22
Nick must have dozed off sometime after midnight, because he woke up on the couch covered by a blanket, and all the lights save for the tree had been turned off.
He blinked and focused on the glowing display of the cable box.
3:30
Eight-thirty in London already. He watched his mom’s small tree, lit up in all colors, the garland winking with the lights, and zoned out. It was a miniature of the sort of tree they used to have when he was a kid. It had been years since his mom had bothered with anything bigger than this fake little one she kept in her closet the rest of the year.
New Year’s had always been their big family holiday, but the last few years Zoyka had abandoned them to spend it drinking with friends, in true American spirit, while Nick stayed behind with his mom and Lena and toasted to the New Year over his mom’s usual feast of Salat Olivier, kholodetz, gefilte fish, and all manner of cold cuts. And, of course, the main course of roasted chicken and potatoes, the sort that had always been Nick’s favorite. They got so crisp and perfect, he would stand over the emptied baking pan and pick up the bits that the spatula had left behind.
This year, Zoya had stayed, and so had Jake, because of Nick. No Lena, of course. Nick hadn’t heard from her. When he thought of her now, all he felt was overwhelming guilt for not feeling much at all.
When he thought of his mom, he also felt overwhelming guilt.
When he thought of Zoyka, and even Jake, too.
His Aunt Sveta, his grandparents.
Dex.
Nick turned over onto his back and shut his eyes.
Coming home had been so strange. Of course it had already snowed in Michigan, and after Zoyka squealed at seeing him and wrapped him up in a bear hug, the drive home had been tense. Dirty slush on the roads and, everywhere around them, the sort of snow-muffled silence that Nick had loved as a kid but now set his teeth on edge. Another strange realization—he hadn’t been in a car in months. He’d ridden in a cab once, when they had all gone dancing. He wondered if he would even dare to drive now. The snow made it harder to recall the physical intricacies of controlling a car.
His mom had been so happy to see him, he’d felt a stab of vicious guilt when he realized that he hadn’t quite been prepared to face her. He hugged her back tighter than he would have otherwise.
She’d fed him all his favorite foods, stared at him with her chin propped up on her hand as he sucked up three meals’ worth of pelmeni. She had run her hand over his hair, twisted the curls of his bangs between thumb and forefinger, and said, “Synok. Did you fall in love over there or something?”
He kicked at the blanket now until it fell away from him. It was suffocatingly hot. He unzipped his hoodie, flopped around until he managed to free his arms, then shivered the next moment.
He’d said, “Ma!” as irritably as possible while his heart jumped into throat, and then he’d shoved more pelmeni in his mouth.
“What, ma? You have a look about you.”
“Maybe with London.”
He wasn’t in love, though. It couldn’t be love.
Whatever it was wasn’t love, because love was supposed to make you feel good, and all he felt was desperation clawing at his throat. It was as if with one kiss, Dex had crawled inside him and laid a trap. Got you. You won’t escape easily from this one. There was only so far he could run with its hook lodged in his chest.
It had been with relief that Nick switched out his British SIM card for his normal one once he got home. His number was back to a 734, and any messages from London remained inert on his other card. He relegated all social media to a folder buried deep inside his phone, just in case.
But the trap had been set, and whenever he shut his eyes at the end of each day, he relived that moment. Not even the kiss itself—although that stayed fresh in his mind in a way that terrified—but the moment when he had pushed Dex aside and run away like the biggest jackass on the planet.
What did Dex think of him now? Nick rotated on the couch like a pig on a spit. Get up and go to bed. Just do something. Brush your teeth. Take off your jeans.
He lay there, alternating crawling back under the blanket and shoving it to the floor, and listened to his mind whispering to him over and over and over again just what a mess he had made of everything.
Not the most auspicious start to the year.
+
“I meant to get this for her by New Year’s but didn’t get to it. So it can be a present from you,” Zoyka told him as they pulled into the mall parking lot.
“So what am I getting her?” Nick clambered out of the frozen car. It was so strange being back home. It felt tilted. Not quite right. The roads were too wide, the sidewalks too narrow with the piles of snow already accumulated from the first storm. The buildings were too squat, too sparse. Too much glass, not enough brick. The sky was perpetually blue once the storm had passed.
