The boy and his Kisa watched the rolling waves in silence, the bright moon huge against the dark water. Kisa dreamily looked up at the boy and smiled. They were alone on a beach and it was perfect.

Kisa’s blue eyes were misty as she looked at the boy. He knew right then how much she loved him. She was so beautiful to him. He didn’t have a single memory that she wasn’t in. Even from young kids, she was always with him, and he’d always kept her close, protecting her, cherishing her. He couldn’t see anyone but her. Even then, at fourteen, no other girls enticed him to look their way. He loved this girl. He knew she was it for him, a gut instinct telling him so. Together, he believed they were perfect.

They were from the same criminal life. The boy knew as the years passed and their duties came into play, she would support him and never question his line of work or choices as the Bratva called upon him to lead the Russian underground in New York.

Kisa wasn’t fazed by death and danger.

The boy smiled to himself and thought of the tale his mama always told him as he was growing up. That God created them to match, in every possible way, the smudge of blue in his left eye perfectly mirroring the girl’s blue.

Dipping his head, the boy pressed his lips against hers. Kisa moaned into his mouth, her hand lifting to slip around the back of his neck.

The kiss became deeper. He broke away to shift her down on the sand, and he crawled on top of her, feeling her warm body beneath his.

It didn’t take them long to lose control, and the boy broke from Kisa’s mouth on a gasp. Her lips were swollen. Her hands gripped his neck and she tried to pull him back down.

“Kisa-Anna,” he said and pressed a kiss to the side of her neck. “We have to stop. I can’t… We can’t… I need to stop… We need to stop.”

Kisa’s blue eyes dipped. She turned her head to the side, staring at the moon. The boy dropped his head to her shoulder, trying to get himself under control, breathing through the tingling in his stomach.

She placed her hands on his cheeks, pushed until he lifted his head and stared into her eyes. “Please,” she whispered, “I want to do this with you.”

The boy’s eyes widened and his heart beat faster in his chest. “Kisa, are… are you sure?”

Kisa nodded shyly. “Can I have you?” she asked.

Feeling like his heart exploded in his chest, the boy said, “Yes,” and he pressed his lips back to her hers.

Later that night, Kisa lay in the boy’s warm arms, and he couldn’t stop himself from kissing her face. “I love you, Kisa,” he confessed. She turned to him and dipped her eyes, overcome by shyness.

“I love you too. I’m glad you were my first.”

“And last,” the boy promised. He wrapped her tightly in his arms. Both were naked under the modest cover of his sweatshirt.

“I can’t imagine ever sharing this with anyone else… ever,” Kisa said, and she sighed.

He couldn’t have agreed more.

They were young and in love…

But the boy knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that she was the one and only girl meant for him.

They were meant for each other.

*****

Fighting to catch my breath, my eyes shot open and I stared at the steel rafters above. I was drenched in sweat. My mind scrambled and fogged from this dream, a dream that felt all so real.

A girl.

A boy.

A beach.

Kissing…

Wait!

Kisa was in it, just a teenager, fucking some boy on a beach. I waited for a surge of jealousy, a wave of anger to sweep through my body at the thought of anyone else touching her, but it didn’t come…

The boy in it reminded me of someone. But I couldn’t think… it was someone I couldn’t place. Didn’t recognize.

He was happy.

He loved Kisa.

And Kisa, as always, looked beautiful. Smiling at the boy and telling him she loved him too.

I breathed heavily through my nostrils, my heart pounding as if she were saying those words to me. My chest began to ache and my hands began to shake.

But she didn’t tell me. She told some boy on a beach that she loved him… not me, not Raze, the monster, the killer…

It made me think about what my life had been like before the Gulag. What I was like at that age?

I didn’t know anything about where I came from. I didn’t know anything about my family. So many events since I’d arrived in Brooklyn had confused me. Flashes of dreams. Glimpses of images. Were they real memories fighting their way into my conscious mind?