Chapter 174: With him again

I kept my eyes at my grandfather's grave for a pretty good time as tears flowed down my eyes. I didn't want to leave.

However suddenly a shadow appeared at the edge of my vision. I was too weary to deal with any stragglers. At this moment, I wanted to melt away with the rain and disappear.

The storm around me shifted, subtle, but strange. As if the wind suddenly changed direction, brushing past my neck with unnatural focus, like it carried a breath rather than a breeze.

I closed my eyes, sighing heavily as I summoned the energy to face whoever was standing in front of me. There was nothing left in me, but the presence wouldn't go away. Resigning myself to face one more person for the night, I looked up.

"Can I help.....

The smell hit me first not rain, not mud, but something warm and faintly wild. Comforting and unsettling at the same time, a scent I knew deep in my bones even if I didn’t know how.

The instant I lifted up my eyes, all the air was knocked from my lungs as if someone had bashed my chest with a sledgehammer. My knees wobbled and my body caved under me. Every nerve in my body, every weak little piece of me, quivered at the sight of him. My heart thumped too madly against my ribs as snakes of unease slithered in my gut.

"Andrey Volkov?", His name flowed from my lips, vanishing in the howling wind of the rain.

He was just as handsome as the night I left him, standing on his own outside the theater. Though now there were dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept for days.

There was something else too, an intensity radiating off him, like heat in winter air. Something coiled beneath the surface of his stillness. Watching. Waiting.

And I wanted to leap into his arms. To feel him holding me through this nightmare. I wanted to scream, to cry and beg his forgiveness for doing that to him. For leaving him without a word, and no explanation. Andrey Volkov deserved better, he deserved someone better than me. Not a lost.

"Elena", He took a step forward, just close enough that the edge of his black umbrella shielded me from the pelting raindrops. "I'm sorry for your loss", He spoke.

"Oh, thank you", I mumbled, pulling my gaze down to the mud, unable to look him in the eyes. Those beautiful, dark eyes that were now full of sorrow I had never seen in his eyes before.

"I'm sorry you lost your grandfather. I wish that.... I'm... I'm....sorry", He muttered, stumbling through what he was trying to say. Tension settled around us with those things he left unsaid.

His voice held a rasp I didn’t remember deeper and rougher.

When I didn't say anything, Andrey Volkov rubbed his hand over his forehead, looking at the ground. Huffing with irritation before taking a deep breath then pulled back some of his composure.

"Thank you, Andrey", There was a lot in his name when I lastly said it. My longing for him, my aching for him, my need to be with him and love him. Could he hear it?. Did it matter even?!!

"I missed you", He out of the blue blurted out. My eyes immediately widened and I stopped breathing. Andrey inched closer, closing the wretched gap between us. "I wish I had been there for you", He spoke in a low voice.

The air thickened, almost humming as he neared. I felt it, a pressure around my chest, like the storm bent around him instead of hitting him. I shivered without knowing why.

For a moment I was too stunned to respond. I stood there staring up at him as he towered over me, blocking the storm from me. In that moment, I wanted to melt into him, feel his warmth and allow him to be there for me.

"It's alright", I wanted to scream at myself for not saying something..... anything more. "I missed you too", The words were at the tip of my tongue but I didn't say them.

His hand went up, reaching like he was about to place his hand on me. It halted midair and dropped back down to his side. Andrey groaned and swiped his hand over his face again.

Thunder rolled but it wasn’t just thunder. There was a low, rumbling sound behind it, almost like an echo. Almost like it came from him.

"Elena, I was so worried about you. I missed you. Why didn't you tell me anything?", His words rushed out. Each one struck me like a blow, though he wouldn't know it.

A mix of emotions flickered back to life inside of me with him here but there were too many of them all at once. Like waking up after being asleep for a century and I didn't know how to feel anymore.

At all.

"I couldn't", I choked on a sob. Taking a step back under the freezing again where the water droplets would hide the fresh of wave Tears rising to the surface.

Hearing that Andrey missed me, that he worried about me, made my heart feel warm and hurt at the same time. Like my sudden absence had affected him, and because I loved him so much, it hurt to think about it.

His head fell back, and he took a controlled inhale. When he looked back down at me, he shook his head and took me in from head to toe. A frown pulled at the corner of his full lips and his brows furrowed. Despite his short, well trimmed beard, I noticed his cheeks appeared a tad gaunt.

"You could have told me anything. You could have told me you were going to blow up the sun. I would have listened, and fuck me!, I would have found a way to help you do it", Andrey rushed out the tenacity of his statement, hitting me like lighting through my chest. He snarled and rubbed his face again, clearly in agony.

And I was the cause.

"Andrey, I'm sorry. I just couldn't ", For me it wouldn't have changed anything.

Each time my heart beat, it hurt worse than the last. I wanted to go back in the void of numbness, but I couldn't when Andrey made me feel..... He made me feel everything.

There was a boom of thunder, and I reflectively took a step closer to him as if subconsciously seeking refuge with him. Every bit of me wanted him yet my mind said I shouldn't.

His shoulders loosened slightly when I stepped toward him, as if some instinctive tension inside him eased, like he was made to shield, to protect.

Andrey nodded then looked around at the empty graveyard. We were the only two souls left here. Both lost and cold, but right now not alone. "I understand", Our eyes locked and I wanted to fall into him so desperately.

The silence stretched, only broken up by the steady storm falling persistently around us. Neither of us moved in those long minutes. There was too much and not enough to say all at once.

"Elena", He started breaking my trace.

"Have you eaten?",

"What?", I breathed out, blinking at him as I tried to think. Was I hungry?! When was the last time, I'd eaten.

"Are you hungry?", It was an offer. Perhaps an olive branch through the tension we suffered through now.

"Yes I'm",

"Can I take you to dinner?", His eyes flickered to papa's grave at our feet. "It's the least, I can do for you right now", He added in a low voice. Of course he was right. It was the least he could do for me, since everything was now complicated between us.

But there was something else in his gaze now, something golden as usual. But it didn’t scare me, I was so happy that he was here with me.

The storm didn’t scare him.

The darkness didn’t scare him.

Nothing did.

And some instinct deep inside me whispered that being near him meant safety…

even if I didn’t understand why.