“Tupperware. I’m done with her saving Chinese containers.” She rolled her eyes. “You give her the Tupperware, distract her, and I’ll pack them all up and take them to the dump. Well, to recycling. Loving the planet, blah blah blah.”
“She’ll know it was your idea.”
“It can be both of us. Saving her from herself. Reusing all that plastic can’t be good for you.”
They found a set with red lids at Target on post-Christmas sale. Zoyka made Nick trail after her through the clothing section, stopping in front of a clearance rack that made his eyes cross.
“Do you need anything? Socks or anything? My treat.”
Nick really didn’t. He started to say so, then stalled out as a figure walked around the jewelry corner and froze, something sparkly dangling from one hand.
They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. Nick tracked every small change in Lena’s appearance. Haircut, different color. Hardly any makeup at all. She still looked small underneath her bulky winter coat and sweater. She still wore her flowered Docs and jeans.
Nick raised his chin at her. Such a futile greeting. Her response was no less awkward. They might have sufficed with that, nodded at each other as if they hadn’t been each other’s firsts, hadn’t held each other under her blankets hundreds of times, each lost in their own thoughts, as if they didn’t know every secret about each other.
Well. Not every secret.
It might have ended with their nods, except Zoyka saw Lena, too. Nick saw the moment their eyes met because Lena’s snapped alert. She shook her bangs out of her eyes and said, “Privet, Zoy.”
“O, Lenka, privet! We were just—” She waved toward the cart with the Tupperware set inside it. “For our mom. Nick’s home for the holidays.”
“I figured. Well, my mom’s waiting for me over there somewhere. Poka!”
She didn’t look at him once as she turned on her heel and sped off to parts unknown. His lungs burned. His cheeks burned. He hadn’t been prepared. How stupid was that? Of course they would have run into each other sooner or later. Their mothers were friends. How had he not expected this?
“You okay? Sorry I was awkward there, I just didn’t know what to say.”
“At least you said something. I just stood there like an idiot.”
She eyed him. “Hey, so there’s a new place Jake and I tried close to campus. They have awesome mixed drinks and funky appetizers and stuff, very froufrou. How about I treat you like you’re an adult and take you there?”
“Uh, I’m underage.” It was weird to realize that having crossed the ocean again, he had regressed.
“They don’t always card. And anyway, you can get a virgin something, and we’ll share the apps.”
“Sure, why not.” They hadn’t gone out, just the two of them, in nearly half a year. Secretly, he always felt a little thrill when she would offer to take him out. Didn’t matter how old he was and what he’d done, she was always the cool older sister.
“All right! You stroll, I pay. And then I’m throwing every shitty piece of plastic in mom’s kitchen straight down the chute.”
+
The froufrou place was called Yedi’s. It was painfully hipster— fake tea lights in Mason jars on reclaimed wood tables, mismatched chairs, and waitstaff all dressed in different patterns of plaid. The effect was marred only by the fact that everyone’s booths and chairs were covered in bulky Carhartts and Lands’ End jackets. It was hard to be cool in Michigan.
It wasn’t even that packed—likely due to the bulk of the students still being off for winter vacation—and they were seated in a nook with Christmas lights strung above them.
“I know. It’s hilarious. But the drinks and stuff really are good.”
The waiter did not, in fact, ask for their IDs. Nick ordered his drink with as much self-assurance as he was capable of, and it was only after the guy disappeared that Zoyka looked up at him with huge eyes. “Check you out! You’re all grown up!”
“Shut up.”
The thing was, she kept him comfortable with chitchat until he was two-thirds of the way through his drink, which consisted of God only knew what but tasted amazing, then looked him in the eye, and said, “Tak. Bratishka.”
“Hmm? Chego?”
“Chto s toboy proiskhodit?”
“What do you mean?” He gripped the glass, then wondered if that was a giveaway.
“I mean, something’s going on with you, and I’m wondering what it is.”
“Nothing’s going on with me.”
“Lenka. What happened there?”
Nick’s heart was beating against his ribcage. Thump-thump-thump. She’d asked him this before, and he’d evaded her. For so long, he had evaded her. He planned on evading her now, except that when he opened his mouth, his tongue went on without him, and what he wound up blurting out was, “I can’t tell you.”
