Chapter 5
LILY
Ten Years Ago - Junior Year of High School
"For the millionth time, I don't do Sadie Hawkins, Lils," Nadia sighs, slamming her closet door with the kind of finality that makes it clear she's already done with this conversation. Her high ponytail whips as she spins around, nearly smacking me in the face.
"Who doesn't do Sadie Hawkins? It's Sadie Hawkins!
" I trail after her across the plush cream carpet, clutching the glitter-covered flyer I made her take home.
It's slightly crumpled now, but the glittery lettering still screams Ask Him First!
in hot pink gel pen. "It's literally built for girls like you.
Tall, terrifying, unreasonably pretty—boys would kill to get asked out by you. "
"Exactly," she says, flopping onto her massive canopy bed like a bored heiress in a teen drama.
The scent of jasmine, expensive candles, and something vaguely vanilla lingers in the air, mixed with the subtle tang of teenage funk from the laundry she hasn't washed.
"I don't ask. I get asked. Preferably with flowers. Or a tattoo."
"Okay, but what if he's shy?" I press, dropping onto the beanbag near her bookshelf—because sitting on her bed feels too regal and I'm not trying to mess up her seventeen throw pillows. "What if your soulmate is out there right now, secretly pining, waiting for you to make the first move?"
Nadia snorts, reaching for a remote to turn the volume down on the Bluetooth speaker playing my favorite R&B song, The Boy Is Mine by Brandy and Monica, as if that is going to make me drop this conversation.
"If my soulmate's afraid to ask me out, he's not my soulmate—he's a baby and I will not have a grown man sucking off my teat. "
I roll my eyes and grab a gummy from the little glass jar on her nightstand, because this bedroom might look like a luxury hotel suite, but it's still Nadia's room. "So you've never asked a guy out? Not even once?"
She pauses, then glances at me with a smug smile. "I have no trouble asking boys out, and neither should you, Lils. You're gorgeous."
I scoff, leaning back into the beanbag like it can shield me from the sheer force of Nadia's delusion.
Am I nicer than her? Absolutely. I mean, most people are. Nadia radiates the kind of intimidating confidence that makes grown men blink twice and apologize for existing. Me? I say "sorry" when someone bumps into me.
Am I pretty? Yeah. I mean, Nadia looks like she belongs in a moody European perfume magazine. She is like undiscovered-model pretty with cheekbones that could slice glass and eyes that could freeze you on sight from their enticing blue haze.
I, on the other hand, look 'regular high school' pretty. The kind of pretty that's more about soft curves, clear lip gloss, and knowing your good angles in a yearbook photo.
On any given school day, I wear oversized v-neck sweaters—not because it's trendy—but because I'm still trying to hide the fact that I've jumped from training bras to full C-cups, and my dad hasn't caught on that shopping in the juniors' section no longer works.
My school-regulated uniform doesn't help: grey and blue plaid skirt, knee-high socks, and those shiny black shoes that make every hallway echo.
I look like I stepped straight out of a prep school catalog where the only requirements are awkward posture and a deep fear of cafeteria mystery meat.
But I know how to pull it together. A little eyeliner, a half-decent hair day, and a well-timed smile, and I can pass as confident.
Maybe even radiant. At least until Nadia has boys left and right falling in love with her, and that's even after she threatened to skin a boy alive in the middle of PE.
"You're only saying I'm gorgeous because you'd be a total bitch if you didn't," I tease, reaching for a second gummy.
"No I am saying you're gorgeous because it is a fact. If you were ugly I would say nothing, or buy you plastic surgery for your sixteenth birthday in two weeks," she winks.
"Ha ha very funny," I throw her pillow at her, and she dodges with the agility of a cat.
"Now, if you want to stop trying to set me up and just ask me if you can ask him, that would be amazing," Nadia groans as she rolls over on her back and looks up at the sheer cream draping hanging from her ceiling.
"I have no idea what you are talking about," I say, biting my bottom lip, right before I start humming the vocal break down towards the end of the song.
"Lils, you literally stop functioning when he enters a room. Just go downstairs and ask him."
Nadia rolls over on her side and gives me a bored look.
"You won't be mad?" I squeak sitting up in the beanbag chair, and the hope in my voice is so apparent I can feel the tips of my ears getting hot with embarrassment.
