses as it was, and she must have been wondering how long we were going to take to find one that we actually liked.
“No, no, can’t you see in her face that she doesn’t like it?” one of the women – a cousin of Nikita’s, I was sure – exclaimed. “Get another one!”
The assistant backed off towards the other side of the shop, and I headed into the changing room to get out of this thing once more. I was already exhausted, and there was still so much left to do before the wedding the next day.
The moment the plane had touched down in New York, I had been whisked off by a gaggle of women related to Nikita to prepare for the wedding. It was happening tomorrow – so soon that I’d hardly have time to pull together the plan that I needed to – and there was a lot for them to work out before they sent me down that aisle.
I was dizzy, basically a jetlagged wreck from the flight, but the dozen or so women with me were making up for my lack of enthusiasm without a second thought. The assistant brought out another dress and handed it to me around the door, and I lingered for a moment before I put it on, enjoying the brief moment of quiet before I would have to go back out there and show myself off.
I couldn’t believe I was doing this. I had always imagined planning my wedding to be a joyful affair, something I would linger over and indulge every second of, but instead, as I held the cream fabric to my chest, I wondered if there was still time for me to run.
I knew it was a stupid idea. My father was still in the city, and Nikita would take him out as soon as he found out I had fled. The last thing I needed was to put him in danger, after everything we had both done to get out of this mess. My chest ached when I thought of him, all that I had put him through, and all that might happen to him if I didn’t go through with this awful wedding.
I climbed into the dress and looked at myself in the mirror. This one was beautiful. They all had been, really – Nikita had told the women to spare no expense, and that he would pay for anything they thought necessary. The dress, a slip that fell in soft waves down to my feet, with a sweetheart neckline encrusted with jewels, would have made me feel beautiful any other day.
But today, this day, knowing what it was going to be used for, I felt ill. I pulled back the curtain, and there were a few gasps and then some nods of agreement around the room. This was it – this was the dress. I simply had to get it.
I headed back behind the curtain to get dressed again, and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. This dress would likely be the last thing I ever wore. Because, when Nikita was dead, someone was going to have to pay for his passing – and I was certain they would work out that it was me who should pay the price.
It was the part of the plan I had been doing my best to ignore, the part where I would be held accountable for what happened. I had to be ready for what came next, for what happened when he was dead in our wedding bed. But I knew that anything would be better than allowing him to call me his wife. Anything would be better than going along with his twisted games and letting him think he had won me over.
I wasn’t buying my wedding dress. I was buying my funeral outfit.
I stepped out once I was dressed, and let the women spirit me off to whatever they had planned for me next. I had no idea where I was being taken, but it didn’t matter, not really. All that mattered was that I kept up the façade as best I could, and made sure everyone believed I wanted to marry Nikita.
But surely, they must have been able to see through me. They must have been able to spot the emptiness in my heart, the deadness behind my eyes. Maybe none of them cared – they just wanted Nikita married off, and they didn’t care what it took to make that happen. I hated that I had to go along with it, but at least they weren’t trying to get me to speak about how thrilled I was with all of this.
I just needed to get the fuck through today, and it would all be behind me. They dragged me to a spa next, where I got my hair cut and my nails done. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been able to indulge myself with stuff as lovely as this, and I wished I could have enjoyed it. All I could think about was that this was for him, for Nikita, and I loathed every second of it, wished I could have turned myself into a monster to keep him away.
But that wouldn’t have stopped him. He had already decided he was going to have a piece of me, no matter what, and nothing I could have tried would have changed his mind on that. No matter how grotesque I was, no matter how disgusting I tried to make myself, I knew that he would find some way to pull me back into his web and get me to be his bride.
I looked down at my pearly-pink nails. They would have been pretty, in any other circumstance, but knowing that all of this was for him made me feel sick. I hated the thought of prettifying myself just for him to get his hands on; not that I had much choice, but still. I wanted to scrub myself of all of it, make it so he didn’t get to see me this way.
The women I was with, I felt bad for them. Because they were all so excited about what was to come, and here I was, acting as though the world was about to be ripped out from underneath me. They tried to make conversation, but my answers were brief and boring. I had nothing to say. I just wanted this to be over.
But when it was over... I doubted I would be around to see it. Would these women turn on me, too? For all their sweetness now, if they had even the barest inkling that I had been the one to take out Nikita, I was sure they would tear me apart with their bare hands. Every Serbian in the city would turn on me, the last safe haven I had pulled out from underneath me, once and for all.
