Unanchored

She had hoped it would be different this time. Akim was easygoing, young, a natural comedian. He was a handsome and playful man, but always serious and sincere when circumstances warranted it. He was a man she could trust, and so she did. This beloved, a professor of mathematics, had lived with tragedy. He had lost a parent and a brother prematurely. He insisted that a painful awakening came out of those personal trials, that he would never be the sort of man to take any love in his life for granted. She loved to lie in bed with him and hear talk like that as she traced the contours of his body with one carefully manicured finger.

Yet she caught him staring at her face. She would catch a worried look crossing his strong Russian features from across the apartment. Like a dark wind crossing a lake. He would quickly look out the window, down to the traffic in the street. He would pretend he hadn’t been staring critically, dark-souled as any stereotypical Russian man in those moments. And she would pretend she hadn’t noticed, would just keep doing whatever it was she had been doing at that moment, stirring a pot on the stove or applying makeup while looking in the mirror over the bathroom sink.

But these incidents increased in number. The stares became longer. His face began to grow new worry lines.

He hadn’t said anything. Not yet, anyway. But she knew the pattern. She had promised herself this one would be different. Hadn’t she promised herself that same thing every time? Akim had even started joking about marriage, but she knew his jokes…