M For Moscow

19 | just peachy

When we touched down in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Airport, I got chills.

It wasn't from the piles and piles of snow stacked up outside the plane's window, or the fact that more than six hours of flying made me queasy. It was all because after my great reveal of the century, Luka hadn't said a word.

If anyone of you knew the old me, the Anya me, you'd know that I had trouble breaking the ice. That during awkward situations, I would be the first one to jet out of there and to the nearest exit.

But now, as the flight attendant pushed out the door and I headed to the exit, I found Luka trailing behind me.

It wasn't like he could stay in the plane, right?

He grabbed my bag for me and carried it down the steps, wordlessly. Apart from the low grumble in his voice about the cold, he had said nothing else. Dmitry followed behind, carrying nothing but firearms and pocket squares.

In the bus to the airport, Luka weaselled his hand behind my back, making me jump at his touch. When I looked up into his eyes, he was staring into the faraway distance with emptiness inside. I swallowed my saliva and did the same.

We didn't talk for the rest of the way home. Even at immigration, even in the taxi to the hotel, even in the limo to my old house, it was nothing but silent.

My mum must've caught on because as she was pouring us each a cup of tea, she asked the one question couples loved to get.

"How did you two meet?"

Instinctively, I immediately turned to Luka and studied his face. It was still hard and cold like earlier on. The only difference was now he actually opened his mouth to speak before shutting it again.

Disappointed, I answered my mum on behalf of both of us, feeling my eyes drop to the floor. "From work, mum."

I felt her linger on us for a moment before taking the high road and walking away to get some biscuits. She may have been an abusive mother in the past but she knew how to keep her guests happy and full.

"Are you still not going to talk to me?" I whispered without looking at him.

He twitched and nothing. I sighed and sipped my tea.

If that was how he wanted to play it, fine.

I could act all petty, too.

It wasn't that I didn't understand where he was coming from. It was more the fact that he didn't let me explain where I was coming from — and that was this one-room apartment in the middle of a dodgy street.

From the corner of my eye, I watched him play with my three brothers. The oldest of the trio, Anton, was showing him the latest game he downloaded on his hand-me-down phone. Egor and Nikita, the twins, were flipping through torn pages of a cartoon book.

Luka, who looked genuinely interested, enthused over their antics, smiling from ear-to-ear and tapping birds on screens. Even when I was this mad about the silent treatment, I couldn't help but forget about the fight when I gazed adoringly at them.

Until Nikita toddled over to display his stickers collection.

"Look, Anya!" he exclaimed, pointing at his, admittedly, worrying page full of movie villains. Couldn't it have been princes instead?

I put on a half-smile, glancing nervously at Luka who stole his focus from the other boys to catch sight of me. We locked eyes momentarily before I did the same and gave my full attention to my baby brother beside me.

"Who knew there were that many bad people in the world, right?" My mum joked, taking a seat at the head of the coffee table.

I leaned in to whisper. "How's things at work, Mum?"

"Oh, you know, just the same — barely moving." she whispered back, laughing nervously so it looked as if I told her a funny joke instead of asking a serious question.

I nodded to show her that I understood exactly what she meant by that. I mean, why would anyone take on two jobs if they didn't have to?

"Do you- do you, um, need any more деньги because I can lend you some-"

"Nonsense, Anya." she waved me off, the popping vein on her forehead telling me to drop it. Yulia bent slightly forward to talk to Luka as a proper dismissal of her one and only daughter who was just trying to help. "Would you like some more tea?" she asked although his cup was full.

Like the gentleman he was, he put on a smile and declined with a thank you. If I wasn't so concerned over my mother, I would've been rolling my eyes at him.

Either way, she stood up to grab the pot, leaving me to linger in the awkward silence between my boyfriend and I as my brothers desperately shoved their belongings in our face.

Just as I let out a sigh and chewed aggressively on a cracker, Luka convinced Anton and Egor to play somewhere else. He whispered something in their ears that made them laugh and had them running in the direction of the kitchen.

Mid-sip, I made a snarky remark at him. "Hope you didn't tell them to play with knives."

Unfazed, he scooted closer to me, making me raise a suspicious eyebrow. "Does your mum need money?"

"I thought you didn't want to talk to me."

"Does she?" he asked again.

"You wouldn't understand." I admitted, glancing at the painting on the wall that came with the apartment.

"I don't understand any of this."

"Yeah, well, you're the one that wanted to come here in the first place. I didn't ask for this. Did you even think about asking to meet my family before you booked the flight tickets? No, right? Because in Moscow, silence means yes and yes means buy a jet!"

With that, I stormed off in the direction of my mother's bedroom shared with the three boys and their one-ply mattress. However, I couldn't slam any doors for the finishing touch because replacing one was a curtain split into two. All I could do was make it fly in a very dramatic way.

Moments later, after stuffing my face in a pillow and pulling it away later when breathing got hard, I heard the sounds of the curtains flap in the wind and a drop on the bed next to me. I half-expected it to be Luka, grabbing a hold of my hands and giving it a quick, comforting squeeze, but instead of his bitten fingernails were coarser, wrinkly ones.

My mother had came to comfort me.

"Anya, what happened?" she asked, starting to stroke my hair like she did when I was a child and didn't know there were more hairstyles than a ponytail.

"It's nothing." I denied it like I did when she would ask why I came home from school crying and the answer would always be because of my family's status and how many roubles we had in the bank.

"Luka didn't say it was nothing."

"You talked to him?" I said, aware that my tone suddenly got defensive for reasons beyond my comprehension.

She must've heard it, too, because she jumped a little ways away from me but continued talking nevertheless. In fact, it looked as if she was determined to continue talking.

"We need to talk."

***

Hey guys,

Chapter 19 is out! And what's also out, the ONC Round One results! If you made it through, congratulations! That's really, really amazing.

The best part of ONC for me is the support system and community it brings out in Wattpad. @Katherina_Michels has taken the initiative to create reading lists of books entered in the ONC if you're looking for any new books to read or just want to support a fellow Wattpadian (Is that what we call ourselves???)

As always, thank you for reading and supporting my works. Writing has always been an ambition of mine that I hope one day maybe will become a reality.

Lots of love,
Mel