By the time we were done at the spa, I was spent. All of this was meant to be relaxing and rejuvenating, but, in truth, it made me feel even more empty and more hopeless than before. I couldn’t believe I was going through with this. I couldn’t believe that I would allow myself, for an instant, to be pulled into this nightmare. But what choice had Nikita given me? He had made it so I had no way out except to marry him, to let him call me his wife.
I prayed I would be able to finish him off before he got me to bed. The thought of his awful hands on me made my stomach turn, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to fake it long enough to convince him of anything. Would he even care? He clearly didn’t give a damn that I barely wanted this marriage, and I had no doubt that he would be willing to utterly overlook my lack of interest in him physically, too.
The women finally let me go once our trip to the spa was done, and I told them that I needed time to rest; the wedding was early tomorrow, and I wanted to be ready for it. One of them, Lina, pulled me into her arms for an excited hug.
“It’s going to be the most wonderful day,” she murmured to me. I tried to keep the smile on my face. Just a few more hours of convincing everyone, and it would all be over. I would finally be free.
But there was something I needed to do before I could rest easy tonight, and that was to speak to my father. I was sure he was already trying to work out what was going on, how I had agreed to this wedding as quickly as I had, and I wanted to put his mind at ease.
He was back at our apartment, the one next to the store, and I caught a cab down there and paused outside the entrance. There was so much memory wrapped up in this place, and I was about to leave it all behind for good. I had no idea how I would be able to just leave it, but I had to. I had to accept that this place wasn’t for me anymore, that I needed to move on and accept what was to come. If it protected my father, the life that he had made for himself here, then it would be worth it.
It would be worth it.
I headed up to the apartment and unlocked the door to find him dozing on the couch; his eyes sprang open as soon as he heard me, and he smiled.
“Nadia,” he murmured, and he rose to his feet to pull me into a warm hug. I closed my eyes and hugged him back, holding him close; I never wanted this to end, never wanted to let him go. But when I pulled back, he must have been able to see how serious I was, because his face darkened with fear.
“What is it?” he asked. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the wedding?”
“I already have,” I promised him. “I – I need to talk to you, Dad. Now. I don’t know if I’ll have time tomorrow, before everything happens.”
“The wedding, you mean?” he asked, and I nodded.
“Yeah, of course, the wedding,” I replied. Honestly, just thinking about it made me want to shudder in disgust. I hated feeling this way, feeling like I had to go through with everything Nikita demanded from me. At least it wouldn’t be for long. Not if I had anything to do with it.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to send a car down here for you,” I told him. “Early in the morning. It’s going to take you somewhere – well, somewhere safe. Somewhere far away from here, okay?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, utterly confused. “You – I’m going to be at the wedding, of course I am, where else would I be?”
“I can’t answer those questions right now,” I told him, my voice catching at the back of my throat. “I want to, I do, but it’s safer for you not to know. Safer for both of us.”
He shook his head.
“I’m not missing out on this,” he replied. “Not the day I’ve been waiting for my whole life.”
“You really waited your whole life for me to marry a man like Nikita?” I asked him, and his face fell.
“I... Nadia, what are you trying to say?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I replied urgently. I was sure Nikita had someone keeping an eye on me right now, and I had no doubt that he would do what he could to try to keep me away from my father. It must have crossed his mind that I might attempt something to take him down.
“I just need you to listen to me and to trust me,” I continued, as calmly as I could. “Do you understand?”
He nodded.
“I trust you, Nadia,” he murmured. “I trust you more than anyone in the world.”
“Good,” I replied. “I need you to get into that car when it comes tomorrow morning, and get as far from the city as you can, you understand?”
He nodded. He didn’t say anything.
“Thank you,” I replied. He put his arms around me, pulled me into a tight hug – I could feel the tears pricking my eyes, and I tried my best to ignore them. This was all too much for me to take on right now. I had too much on my mind to handle his pain too, but at the same time, I didn’t want to let go of him. I wanted to hold on to him for the rest of my life, make it so nothing could pull us apart.
“Can you tell me what you’re going to do?” he asked, and I shook my head. The less he knew, the better. The safer he would be. I was doing all this for him, to make sure that he remained safe, and I wasn’t going to compromise that by sharing my vague plan with him.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured to him. “And I’m - I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you myself.”
“That’s my job,” my father replied, a small smile on his face. I felt the tears begin to rise, but I swallowed them back down again. If this was the last chance I was going to have to be with him, I didn’t want to spend it weeping over everything we had lost.
So, instead, I hugged him again, squeezing him close enough that I was sure we would never be pulled apart. I closed my eyes, and let the feeling of my father soothe me into believing I was doing the right thing.
And give me the strength to do what needed to be done tomorrow. Nikita would get what he deserved, and my father would be safe. That was all that mattered to me.
