I don't know what I expected.

It certainly wasn't this.

I'm sitting at the kitchen counter pushing my fork around in a plate of food that Dimitri's grandmother set in front of me. I think she'd been hoping to distract me from the shouting match between Victoria, Dimitri's mother who told me to call her Olena, and Dimitri upstairs.

"...doesn't know what she's talking about!" I hear Victoria shout. "She's a liar! Nothing happened to me!"

"Why are you trying to protect this monster?" I hear Olena respond.

"Because he didn't do anything!" Even from down hear I can hear her unsteady voice breaking, as if she wants to believe the words more than anything.

I use to feel the same way. I didn't want to believe anything happened to me either.

"Vika, whether you tell us what he did or not, we're going to do something about it," Dimitri shouts. "He won't get away with what he did..."

"All of them, so stubborn," Yeva sighs with a slight proud smile. "Family trait. It's a gift and a curse. But mostly a curse."

I smile softly. "If Dimitri and Olena weren't so stubborn, I'd probably still be in as much denial abut all of this as Victoria," I mumble.

"She'll tell what happened eventually and then all of this will be resolved. Things will get better."

This woman sounded so certain that I wanted nothing more in the world than to believe her. Right now I felt like nothing would ever be resolved or feel safe or the same again. The safe shell I spent the majority of my life living in is completely broken. I feel exposed for all of the world to hurt me. Yeva's words are like a warm blanket though, warm rays of sunlight seeping in through the cracks in my shell and I appreciate them.

I can suddenly feel the family resemblance between her, Dimitri, and Olena and their certainty that things with get better. Eventually.

"Dimitri says that too. A lot."

Her proud smile from before widens. "He's hopeful. It's kind of another family trait, we like to make things better, we find something broken or not working properly and we feel like we have to fix it, to help."

"I'm not working properly?"

Yeva smiles at squeak in my voice. "You're trying to live you're life so that you feel safe, and that's not bad, but sometimes trying to protect yourself means running away instead of dealing with the problem."

I guess technically I am running to deal with the problem but I'm still here. I haven't ran away. But I want to. I want to hide and be far away and forget about all of this.

"Forgetting won't make anything better," she says as if reading my mind. "Fighting, makes things better."

"It's scary how much you sound like Dimitri right now," I smile gently.

She shrugs. "Eh, the vehemence is another family trait." She glances down at the plate of food still in front of me. "You should really eat. A happy stomach means a clear head and you're going to need a clear head to get through all of this."

I agree and dig into small portions of the food not realizing how hungry I still am, not having finished my lunch with Dimitri.

"I guess I just haven't been very hungry lately," I mumble over bites of the delicious food.

Yeva leans on the counter. "That's understandable. Your mother must make all sorts of meals hoping you'll eat."

"Not really. We barely see each other since she's always working."

"But she knows what's going on, right? About what happened..." Yeva's voice trails off, concerned.

I'm almost hesitant to give her my answer out of fear she'll be disappointed that my mother doesn't know. I keep my eyes on the plate of food in front of me when I shake my head and answer. "She knows about the police report obviously but not about...what happened recently."

When I glance up, Yeva's eyes aren't disappointed but sad. "She stood with you when you reported Adrian the first time. I'm sure she'll stand by you this time. You'll need her. You both will need each other."

"This has been hard on her. She already lost two jobs because of my report and...I just can't. It'd hurt her. She'd blame herself."

"Much like the same way you're blaming yourself," Yeva points out.

Realization sinks in as I realize she's right. "I guess self blame is one of our family traits."

Yeva makes a sound of agreement and pats my hands sympathetically as she murmurs, "A gift and a curse."