"Training on a sprained ankle is usual good for learning pain endurance but I'm afraid that your tumble today really only worsened your ankle. I'm going to have to recommend staying off that foot unless you really have to stand on it."

I wonder if Dr. Belikov would consider running as necessary reason. The thought of having to stay off my foot, sitting around with more time to think to myself deflates my earlier elated mood in the city. Despite telling Dimitri I was okay, he still brought me to the hospital so his mother could examine me.

He's leaning against the doorframe of the examination room as his mother pokes and prods my ankle before giving me a fresh wrapping. We hadn't really spoken on the way back from the city. I was too preoccupied thinking about his promise and whether or not to believe him. He was probably preoccupied with worried of his sister.

The doctor gives the bandage an extra pull, reminding me that I can't run for a while.

I let out an audible sigh.

As if reading my mind, Dimitri's mother says firmly, "Absolutely no running or exercise. The pain will only get worse. I can prescribe some medication for you until your ankle heals but you have to stay off of it."

I sigh again.

"At least you have a reason to avoid P.E.," she suggested trying to perk me up.

I actually didn't have P.E. anymore but her attempts to cheer me up were nice so I didn't correct her. "Speaking of P.E.," she said finishing the bandage. "Shouldn't you be in school?"

I froze, having completely forgotten that I'd ditched school. Even worse, Dimitri knew about it. Dr. Belikov turned to her son, as realization sank in.

"Dimka?" she said, asking for an explanation.

Dimitri, seeming to have forgotten I should've been in school too, froze, and we shared a worried expression as his mother looked between the two of us. His worry faded quickly though, replaced by reluctance.

"We need to talk. It's about Vika..."

Oh no. He was going to tell his mother now with me in the same room. What if she was mad at me for not speaking up sooner? What if one of the few people in this town who once believed me suddenly started to hate me because it was my fault what happened to Victoria? The thought sent my stomach into free fall. I wanted to bolt, to hop off the examination table and limp away but the ache in my ankle wasn't going to let me.

"What does Vika have to do with why Rose is with you when she should be in school?" his mother asked confused.

I noticed that her accent was noticeably thicker when she was emotional, just like her son.

Dimitri glanced at me once more, maybe suggesting that I should start but I just couldn't. I hung my head low letting my hair that had fallen out of my ponytail block my guilty face from view.

I heard him clear his throat and close the door to the examination room as he began.

"Maybe you should sit down."

I didn't here Dr. Belikov move until Dimitri again told her to sit. When I looked up, she was sitting as rigid and stiff in on a stool as I was on the examination room, expecting the worst. Dimitri was in another chair across from her. He ran his hands across his tired face, sighed, and then began.

When he finished telling her the same story I'd told him a few days ago, Olena sat as quietly as she did while her son was speaking. Her eyes were wide and her mouth was slightly agape. It took a few moments for her to recover and when she did she was shaking her head and letting out small nervous laughs.

"No, no, no. Vika wouldn't...she wouldn't keep something like that from me. That can't be right. Something like that wouldn't...didn't happen to her," she rambled glancing from me to her son. She sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than either of us.

I finally decided I had to be brave and speak up. I had let Dimitri do all of the talking before but now I had to say something.

My voice was trembling with nerves. "I...I can't prove or be sure that Adrian did something to her but I know that she was the most recently girl to date Adrian and since he...he...he did what he did to me and Lissa and can only think he probably did the same thing to-"

"No, no!"

I jumped at her raised voice. I couldn't blame her. Thinking that something terrible happened to your daughter and something could've been done to stop it was probably the worst feeling in the world. It was my fault.

Dimitri reached for his mother's hand but she pulled away.

"Mama, you see this all of the time, cases like this. You use to believe Rose was telling the truth when she reported Adrian," he tried to convince her btu she was shaking her head no.

"Both of you leave, get out of here," she said calmly, standing up.

She scribbled out a prescription for the pain in my foot and handed it to me without looking at me. When I didn't take it, Dimitri did before he led me out of the examination room. He was the only thing holding me up. It wasn't just my ankle making me unsteady. It was everything else. I felt like I was going to fall over at any minute from the weight of emotion flowing through me.

"She needs some time to process this," Dimitri told me when we made it back to his car. "It isn't easy to find out something bad happened to someone in our family and we knew nothing about it."

I nodded my head that I understood.

We sat outside in the hospital parking lot for a long time, both of us thinking.

I could've saved Victoria if only I'd said something sooner. I could've saved Lissa if I'd said something sooner. Dimitri's mother, one of the few who once believed me, wouldn't be feeling this way if I'd said something sooner. It was my fault.

This is your fault.

I closed my eyes, leaning against the car window.

"She had to know, Roza. She can help us."

Roza. He'd called me that earlier too. It sounded nice, almost lyrical when he said it. I let the name bounce around in my head as I tried to distract myself from the guilt.

"We just have to give her some time."

I wonder how much. As if answer my thoughts, the door to the hospital slid open and Dimitri's mother walked out, carrying her purse on her arm and she was out of her doctor's coat. I could already see where this was going. She stood at Dimitri's window.

"Come on. We have to go home. I need to hear this from Vika."