"No, I promise," Nadia sighs, dragging a magazine off the floor and lazily flipping through the pages. "You have my permission. And my condolences—because why you find him attractive is beyond me."
I don't even let the rest of her sentence finish before I launch myself across the room and throw my arms around her, squeezing her like I've just won the lottery and she's the prize.
"Nadi, I love you!"
"I don't like hugs, Lily," she grumbles, barely moving the magazine out of her face, but I only hug her tighter. Best friend privileges. She'll survive.
I bounce back onto my feet, heart racing, hands buzzing, a giddy grin stretching across my face.
Permission. She gave me permission. Which means—I'm doing this. I'm really doing this.
I am going to ask Aleksandr Petrov to the Sadie Hawkins dance, and hopefully, if I don't have any unresolved karma in the universe brewing, he will say yes.
I've had a crush on him since elementary school.
Since the third grade, to be exact, when Henry Taylor thought it would be funny to sneak up behind me and snip off a chunk of my hair with safety scissors.
I didn't even have time to cry before Aleksandr calmly walked up to Henry and broke his nose with a single, perfect punch.
Then he turned to me, said nothing, and handed me the piece of hair.
I was eight. My soul left my body.
And it's only gotten worse since then.
The way he walks with so much confidence that the entire school parts down the middle of the hallways like the Red Sea for him.
His wavy black hair always looks just-tousled, damp like he just stepped out of a shower he didn't bother to towel off from.
And those storm-grey eyes that see everything, and strip everyone down to their socks.
I mean when Aleksandr looks at you. Like really looks at you? It feels like being pinned to a page. Like he's reading your margins and underlining things in red.
Also, he smells good. Like very good. Like leather, firewood, and clean laundry, which shouldn't work together but absolutely do.
He's quiet. Intense. The kind of boy who doesn't ask you to the dance not because he's a coward, but because he doesn't talk much and you are that much more lucky for him talking to you.
I want to ask that boy out. Me. Lily.
What could possibly go wrong?
What am I saying? Everything can go wrong. Literally everything.
My palms are already sweaty, and I haven't even made it down the stairs yet. My heart is doing something unholy in my chest. It's less of a beat and more of a bass drop. And my internal monologue is just screaming.
I'm going to walk up to the most intimidating boy in our zip code, casually propose we attend a school dance together, and then what? High five? Die on the spot? Spontaneously combust?
Most likely the third one.
I don't even remember leaving Nadia's room. One second I'm there, and the next I'm at the top of the stairs, staring down into the kind of dim, too-quiet Petrov hallway that could easily double as a murder scene backdrop.
I force my legs to move, gripping the railing like it might run away from me. His room is at the end of the hall, past the big window and the creepy portrait of some long-dead Russian general who always looks like he's judging me.
I get halfway there.
Then immediately veer left and book it for the kitchen like my brain just pulled the emergency fire alarm.
I need water. I need a moment. I need… not to die.
The kitchen is cool and quiet and smells faintly like citrus and old money.
I yank open the fridge, grab a bottle of volcanic water—because of course the Petrovs only stock the super fancy kind—and lean heavily against the counter, taking gulp after gulp like hydration is going to make me emotionally stable.
It does not.
I'm still seconds away from full collapse. My heart is doing Olympic gymnastics. My internal organs are threatening to unionize.
I cap the bottle, drop it on the counter, and exhale.
Okay. Okay. Re-center. Breathe. Be normal.
But then I feel it. The creeping, gnawing panic that only means one thing—I need a snack. I need protein, it's the only thing that will stop the full panic.
I yank open drawers, cabinets, the fridge—assembling items like I'm on a timed episode of Chopped.
Cold cuts. Dijon mustard. A mini wheel of brie because needless to say, Nadia's mother stocks brie like normal people stock string cheese.
Crackers with embossed herbs. Bread that smells like it costs $14.
I turn to the marble island and drop everything onto the counter with a flurry of movement.
And freeze.
Because leaning against the far wall—silent, still, watching me like he's been standing there the whole time—is Aleksandr.
I squeak. Like, audibly. My hands twitch and I nearly drop the bread, cheese, and my soul.
"You scared me!" I blurt, cheeks flaming so fast I'm surprised I don't burst into actual flames. I scramble to put the ingredients down in one piece, trying not to fumble like I've been caught committing a crime.