Shit.
“Kol’ka. You’re so unhappy. Did you know that? What can’t you tell me?”
He had always sought her attention, in the smallest of ways. Discarding it felt impossible even now.
“Look. I’ve noticed, mama’s noticed.”
“What has she noticed?”
She narrowed her green eyes at him. Nobody else in the family had green eyes. It was the strangest thing. She looked at pine trees, so the pine trees stayed in her eyes, his dad used to say about the time when he had taken her on a monthlong trip to Puschino while Nick had been sick enough that they had to be separated. That’s how she’d come back. Green-eyed, at six. “That something’s clearly happened. That you’re unhappy in London, maybe, but I don’t think that’s it.”
Nick shook his head.
“I think you love it there. So what’s going on?” It occurred to Nick how weird it was that Zoyka wasn’t considered the sensitive one of the Melnikov kids. To everyone else, she was the doer and Nick the dreamer. But not to him.
She was so familiar. Svoya. He’d forgotten what it was like to be with someone you really knew, from the inside out. Nick remembered how she had believed it was Jacek’s friendship Nick had been mourning when their Polish neighbors moved back to Warsaw, how she kept telling him, You can still email each other, or Skype. Friendship doesn’t have to end here as he slunk around the house at thirteen, knowing full well that Skype could never make up the loss. And—it had only been friendship. Just not for Nick. For Nick, it had been the worst secret he had ever had to keep.
“Kol’,” she said quietly. “You’re scaring me. You know that, right?”
He hated crying. He hated how little he could control it. He had to leave, at least run for the bathroom, but she held hard onto his hand, and they hadn’t even gotten their check yet. He squeezed her hand.
“Zoy … Zoykin, I can’t,” he managed. “Can you pay? I gotta go. I’ll be outside.” He needed air. So much air.
She’d seen this enough times to know what was happening. After a hard squeeze, she let go of his hand, and Nick almost overturned the table as he shot up out of his seat.
The cold air hit him at once, and God, it felt so good.
When Zoya found him, Nick was more in control, but he was shaking all over. Without saying a word, she extended his coat and scarf toward him. She waited until he shoved them on, then took his hand and set off at a calm pace down the street, away from the car. The silence and the walk really did feel good. The rhythm of it steadied him, as did Zoyka’s hand.
There was another parking lot down the street, and the cars sat separated from the street by a low brick wall. Whoever owned it must have had scruples—it was free of snow, and it was a matter of a hop for both of them to park their butts on it. It wasn’t late, but the dark and the relative quiet of the street made it feel like one in the morning. Most people were in bars, restaurants, their homes, or simply out of town.
“Mom’d be pissed at you for sitting on the wall,” Nick said as he looked at a darkened coffee place across the street. Dozy’s Donutz.
“I know. I’ll never have children if I freeze my ovaries off.”
Despite everything, he snickered. Their mom lived and died by the old-world rules. Zoyka bumped his shoulder, and Nick stilled. He felt it, the change in the atmosphere. Here it came. She didn’t make him wait too long.
“Kolechka, what’s the matter?” she asked. She sounded like she had when they’d been kids. She always wheedled it out of him when he cried, even when she was only ten and he six.
Chto ty plachesh? Chto sluchilos’? Rasskazhi, malysh.
She’d always loved him. Since day one.
Nick took a deep breath. It escaped him in a puff of cold air, evaporating under his nose the next moment. The tinsel around the Christmas trees at Dozy’s Donutz shivered, as if inside the darkness someone had opened a door and let cold air in. It sparkled off the streetlights.
He bent over double until he was a pretzel on that brick wall, and he thought, frantic and somehow certain, that this was it. He had to tell her. And he would just have to live with what came next.
Her hand on his back was sudden but still weirdly expected. She rubbed it up and down. He barely felt the motion of it through the parka. “Do you need more time?”
He shook his head. “I think.” He frowned, then shook his head. “No, I know. Zoy, I’m gay.”
He was intensely aware of her hand on his back. He didn’t move for fear of it disappearing. He felt his heart beating, a rushing in his ears.
