27. Nikolai
27
NIKOLAI
M y phone rings right as my fingers hover over the piano keys, ready to make sense of everything swirling in my head. I debate ignoring it, but when I glance at the screen, a baby-faced version of myself and Milo lights up.
I close the lid and lean an elbow on it as I answer, “ Bratishka .”
“What’s up?” my little brother’s voice rings through the line. “Long time, no talk.”
“You’re the one who hasn’t been returning my calls,” I scold him, but there’s no malice behind it. Milo and I could go a year without talking, and when we pick back up, it’s like there’s never been any distance.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “Work has been crazy.”
I snort. “Welcome to adulthood. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, huh?”
“Is this it? I just work until I die now?” Milo graduated college last December and has since been working at a tech start-up he had an internship with.
“Pretty much,” I drawl.
“I don’t know why I’m asking you actually,” he says, “since your work is basically partying.”
“Hey, that’s an oversimplification.” It’s true that in the early days of Whisper Me Nothings, there was a fair amount of partying that took place. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t balance it with hard work. “I’ve spent more hours in the studio lately than my own house.”
“Oh sorry, are you there now? I can call back.”
I walk toward the window seat. It’s golden hour and the setting sun basks the room in a warm glow as I get comfortable. “Nah, I’m at home. I wanted to work from my piano.”
“How are things going? I wish I could’ve been at one of your shows so far, but with the number of videos people have posted online, I feel like I’ve seen them all anyways.” He laughs and it brightens something in me. There was a period of time when I didn’t know if I’d hear Milo laugh again after the shooting.
“It’s good,” I say, leaning back against the frame of the bench seat. “But I don’t want to talk about me. How have you been doing?”
The smile is evident in his voice when he says, “Are you trying to distract me from asking you about your new girlfriend?”
I groan and rub a hand down my face.
“I got my friends asking me about it, too. Way to give your brother a heads up about it.”
“I texted you.”
He scoffs. “Yeah, but you didn’t elaborate. How’s it going?”
There was no way I was going to lie to my family about Kerra, so they all know the truth. But I kept things vague. Mostly because of my parents, who I don’t have much of a relationship with and didn’t feel the need to expand on it with them. But I get why Milo feels like he deserves more of an explanation.
I sigh. “We’re supposed to have our first public date next week.” Arun emailed me this morning about it. The teams decided we needed an outing not related to the song to help round out the image that this is an actual relationship, and not just for work.
A dog barks in the background and I hear a door open. “Go run around, we’ll go for a walk in a bit.” Milo’s voice is quiet as he speaks away from the receiver. He’s clearer again when he says, “Sorry, it’s walk time for Augustus.”
I snort, shaking my head. “I still can’t believe you named your dog Augustus.”
“It suits him,” Milo says defensively. “Now, what do you have to do for it?”
My head falls back with a thud against the wall. “We’re supposed to go shopping downtown. You know, walking down the sidewalks hand in hand, making sure we’re visible from the windows inside stores, having lunch outside at a restaurant, the works.”
“Again, this is why I can’t complain about work to you because that is a day in the office for you.”
“I’ll trade places for the day if you want.” Actually, I’d never let Kerra near Milo. I love him, but he’s impressionable and easily charmed by girls. She’s too sneaky for him. “So work is that bad?”
He huffs and launches into a whole tangent about a program he’s been the lead on, but is constantly getting undermined by one of the other guys on the project. Milo forgets who he’s talking to and wades deep into the technical side of the program and drops jargon and acronyms that I have no clue what they mean, but I sit silently and listen, as only a big brother needs to do sometimes.
“I just don’t feel like I’m being valued. My internship with them was so good, but now that I’m in the day to day, it’s like nothing that I say or do matters. I’m just a body at a desk.” He sighs, sounding dejected.
“I’m sorry. I know how excited you were to get the offer and that sucks that it’s not what you thought it would be.”
“I guess I just thought that I’d be doing something that matters, you know? That I’d be making a difference and progressing more than I am.”
“You’re not even a year into the job yet, Milo. You gotta give it some time. And you’re young. You don’t need to have it all figured out yet and be making the impact you want to be.”
His tone is cooler, sadder, as he says, “You know just as well as I do that time is bullshit.”
A lump forms in my throat. “I know, I didn’t mean it like that. I was just trying to say that you gotta give yourself some time. It might just take a little bit to get in the groove there, or hey, it might not be the job for you. And if it isn’t, you’ll find a new one. Don’t stay there if it’s not making you happy. Now that would be an actual waste of time that you know is precious.”
He’s quiet and I can picture his nose scrunching as he thinks it over. He could be my twin if we were closer in age. We have the same shade of blond hair, although he keeps his shorter, and the same structured jaw and pointed nose. But he’s slightly shorter and I have more tone to my muscles since I’m in a much more active day to day life than he is.
“We’ll see,” he says eventually. “I’m going to give it at least a full year there. If things don’t look up, then I’ll consider my options.”
“That’s a smart plan. Now, are you still planning to go visit Mom this fall?”
“I don’t know. Every time I call her, she asks me all sorts of questions about Dad and what he’s doing. I hate feeling like I’m in the middle of them, even though they’re divorced.”
Don’t I know it. I felt the same way growing up and was in Milo’s position, but as the years have gone by, I’ve separated myself from them more and more.
“I get it,” I sigh. “She shouldn’t do that to you.”
“Can you talk to her?”
“She won’t listen to me.” She never has and honestly, I can’t try to fix their relationship when neither of them wants to be cordial anyways. I have my own relationship with Jane to focus on. “I know the idea of them being friends and being able to get together as a family again is appealing, but I just don’t think it’s going to happen. I’m sorry.”
After the shooting, I thought that maybe, just maybe, my parents might put all their issues aside and at the very least be able to be friendly with one another for Milo and my sake. But after a few months and the shock of what happened wore off, they both fell back into their same patterns.
And I had enough.
Being the glue is exhausting and it seems like Milo is now trying to take that role.
“It is what it is,” he says, reluctant acceptance heavy in his tone. “Anyways, I’ll let you get back to work. What’s the inspiration today?”
“Love,” I answer immediately, and Milo laughs.
I’ve never stopped loving Jane, and after having her again at Hayden’s, it’s crested with resurgence. I just need to make sense of it all.
The fear. The excitement. The adrenaline of it.
But of course Milo assumes I’m bullshitting him, making a joke of it. When you’re the funny one, the breath of fresh air, the one who’s always down for a good time, people don’t want to see any other side of you. Even family.
They always want that fun version of you, the strong version of you, even when you’re crumbling inside. Singing and songwriting has always been my way to try to work through the thoughts in my head and my way to cry for help when no one wants to listen.
It’s my outlet for heartbreak and darkness, but also love and devotion and everything in between.
Milo and I say our goodbyes and I make my way back to the piano bench. The lid opens with a quiet click and I crack my neck back and forth. The sun glows orange behind my closed eyelids as I place my hands at resting position…and play.