Flaws: Vedmykiv

[14] A Free Man

AFTER WEEKS of unanswered messages, a reply arrived. It didn't have many details, and it was painfully short. She had been offered a position abroad at the end of the semester, a volunteer job, as if that couldn't make me believe in fate any more. "I'll take it unless you come home. Put an end to this, Joaquin," Lillian's message read at the end: "Last chance. After this, it's over."

"I'm packing my bags," I replied without a second's thought. This was a miracle.

Another volunteer. What's wrong with me? Was I so screwed up that I only attracted the giving type? Lillian was caring. There was no denying that. Helping was in her nature. There was also something special about the way she interacted with others. She admired people. She respected them. She believed in human connection. She would make a great doctor. But at home. With me. Screw it. I'd become a wedding photographer or a cameraman for the local news channel, whatever. I'll forget the wars, the drunken states, and the people I'd never meet. I will forget exploring the world I now knew was full of exciting unknowns. I will sacrifice everything. Whatever it takes to get to Lillian again.

I waited for Oxana to come home from school. The iron gate creaked open, and she walked in with that grin that masked everything. "Hi babe, how was your day?" She dropped to the floor and kicked off her boots, throwing them anywhere. One landed right under my wet socks.

"There's something I need to tell you," I said.

Her face changed. Her mood morphed. It remembered being dragged through the mud. "What's up, buttercup?"

Come to the kitchen. Let me make you tea, and let's talk. It's what I should've said. Instead, I said, "I gotta go back. I've been offered a job."

The uncomfortable silence returned to her cheeks and bones like a bad memory she could not shake off. She was happy for me. She tried to act like she was happy for me but I could see the disappointment and confusion. Women like her may stumble but never fall. She congratulated me once again, asked me if it was what I wanted, and, trying to show interest, she inquired about details I had to fabricate for her on the spot. We didn't talk about our future at all. There were no ifs or mentions of going back together. There were no plans, no calculations. Nobody asked where would we meet again. Nobody looked up in-between points in Europe, the East Coast, or anywhere else. We didn't talk about the escalating crisis or whether she would have to evacuate next month, in another year, or never. She didn't talk about stabbing me in the chest or complained about me stabbing her in the back. No one asked if she should come live with me at all. No one asked.

I was trying to figure out what to say, how to say it, how to sound casual without seeming insensitive to such a significant turn in our lives—in her life. A life I had become an important chunk. But instead, I said nothing. I let the silence confirm I had finally opted out. My escape route: lying through my teeth. Oxana was a smart gal. There was nothing she couldn't figure out. I would go down in history, in her history, as that fiancé who came out of nowhere and just as quickly disappeared. Like what I did to mine. Except mine was real.

We didn't talk much that night. She locked herself in the bedroom with her mother on the phone, and I pretended nothing was going on. Instead, I watched flights and train times from my phone.

I woke up before her alarm went off because my phone vibrated. It was Igor. "We have to go now," he said. We'd already missed one big opportunity and couldn't afford to miss another, but I didn't care. I had a destiny to mend, and that was reason enough to get out of there. Oxana stirred and squirmed beside me. She seemed to be having a nightmare. I wanted to run my hand over her face. Stroke her hair, her cheeks, her neck. With negotiations between the separatists and the new government back on track, Russian presence could scatter fast. The colonel could jump the border at any moment, and Igor didn't want to wait any longer. I understood his angst.