Page 25 of Maksim

The woman doesn’t deserve my anger, she deserves pity or help if I had it to give. Her hair is matted with dirt and grease like it hasn’t been washed or combed in weeks, and her eyes stay open a little too wide, hinting at intoxication.

It’s only the two of us plus a couple up front on this 6 AM ride to Bakersfield, California. It’s my third bus out of four that I have to take to get to the address on the back of the photo Maksim gave me.

I’m sure Maksim only wrote it as further proof to validate the man’s identity, but it felt like a taunt. Like he wanted me to go to this address. Like he wanted me to get myself killed.

I am not a stupid girl, so before seeing this photo, I was prepared to make this my life. To allow Maksim to control me, just as he’s doing now with this cruel piece of information. But now…

Now I have something to die for.

“If I were an apple and grew on a tree, I think I’d drop down on a nice girl like me,” the intoxicated woman sings.

I turn toward the window and tuck the photo in a metal groove so I can use my hands to cover my ears. I stare at the photographed man dressed in a tux, smiling back at me, filling me with rage I never knew possible.

Daniel Storm.

That’s the name written on the back of this photo. The name of the man who stole my life. Not James Anderson. Not my fiancé, my could-be love, my tourist who swept me off my feet. That man doesn’t exist and never did.

I’m not convinced Maksim is telling the truth merely because he found a photo of James/Daniel. He could have written a bogus name and address on the back of the picture. But he didn’t. This is real. This is truth. I know it because James/Daniel isn’t the only person in the photo taken on his wedding day.

His wife is too.

I take in her wedding dress, more elegant than anything I could’ve hoped to afford, and I channel so much hatred that I wonder if she can feel it.

I hate her.

I hate him.

I hate Maksim.

I hate America.

I hate myself.

My eyes nearly close on that thought, but I keep them open as punishment for my stupidity. I’ll look at this photo every day until I’m dead, just to remind myself why my younger sisters will no longer have me to provide for them.

Rage spills from my flared nostrils in the form of hot gusts of air, and finally, I’m forced to peel my gaze from the photo when the bus stops. The people at the bus station were very kind, helping me figure out the way “back home,” but it’s still very confusing even having memorized all the numbered buses.

The bus stops three more times before I get off and wait a half hour for the last one in peaceful silence, no more talk of apples to distract me from my mission.

I just have to see him. I have to see the man who took my virginity before taking my future. I need to have closure. Without it, I’ll never sleep again.

My hand absently pats my waist where the kitchen knife is discreetly tucked, then I rest my palms in my lap as someone comes to sit down next to me.

Closure. If that means one of us has to die for me to get it, so be it.

“Where ya headed?” a young man asks me.

I catch his stare out of my periphery and resist the urge to scoot away. “Bakersfield.”

He chuckles like I just told a joke, so I look over at his boyish face. Judging by the backpack that sits between his feet, I’d say he actually is a boy. A nice one, I think. There’s kindness in his eyes.

But then again, I’m a horrible judge of character.

“You’re in Bakersfield,” he tells me.

Oh. Right.

When I flip the photo over to study the address, the boy peeks at it.