𝐆𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 |𝟏𝟖+

54|| The Queen Of Russian Hearts

Song: ZAYN, Taylor Swift - I don't wanna live forever

𝔚𝔚𝔚
Adrik

Bad things came in evens.

My parents.

Their friends.

I've been shot twice in my life. Broken four of my bones. Had sixteen scars.

I was six when my father began beating me. Eight when my mother introduced me to her friends. Ten when they came to visit and twelve when she took me to them.

I found my liberation in the odd.

At five, I began to read and at seven, I found my first chess piece.

Never would I have thought, I'd one day be teaching the game to anyone, much less a a six year old Italian.

Yet here I sit, in my favorite room, watching tiny hands grab at the white pawn and attempt my favorite move.

The Queens Gambit.

I debate letting him succeed, but habit pushes me to a Semi-Slav defence.

"Where is my sister?"

My fingers brush cool wood, faltering until the pawn topples over, the board before me blurs from my vision and just like that, I'm forced to find reality.

The cold room. The deafening silence. The emptiness in my chest.

I don't care to respond. That doesn't stop the kid from continuing in a small voice, "She didn't come for lunch time." They barely look alike but I see her everywhere. Her cheeks beneath his chubby ones, the tilt of her nose in his small one and when he looks up at me, I see her lashes in his eyes. "She never misses lunch time."

She'd missed a lot since I'd seen her last night. The empty vodka bottle that now laid a shattered mess in my bedroom. The cold bed I hadn't bothered to make. The breakfast I hadn't made sure she'd eaten. 

"You were more tolerable when you didn't talk." I abandon the game and stand, as though I have anything better to do.

I do. It's just I don't want to do anything.

How could I? She's in everything I do.

Everywhere I go, I find traces of her. So subtle and minuscule in their nature, I'd subconsciously, masochistically looked for it.

Everything reminds me of her. 

When I read, I think of how she hates it. When I eat, I wonder if her blood sugar's gone up. And when I talk strategy, I cannot think of her worst quality. Her need to insert herself and meddle.

Two small tugs drag my attention down to where the little Ademaro fists my pant leg. "W-what if something bad happened?" His fist holds so tight it's bound to leave a crease. "I'm scared."

I wouldn't even be able to change without thinking of her in my clothes.

I shrug off his touch, but for some reason indulge him when I really shouldn't be. "I kicked her out."