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THE TRAIN STATION WAS cold and quiet this early in the morning, empty except for a woman with a small child, and a man in a business suit. Back at Tanets, students would be heading to their first practice at the break of dawn. I had no idea how long I’d have to wait for a train back to Paris, but it was better to be here than back at the academy.
I’d left my letter of resignation on Pytor’s desk. I had never felt more of a failure after giving up, a little over two months after I’d arrived in Russia. The saddest part of all was Pytor wasn’t even the problem. He was harsh, but I’d gotten him to soften slightly towards the students. They all loved me for it ... maybe a little too much.
Vasily’s words hung in my mind, torturing me the entire way to the train station: What a fool you are, that you didn’t know when we wrote to each other I was falling in love with you. I was a fool. Our shared glances and the way he made me feel when we were dancing, I knew he was falling for me. Many men had. It was hard not to fall for a beautiful ballerina. I spent the entire cab ride to the train station choking back tears, wishing I was anywhere else. He didn’t need me, something so destroyed by her mistakes. He needed to be a star, and he couldn’t with me dragging him down.
But Vasily was different. He didn’t hold my hand, kiss me, or touch me as the others had. I shared my darkest secrets with him, and he took them in stride and respected me. I’d never had that, and I didn’t know what to do with it. So, for some stupid reason, I destroyed him. Why did I do that? What the hell was I thinking? Why did I feel the need to destroy the one man who respected me? Who didn’t want anything from me?
So here I sat on the bench outside the train station, pulling my fur coat around me even tighter, praying they would open soon. My head still pounded, exacerbated by the cold, and I worried I might freeze here before those glass windows ever gave me a chance to escape. I kept glancing around me, terrified Vasily would try to follow me. I had glued my eyes behind my cab, waiting to see another pull into the train station, but it didn’t.
For the first time since our fight, I could finally breathe easy. I was going home.
Finally, the stout woman who greeted me my first day on Russian soil, nearly two months ago, slid the window open. Relief washed over me. I was one step closer to a ticked to Paris. I jumped up to get in line before the mother and businessman.
“Two tickets to St. Petersburg,” a familiar male voice behind me said. It cracked, as if that voice had spent as much time crying in the last two hours as I had.
I froze, my hands squeezing the handle of my suitcase so hard I was afraid I’d break it off. “What are you doing here, Vasily?” I turned to him, searching his eyes for the same hurt I’d left there a few hours ago.
I found it, buried in the depths of blue, all the anguish from our argument. But there was something more: the anger, the fire, it was replaced with passion. For me? For us? I didn’t know.
“I meant everything I said last night,” he pushed past me to slide the rubles through the little hole in the window and retrieve his tickets. “I don’t care if you don’t love me, Jaqui, I still want to show you my home.”
“Why?” Tears streamed down my face as we turned away from the window. “After everything I’ve done, why?” I didn’t understand this man. He just wouldn’t give up like the others had.
“Because I want you to see what normal looks like. I did a lot of thinking, Jaqui. I don’t even think you know what normal is anymore.”
“Oh, Vasily.” His care for me spoke more volumes than he could say, but I still wasn’t sure. I wanted my mother’s embrace more than anything, and to run away to another place was unfathomable. More people were flooding the platform now, and I had to lower my voice so only he could hear me. “I can’t ... I need to go home. Back to Paris. I can’t do this anymore.” I stepped away from the window, and he kept stride with me.
“This place is poisoning you, do you understand that?” His voice was low as well, but urgent, almost desperate. “I know I’m partly to blame. I’m sorry, Jaqui, for ever getting you involved in this mess. So, we’re still going. If you won’t go, I’ll simply give your ticket away. But ... I’d like you to go. I need you to go.”
“Christmas is two weeks away,” I told him. “You can’t miss practice. The Nutcracker opens Christmas Eve.” Why was I protesting? Despite my relief at going to Paris, I couldn’t deny the fact that just his presence somehow calmed me.
“I talked to Pytor,” he added, his voice even more distressed. “Everything’s arranged.”
“It’s not even sunrise yet! Did you wake him?”
“No, well, maybe not physically. I told him we needed to get away. He will let us practice in St. Petersburg. We can go visit my old studio. My Mistress will understand.”
“That’s ridiculous. Pytor will not allow this.”
“He doesn’t have a choice.” He pressed a piece of paper into my hand.
“What’s this?” I thumbed it idly and looked at him. “My letter of resignation?” Shock registered over my face. “Where did you get this?”
“From his desk, of course.”
“He wouldn’t accept it?”
“He doesn’t know about it. I was able to retrieve it before he saw it.”
“You really want me to go to St. Petersburg? Even knowing ... what I’ve done?” I sighed. I was scared of doing things all on my own, and now, I wasn’t. Even if it meant not going to Paris, if he was there, I could do it.
“Yes.” He took my suitcase, and his, and sat them on the bench next to us. The same bench, I noticed, where we had first met. So much had happened between then and now, I realized. He turned to me. “I know I’m the last person you want to see right now, but...”
I pressed a finger to his lips. “You’re not.”
“But you said...” he tried to mumble around my finger.
“Vasily, I’m a fool. I know what I said. You’re the only person I want to see right now.”
His eyes searched mine, looking for something, but I couldn’t say it. See me, I begged, I’m in here, but I’m scared to come out. See me. I leaned my head forward, touching his forehead to mine.
“Don’t panic,” he whispered.
“Panic?” I responded, breathing heavily suddenly. “Why?”
He moved slightly to press his lips to my ear. “Because I can’t fix you if you don’t let me hug you.”
My eyes widened at that. Who was this Vasily, so forward and asking things of me? He was so timid most of the time, fidgeting and flighty. Almost overnight, he seemed to have changed to a man who wasn’t scared to take what he wanted.
I nodded slowly.
He wrapped his arms around me and pulled my head to his chest. I felt his heart beating, a steady thwomp, thwomp, thwomp that danced in rhythm to mine, though a few hours ago I felt it never would again.
As if he read my mind, “Yes, it still beats, though before I wished it hadn’t.”
I wanted to say I was sorry, I wanted to beg his forgiveness. But I didn’t have the words. I pulled him tighter. “Don’t let me go,” I cried.
“I won’t. I won’t let go.”
I looked up at him and he smiled, running his hand through my unruly waves. We sat in silence as the platform filled, and the new dawn broke around us, the edges of the crimson sun splaying over us as we sat there, just enjoying each other in the quiet of the new day.
“Where will we stay in St. Petersburg, Vasily?” I realized I didn’t know anything about the town, and was worried we would be sleeping under a bridge somewhere.
He brightened a bit at that. “I phoned ahead to my Aunt, from the cab. I’ll bunk with my cousins, and you can have his room.”
“Everything separate,” I said softly.
He nodded. “Oui, so you have your privacy,” he added.
“Thank you,” I mumbled. “You’re a good man, Vasily Petrov.” I meant every word.
“People keep saying that, but I don’t know if it’s true.” I felt his shrug against my side.
“Why not?”
“Because it takes more than a few good actions to make a good man. Come, sweet Jaquellyn, the train will arrive at any minute.”
My name on his lips was music to my soul. Maybe I was wrong, and he could fix me, but I was too blind to see.
He stood and offered me his hand, and I hesitated for a brief second before I took it. As much as Paris called to me, I suddenly realized it wasn’t where my heart truly lied. The good man before me held more than just my hand, and though part of me didn’t want him to, I realized I had no choice.
I would follow him anywhere.