Chapter 7

POV Nastia

I remembered. I remembered how I would be left alone in his room and curl up in his bed. How I used his bathroom and moved his things aside in the closet. And how I pretended to be asleep or reading whenever he came into the room and took whatever he wanted without noticing me. He never seemed embarrassed if he caught me in my pajamas or standing by the window, brushing my wet hair. He never knocked to announce his visits. No matter how much my stepmother wanted otherwise, this was my stepbrother's bedroom, his territory, and he had no intention of letting me claim it as my own.

“Skeleton, try locking the door and I'll break it down,” he tossed over his shoulder one day without even looking my way, and I believed him.

Just as I believed that he hadn't gotten into that fight because of me at all.

He had so many reasons to hate me, but every time I thought about it, feeling his gray, hostile gaze on me, my heart clenched painfully, refusing to understand: why? What had I done for him to be so cruel to me?

 “I hate you. I hate you. Always remember that.”

Now I went to school alone, leaving the house much earlier than my brother. I told my stepmother I was studying with a friend before class. I ate breakfast by myself, and when I came home, I tried to keep quiet through dinner. It wasn't hard. My father almost never spoke to me first, and my stepmother… My stepmother already knew everything about me. I hadn't even noticed when I grew attached to her. To that tall, broad-shouldered woman with an authoritative presence and a firm hand, who always found a kind word for me and a little time to spare. She was the one I told about my successes and new friends. I shared my hopes for Grandma's recovery with her. I thanked her for making sure I had enough to eat, clothes to wear, and a roof over my head. I was grateful that she cared about what happened to me, and I tried with all my might to please her with my grades, finding approval and quiet satisfaction in her eyes.

“Grisha, Nastia really is a smart girl. Her teacher called from school yesterday and said our girl was doing great. She works hard, studies diligently, and never skips class.”

“Um, yeah. Good job, sweetheart.”

“If she keeps this up, I don't see any problems. You should talk to Nina Ivanovna about her granddaughter. Let her finish high school here in our city. It's a major industrial center with a strong educational system, and as it turns out, getting into a prestigious university is well within her reach.”

“I don't know, Galya. I doubt Mom will agree. And besides… Nastia has a close friend who lives next door—his name's Egor. They've been thick as thieves since kindergarten. How would she manage without him?”

She did have a friend, that was true, but the fact that my father knew about him came as a surprise. Apparently, though, our parents had been good friends a long time ago.

My father smiled at his own joke, but the smile looked forced as he bent over his plate again, deftly cutting up his chop with a knife. A familiar ache started in my chest: I couldn't make him love me. And I couldn't stand being near him, either. He didn't push me away, but he didn't let me get close to him. There was always that one step between us—the most important step, the one that erased any distance between people who were family. My father had left it far behind long ago.

If my stepmother noticed me shrinking into my chair, she gave no sign.

“Oh, these boys. Give it a couple more years and Nastia won't be able to keep them away, mark my words. A friend today, something more tomorrow—and we'd better hope it doesn't end in disaster. Still, think about the school, Grisha. We're far away, and with her health, your mother won't be able to look after the girl properly. I won't object. Let Nastia live and study with us. We can handle raising two teenagers.”

“I don't know, Galya.”

“Staska, honey, what do you think?”

My stepbrother was holding a teacup, and I guessed his reaction from the hand squeezing the fragile china, its knuckles white with tension.

“I don't care.”

Galina Yuryevna laughed with a sudden edge of irritation, making my father turn around. Yes, she knew her son much better than either of us did.

“You don't care? Well, we'll see just how much,” was all she said, and we never returned to the subject.

“Matveyeva, don't worry! They're not asking anything difficult of us! Big deal—walk out, jump around, fire up the crowd, shout a cheer, and go home! We have to support our team, don't we? It's the school basketball championship! The year's big semifinal! Even a lazybones like me gets that! Me and P.E., as you may have noticed, are on opposite sides of the planet, and I still agreed to participate!”

“Lazybones? Just say it, Kuznetsova: ‘fatty.’ It would be more honest,” said Dinka Gubenko, applying mascara by the window behind us, and Dashka gave her a predatory smile.

“Call me a plus-size doll, Dinky! Maybe I just cultivate a love of beauty—and of my own gorgeous self. If you don't like it, choke on it! The last thing I'm going to worry about is my freaking figure—or your black envy poisoning you. Flush your system—they say it helps.”

We stood by the doors of the big school gym, waiting for the coach. That day I learned that the school would hold a basketball competition for the upper grades in a week, and that it was traditional for the girls in each class to support their boys with a dance routine.

There were thirteen girls in our class, but the coach had asked seven of us, myself included, to stay after class, and I was very worried about it. I had no idea what to expect from a practice like that. 

“I like it,” Petka chuckled, bracing his shoulder against the wall, and Dashka let out an embarrassed little gasp as she turned toward him.

“Zbruev, you again! Vanish, you ghost! I'm sick of you!”

Even I had gotten used to the bickering between the two of them, which happened every day, so I wasn't surprised when Zbruev frowned, looking wounded.

“You're the one who's getting on my nerves, Squirrel. In case you forgot, I'm the team captain.”

“Then go command your team! Don't butt into other people's conversations!”

“I am commanding it!”

“Then do it! Go on, say it's not your fault Matveyeva and I are stuck here like a pair of australopithecuses at a beach disco!”

“Well, it is.”

“I knew it was your doing! And here I am making a whole speech to Nastia! Oh, Zbruev…”

“Why are you getting so worked up, Squirrel?” the boy protested. “It's a team effort! Or am I supposed to do it alone?”

Petka seemed genuinely offended, and Dashka exhaled and merely waved a hand.

“Oh, get lost…”

Anya Skvortsova stood with us, a tall, skinny brunette with a freckled face and a turned-up nose. Watching me tug down my short shorts and long T-shirt, take a hairbrush from my bag, and pull my hair into a high ponytail on top of my head, she quietly remarked: