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He did not know what he had expected. Maybe for things to end well for him, just for once.
He should have known better, though. He had been pushing his luck.
They had gone to Italy, like Nikolai had wanted. And things had been fine. They ate pasta and took walks on the beach and had sex. Nikolai was doing well, and they talked a lot and it was all fine.
Days turned into months and things were still fine. Nikolai started talking a bit less and sleeping a bit less, too, but on the whole, it was still fine. Pyotr did not worry. He had forbidden himself from worrying.
Somewhere along the line they started arguing again. Small bickering at first, nothing to be concerned about, but gradually, remarks on both sides turned more personal, more hurtful. Comments stuck after the argument and resentment fostered and sometimes, Pyotr found himself slipping, saying things he did not mean or maybe did mean but knew were not good things to say.
But still, things were fine.
Nikolai turned colder, more like his old self, on the nights after they had argued especially viciously. Not touching Pyotr, ignoring him. Sometimes, he pointed out women on the street he found attractive, in a non-challant way, as if reminding Pyotr that he had options.
Pyotr countered by rolling his eyes and pretending like he did not bleed inwardly.
They had sex less and less, and it turned more brutal, less like an act between lovers and more a battle to see who could hurt the other most. Physically, emotionally. Once, Nikolai grabbed Pyotr by the neck and pressed down, cutting off his airways.
Pyotr had felt like a little animal cornered by a cat. He tried scratching and punching and pushing, but Nikolai was still physically stronger than him, and he would not let go, he would not let go, until Pyotr almost passed out. Then, at last, Nikolai pulled his hand back and got off him, not even looking as Pyotr gasped for air, tears streaming down his face.
In retrospect, Pyotr should have left that night.
But some stupid part of him insisted that things were still fine and that this was worth it, this was all worth it, somehow, and that they would be okay.
And really, a few days later, Nikolai was so soft with him. They lay down in the evening to sleep, and Nikolai pulled him into an embrace, kissing his forehead, his cheek, his lips, affectionately rubbing his nose over Pyotr’s neck. They did not have sex, they cuddled, and Pyotr felt so elated. Maybe, maybe, things would be well again. Maybe, maybe, everything would turn out fine in the end.
In retrospect, he should have known better.
Nikolai was gone the next morning, and he did not answer his phone, and Alexei did not know where he was, either, when Pyotr called him, and Pyotr spent a whole day trying to find out what had happened. His things were still at their place, so he could not have left the country, could he?
The police contacted him the next night. Asked him a lot of questions, with disapproving glances when he called Nikolai his boyfriend. A dark-haired police woman with tired eyes explained to him in broken English what had happened.
Nikolai, a hotel room, a bedsheet fashioned into a noose. A letter left telling them to contact him, Pyotr Verkhovensky. There was nothing to be done about it.
He went to the little Airbnb that night feeling numb and confused and uncertain. He did not know what to do, so he started packing, after all, he would have to fly Nikolai back to Russia, and he would have to explain to Varvara Petrovna…
In his suitcase, tucked under some clothes, he found an envelope. The letter inside was from Nikolai, of course, and it was kept in the same pragmatic, detached tone as his suicide note:
I left you some money in cash to get me home, my mother will pay for all the rest. I thought you should know something about St. Petersburg I never told you. After I broke up with you and while I was dating Liza, I lived in a room that I rented from a couple in their house. They had a small daughter, Matryosha, maybe eight or nine. Her mother was sick with cancer and did not always find a nanny to look after her child when she had to get treatment at the hospital. She asked me, after all, I had always been polite and never made a fuzz. I think she beat the child sometimes, I don’t know. One evening, I was bored to death and Liza annoyed me over the phone and I had to look after Matryosha. I don’t know why, to this day I don’t know why – I think it was the boredom and the idea of doing something that I was not sure I was capable of doing. Testing my own limits. I don’t know. I went to Matryosha’s room and told her we could watch cartoons, something she loved. I made her sit on my lap even though she didn’t want to, and I touched her until she silently cried. I would like to say I was horrified by my own actions, but I was just bored and slightly disgusted. Afterwards, she was sick for a while and I moved out. As far as I know, her parents never found out, and I do not know what happened to the girl. I had honestly forgotten about her, only the past few days I remembered again. I thought you should know.
Sometimes I think I love you. Goodbye.
Pyotr did not cry during the funeral, and he walked out when his father held a speech about Nikolai, saying what a promising young man he had been, so bright and smart, and how he had loved him like a son. He thought about throwing a rose onto the coffin, but Nikolai would never get to touch the rose or smell it or see it, so what was the point?
He went on with his life, of course he did, and he smiled and laughed and made new friends as he moved back to St. Petersburg and continued at university, and he went to rallies and threw stones at cops and ran away from teargas, and if he did it all a bit more carelessly than before, who could tell? And if there was no light behind his eyes, who could tell?
And if he felt cold at night, if he felt alone and unlovable, if he felt like longing was tearing him apart limb from limb, if he felt like there was no point in going on, if he cried into his pillow in a way he had not done since his mother had died, then who could tell?
Most of the time, life went on. Most of the time, everything was fine. Only occasionally, things felt unbearable. Only occasionally, it felt like Pyotr was already dead. But even that passed.
Like everything else.
Things were fine.
The end.