Chapter 12 #3
For a long moment, the only sound in the car is their breathing.
Sasha lowers his hands, flattening his palms against his shorts to stop them from curling into fists.
He doesn’t trust himself to speak, so instead he looks out the window, barely taking in the familiar sights: the brick-red vestibules, one for each section of the building; the birch trees, enjoying their last few weeks of greenery; the small playground he used to spend hours on, his mother watching from the kitchen window.
As if he’d summoned Alina just by thinking about her, there she is, turning into the alley with an armful of groceries. She smiles when she sees Kirill’s car, shifting one of the bags so she can wave at them, and Sasha and Kirill automatically wave back.
“Sorry,” Kirill mutters. He’s tensed as if he’s about to run, his fingers hovering over the engine start button. “Tell her—”
“Tell her yourself,” Sasha says, spitefully, but also hoping his mother will do what he can’t and convince Kirill to stay with them. “She just bought all that food for you.”
He has a feeling this will be enough to guilt Kirill out of the car, and he’s right, Kirill sighing as he lets go of the steering wheel.
By the time they’re standing in front of Alina, she’s obviously noticed something’s wrong; but Sasha keeps his mouth shut, forcing Kirill to explain, stumbling over his words, that he’s going back to his parents’ apartment.
“Oh, honey,” is all she says at first, and Sasha wonders why she doesn’t seem surprised. “Are you sure?”
Kirill shrugs, then swallows, his throat bobbing as he stares down at the pavement.
“Sasha, go put these in the refrigerator,” Alina says, handing him the bag of groceries.
Sasha doesn’t protest the dismissal; he’s too relieved that she’s intervening, swooping in to take care of things in the mysterious way that only mothers seem to be able to do.
Trusting her to bring Kirill around, he starts carrying the groceries inside—though he can’t help pausing on the threshold of the lobby and glancing back, just in time to see Kirill’s face crumple as Alina folds him into a tight hug.
Sasha knows Kirill like the back of his hand—or the palm of it, actually, with every cut and callous, all the places where the skin’s ripped and regrown tougher than before—which is why he instantly knows that Kirill wouldn’t want him watching this.
He retreats to the apartment, putting away the groceries in record time and then regretting it, because now he has nothing to distract him. Since Danny isn’t awake yet, he half-asses a game of solitaire on his phone, keeping an eye on the door and waiting for Alina to walk in with Kirill.
Instead, she comes back alone.
“Mom, what the—” Sasha swallows the rest of that sentence just in time, or maybe not, since Alina raises her eyebrows. “What did you say to him?”
“I told him if he changes his mind, he’s always welcome here,” Alina replies, which is bullshit—they must have been talking for at least five minutes—and also bullshit, because she could have tried a lot fucking harder than that.
“So you just let him go?”
“He wasn’t ready,” Alina says calmly, taking off her shoes like she’s not bothered in the least.
“So what, now he’s just going to wait for his father to beat him up instead? And you’re okay with that?”
“They’re his parents,” Alina says, and Sasha laughs in disbelief—Vladimir and Irina might be Kirill’s parents, but he’s also their fucking child, and that’s never stopped either of them before. He’s about to point that out when she adds, “It’s not always easy to leave your family.”
Her voice is subdued, and Sasha has a feeling she isn’t just talking about Kirill anymore.
“That’s not the same thing,” he argues. Dima, Senya, and his grandparents might have turned their backs on her after she married his father, might have said things she still won’t repeat to him, but they weren’t anywhere near as bad as the Kazakovs—they never tried to steal her money, never beat her black and blue and blamed her for the bruises.
Alina doesn’t answer, just walks into the kitchen to start her tea, which pisses him off all over again.
“You should have tried harder,” he snaps.
The look on her face is almost enough to make him regret it. But all he does is hand her the grocery receipt, and even that’s not really an apology.
*
Normally, September’s blink and miss for Sasha, lost to the frenzy of perfecting his routines for the World Championships.
But without anything to train for—since there’s no Worlds during an Olympic year—and their first camp back at Round Lake not until October, the month turns into molasses, Sasha waiting anxiously as the days trickle towards the appointment Irina made for Kirill.
He knows Kirill hasn’t told his parents about Uncle Borya yet, because whenever he makes up an excuse for a video chat—calling Kirill from his home gym to ask for advice on a skill, ducking into a sports apparel store and pretending he wants another opinion on a shirt—Kirill doesn’t have any marks or bruises, isn’t wincing when he moves.
“You don’t have to check on me,” he grumbles, though he keeps answering Sasha’s calls.
Three days before Irina’s appointment, on a Sunday, Danny flies to Colorado, where the American gymnasts are having dress rehearsals before their tour.
He sends Sasha a picture of himself trying on the glow-in-the-dark unitard, along with an alien emoji, and then another picture an hour later of him petting the show choreographer’s dog.
Sasha should delete them both, but instead he texts back alien and dog emojis, and Yes when Danny asks if it’s okay to call.
Monday slinks off the calendar, and by Tuesday, Sasha’s restless, unable to stop checking his phone.
The appointment is tomorrow, and Kirill still hasn’t said anything to his parents—or at least, he hadn’t as of yesterday, when Sasha texted him after the Kazakovs’ dinnertime.
He’s clearly putting it off as long as possible, and all Sasha can think of is how much angrier this will make his parents, how much more they’ll take it out on him.
“Sasha, finish your soup,” Alina chides him over dinner, but her voice is gentle, and she doesn’t make him put away his phone, even though texting isn’t allowed at the table. “Nothing?” she asks at the end of the meal, and Sasha shakes his head, shchi slopping in his stomach.
When the dishes are dry and there’s still no word from Kirill, Sasha breaks down and texts him.
How did it go?? he asks, forgetting until he hits send that the two question marks are a bad habit he’s picked up from Danny, something he’s been trying not to let spill over into his other conversations.
He winces, but the message is already delivered, and wayward punctuation is the least of his worries right now.
Half an hour crawls by, then another, with no response from Kirill. Sasha’s staring at his phone again, wondering if it would be too soon or too stupid to send a follow-up text, when Danny calls.
Sasha blinks at the WhatsApp notification, confused.
They’d just talked on Sunday, and even though Danny had warned him that his tour schedule was going to be erratic, Sasha hadn’t expected him to call again so quickly.
He’s not sure what there is to discuss after only two days—Danny could probably think of something, but Sasha can’t—and he’s not sure he wants to pick up, either, in case Kirill tries to contact him.
In the end, the decision is made simple when Danny’s name disappears from his screen, overridden by an incoming call from Kirill.
Sasha answers immediately. “Kirill?” he asks, gripping his phone, knuckles tight. “Are you okay?”
At first, he thinks Kirill dialed by accident, because he can’t hear him—just a strange, unpleasant sound, like the dregs of a drink being guzzled through a straw. But then he realizes that the sound is Kirill, trying desperately to speak.
“Sasha,” he chokes out, his voice in ruins. “Sasha, I—”