Emperor of Mayhem

99

I'LL ALWAYS CHOOSE YOU

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MONTHS LATER
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Mikhail: YOU KNOW I HATE IT WHEN YOU DO THIS BUT YOU STILL FUCKING DO IT

Mikhail: FUCKING PICK MY CALLS, AZANIA!

I could almost envision the anger at which the messages displayed on my phone's screen were typed. And his desperation for my reply couldn't be hidden behind either of the boldly typed-out letters.

Was I bothered by the fact that my dear husband capitalized every word? Yes. Do I want to reply and save him the headache? Yes. But was I eventually going to reply? Not all.

So fighting an eye roll, I put the phone away, letting out an audible yawn that could be heard from miles away, and a little stretch to even out my nerves. A lazy hand dived up to scrape curls away from my face.

After being snoozed five times, 10:30 AM was blinking like a malfunctioning robot on the round screen of my alarm clock.

"God, do I wanna go to class today?" I asked, my face buried in my palms. I didn't sleep well at all and I was tired as hell.

But I had to go.

It was 10:30. If I managed my time well, I would be out of the house in the next hour. My first class would start at noon and I hated being a minute late for class. Not because I cared about being early, I just didn't appreciate when everyone had gathered and I just walked in. It would draw attention to me, and I wanted to scale through this school without anyone knowing me.

"Fuck this shit!" I finally kicked the cover off my body, my legs swinging off the bed and planting themselves on the tiles. The cold filtered through my woolen socks and shot chilly tingles up my legs.

Before I could even lift my butt off the bed, the phone began to ring. If he liked it, he could give me one million missed calls, another one million voice messages, and a hundred million texts, I wouldn't return either of them.

Three days ago he left for the United States. It was supposed to be a quick journey. He was to return to Russia today but last night, he called and said that he wasn't coming, mentioning an urgent mission to Taiwan or something.

Here I was, alone and unable to sleep comfortably in his absence because my obsession with him had reached a point where I found it hard closing my eyes to sleep if he wasn't holding me.

So when he said he wasn't going to return, I sort of lashed out at him then ended the call on him.

He left many texts and calls last night, but I left my phone and picked up a book to read. And dear lord it was a smutty one. Almost every page was sex; on the floor of the room, on the kitchen counter, by the pool at 3 AM, in the car in the middle of nowhere, and oh, the legendary one, by a fucking cliff with her head dangling off the edge. I read until 4 AM and hated Mikhail more for not being there because if he had been at home, he would have acted out at least the bedroom scenes awake with me.

Anyway, I managed to doze off at 4:30 a.m. I woke up now to find over 100 missed calls and hundreds of texts and voicemails.

Ignoring him like this may or may not appear selfish. But I just needed him back home. If he said he had to be somewhere it meant it was very important, right? And that I shouldn't get in the way of that. But when it came down to his attention, I was very selfish with it and hated it when he had to share it with work or someone else. I wanted his presence, more than anything I craved his touch. If not picking up his calls would make him forget the trip and run back to me, then let him keep calling and by all means, let me keep ignoring it all.