“I sort of thought maybe,” she said. Nick looked at her and saw she was smiling. He startled when Zoya reached out and pushed a stray curl off his forehead. “You’ve been so freaked out recently, I couldn’t imagine what you’d have to be so scared of, and then I thought … the breakup with Lena.” She shrugged and dropped her hand. “Did you think I’d be mad?” she asked.
He nodded, then shook his head. Relief. That’s what he thought it was, anyway. A hot crashing wave of something flooded his body. “I had no clue.”
He fumbled for the words to describe what it had felt like, carrying this secret. Carrying it for so long, it became a lead balloon inside his chest propelling him backwards with every step.
“It’s not because I thought you’d be freaked out,” he finally managed. “It’s just that I had—” No words. No expectations. No way to even say it. “We’re not this.”
She was frowning, but not like she was upset. She was thinking. “I know. But you are. You’re ours. Do you think mom will stop loving you if you tell her?”
The very idea threw him into a panic. “You can’t. Zoy, please. Don’t tell her.”
“Shush, stop! Of course I won’t tell her, glupyi. Who do you take me for?”
“Okay.” He was still breathing hard. “I’m not ready.”
“I know. So you’ve got someone, then? A boy?”
His head felt so light, like he could faint. The up and down of tonight had him nearly limp with exhaustion, and now here it was again, another up and down. “Sort of,” he managed. “No.”
She raised an eyebrow. “All right, there’s a story there.”
“I like someone.”
“A boy.”
“Right.” God, this was weird. It felt weird. Why did it feel weirder than telling her about Lena all those years ago? But it wasn’t weird enough for him to stop now that he’d started. “We … I mean, he. I don’t know. I think I fucked it up.”
“Does he like you back?” she asked, like it was simple. “Have you. Have you guys—”
“We kissed,” he said quickly. “And then I ran away. And we haven’t talked since then.”
“Oh, boy,” she said, and he could hear the smile in it. Weird how it brought him more comfort than he could have imagined possible. “When was that? What’s his name, by the way?”
“December thirteenth. Dex.”
“You remember the date? That’s serious.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m sorry.” And she meant it, he could tell. “Why did you run away?”
Because he was an idiot. Because he was a coward. Because Dex had wrung him from the inside out and undone him in the span of two minutes.
“But you still like him?”
“I do.” She squeezed his middle in sympathy.
“So, you’re really gay, huh?” she asked after a moment. Nick shuddered. “Hey, that’s fine. It’s okay. You know that, right?”
“But Mom.”
“I know. It’s gotta be terrifying, but…” Nick waited as he watched her gather her thoughts. “I guess this is really new. You talking about it is new. I feel like you’ve taken so much on, you know?”
Nick didn’t, but he nodded anyway.
“Give yourself a little break. Don’t think about Mom or what she might say right now.”
He couldn’t begin to imagine ever having the guts to tell her, feeling her confusion and disappointment and unhappiness.
“I know.” Zoyka grinned. “Worrywart. But seriously. This was a big, brave thing you just did, telling me.” She was looking him in the eye as she said it. He was the very opposite of brave, and they both knew it. He couldn’t make himself contradict her. It felt too good to be called brave.
“Relax for a bit, all right? Feel the weight off those shoulders.” She shook him a little, and he couldn’t help laughing. “Can you do that?”
Nick nodded. He felt as if some tension really had seeped from his shoulders. Then he wondered if he was just deluding himself. Probably. But for the moment, it was nice to live a different sort of lie.
Now two people knew his secret.
No. Three. Three people knew it, and at least one of them still appeared to love him.
He wondered if Izzy would ever talk to him again after what had happened with Dex. He was under no delusions. Dex would have told her about Nick’s kiss-and-run.
Dex. Best-case scenario was Dex was over him by now.
“All right. It’s fucking cold out here, and I probably am freezing my eggs or whatever off. Let’s go home and have some tea and watch Ironiyu Sud’by. Sound good?”
Nick breathed in and out. It came out fairly smooth.
Zoyka took them home via the scenic route. They were quiet in her Civic, letting the hush of January slip over them like a blanket. Zoya grabbed his hand, and Nick looked out the window, not pulling away.