Resolution
Yuri couldn’t close the door. He watched Rache walk down the hall alone, leaning against the door frame, and nodded when she looked back, just before she started down the stairs. It was when her hair disappeared from view that the wave of despair came over him, and he gasped for breath.
“Rache!” he called, running to the stairwell. “Wait!”
She was standing on the first landing, looking back.
He didn’t know what to say.
“Another minute,” he stammered. “Please.”
She smiled, came back into the apartment, and he closed the door gently. She sat at the table, fingers dancing over the cornucopia, eyes anywhere but on him.
“Is all right?” he asked, sitting next to her. “Are you happy?”
She laughed a bit, shrugged.
“Not yet,” she said. “I guess not yet. But I’ll get there.”
He took her hand in his, but she pulled back, smiled awkwardly at him.
“What’s wrong, Yuri?” she asked.
“What about passion?” he asked. “What will happen to your passion if you go to UN?”
Her smile got an edge, like she was about to cry. She laughed, cut it off, looked away.
“What are you talking about?” she asked. “This is what you were asking for. This is what you wanted…”
“But what do you want, Rache? Will this kill you?”
“I’ll be fine—”
“No, I mean… will this kill who you are?”
She pushed her chair back, stood up, blinking back tears. She patted him on the shoulder as she passed, but he caught her arm, held her.
“I worry I have doomed you,” he said. “Doomed the world. Not helped. Ruined hope.”
“You make no sense,” she said, wiping her eyes.
“I had passion once,” he said. “I did good work. Work I believe in. Work that made difference. And when day came, I traded that work in for work that pays bills. I stopped being right. And every day since, I… I do not know if I am living my life anymore, or life of someone else.”
“I don’t know what you want from me,” she said.
“Live right life,” he said. “Save the world.”
She looked at him, smiled.
“Sometimes saving yourself is all you can do,” she said. “I didn’t understand it before, but I do now. Nobody can change the world. They can just change enough parts of it, that it looks different at the end. Thank you for teaching me that. Even if it hurt both of us.”
She leaned forward and kissed him, and he let go of her arm, put his hand on the table for support. They stood there, frozen in time, his heart paused mid-beat, waiting for instruction.
She wrapped her arm around his neck and pulled herself closer, and he breathed her in, kissed her again, holding her tight. Her hands ran down his chest, pulling off his tie, unbuttoning his shirt.
She moaned, and he slipped her sweater up over her head, fingers dancing on her skin, down her waist, and he touched… he touched her lips, her lipstick, her…
He stood back, hands shaking.
“What is it?” she asked.
He couldn’t look at her anymore, her skin, her face. He couldn’t look at her anymore.
“Yuri?”
He ran to the bedroom, closed the door, and sat against it, holding his head in his hands, waiting for her to hate him enough to leave for good.