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Anton’s first impression of the boy is that he’s annoying.
It’s impressive – he can talk about everything there is to talk about and still talk about nothing at all. Mumu, feminist carp, and slicing his tongue open, all within the first three minutes of painfully one-sided conversation. And after that, the paint peeling off the desks, not-Tamara-Vitalyevna’s congested inflection, whatever American emo bands he listens to, and a million little stories from his old lyceum that Anton just can’t tune out for the life of him. It’s like the metal rings jammed into each side of his bottom lip give him extra holes for his gums to flap out of. Anton has never met anyone like him – eyebags to rival an asylum seeker despite the ceaseless energy; hair that’s surely long enough to both violate the dress code and skip straight to the third punishment; cologne that smells like grass and barbecue; eyes that blink a million times a second, like they’ll dry up the moment he forces them open.
Anton’s first impression of Sasha Sobakin is that he is annoying. By the time school lets out, Sobakin already has his Discord. There’s a notification. He is not clicking on that notification.
“Antoshka, you should check your phone.” He’s grinning like an idiot.
“I’m gonna wait until this evening to check it. I have more homework than usual, thanks to someone.”
“Mm, ok, fine. If you’re too busy to keep hanging out today, I guess I’ll just have to walk you home… Because you have sooo much homework…”
“...are we even going in the same direction?”
“I’m sure we are.”
The fall is always pretty. The air is crisp, and the breeze is cool enough to be refreshing, yet not cold enough to bite at Anton’s fingers. It’s the most colorful this town will ever look under the perpetually overcast sky. Desperate to look anywhere except at the boy trotting next to him, Anton realizes just how beautiful the walk home really is at this time of year. When Sasha starts up again, he stomps a twig into the sidewalk. The resulting snap is embarrassingly loud.
“Those mushrooms over by the trees look like they taste good. You should split one with me.”
“That’s–”
Before he can get another word out, Sasha interrupts. “When I was a kid, I ate a mushroom growing between the cracks in the pavement outside my house. It tasted really good, but I started vomiting uncontrollably and my parents had to take me to the hospital. Isn’t that so fucking unfair? They’re nature’s gifts to us. Why aren’t we allowed to eat them without dying?” The next twig comes up, and this time, Sasha’s sneaker reaches it before Anton’s can. Like this is some sort of competition.
“Look, if you wanna eat one, be my guest. Actually, I might go down with you if it means I can get out of that physics exam next week…”
“Physics?” Sasha tilts his head. “What do you need physics for? Do you wanna be a scientist?”
“God no! I’ve just been getting too many Cs lately, Mom’s gonna kill me…”
“Don’t worry, Toshenka. When I seduce her, I’ll convince her to spare you her wrath.”
“What the fuck?”
Sasha bursts out laughing like it’s the funniest thing in the world. Anton elbows him a little too hard. He snorts as he stumbles to the side.
When they reach Anton’s house, Sasha waves an enthusiastic goodbye and then turns right back in the direction they came. After his daily Grechka petting session, Anton collapses into his unmade bed, savouring the afternoon silence more than he ever has. Too lazy to tackle his mountain of homework, he decides to check that Discord notification.
“stirlitz had a thought”
Dumbass.
“What? Obviously I’m not gonna do that.”
Anton can’t pinpoint when, exactly, he had agreed to make walking home together routine, but it doesn’t matter what he wants, apparently. The cold is significantly worse, he has a trig test that requires an urgent cram session, and Sasha is trying to convince him to climb the neighbor’s 14 foot tree.
“Wanna race to the top?”
“Sasha, we’re both gonna fall.” He grabs Sasha’s sleeve and turns, trying to drag him forward. “C’mon, keep walking.”
“You’re really gonna let me beat you to the top?” He gasps dramatically. “Is Antosha secretly weak?!”
“I’m not weak!” Anton whips around, but Sasha has already broken free from his (admittedly puny) grip and is sprinting towards the tree, sporting the most infuriatingly shitfaced grin.
And, well, Anton doesn’t know what he’s thinking. It looks like Sasha’s stupidity is rubbing off on him, because, in the blink of an eye, he’s already completed a third of the climb. And, for fuck’s sake, Sasha is just barely beating him.
“I’m gonna win, Toshaaaa!” Playfully, Sasha blindly kicks below him.
Anton just barely dodges. “You got a head start, asshole!”
He reaches for the same branch that Sasha goes to step on, and they begin to fight over it like it’s a matter of life and death, yelling at each other like children. Eventually, Anton wrestles Sasha’s foot away a little too hard.
The next moments are a blur. The leaves rustle, the branch above Anton jerks; Sasha half laughs, half screams, his voice echoing off the concrete houses in a way that clouds Anton’s head with adrenaline. And it looks like Sasha’s stupidity really is rubbing off, because, when he falls, Anton’s already diving after him.
Raked leaves break their fall, by some stroke of luck. Anton is below Sasha, holding his arm in a death grip. There’s a cut on Sasha’s hand from a sharp bit of the bark, and enough twigs stuck in his hair for a bird to nest in. Nothing hurts too badly, but Anton’s still on the verge of a fucking heart attack–
And, before either of them can catch their breath, they both burst into laughter.
“God, I’m so fucking hungry.”
“Don’t worry, Tosha, I’ve got something you can eat.”
Anton shoves Sobakin before he gets his ass slapped. He snickers to himself, watching Sasha apologize to the unassuming family behind them.
It’s the day before Christmas, and the mall is packed – both with last minute Christmas shoppers and onlookers sheltering from the unreasonable downpour of snow outside. Anton doesn’t go to the mall that often, but Sasha was weirdly insistent that they go out today, specifically, and Anton’s lost the energy to argue with him. It’s the first Christmas Eve he’s spent away from his parents, and he finds himself a lot less upset about it than he thought he’d be. He doesn’t have much money, but at least dicking around in clothing stores with Sasha is fun. Even if he keeps trying to drag Anton to the women’s underwear aisle so he can put lacy bras against his chest.
“Could we stop by Perekrestok next? I kinda want –”
“Yeah, I’m starving too! Let’s go!” Sasha grabs Anton’s arm and drags him toward the grocery store, carelessly bumping into strangers on the way. When they spot the green logo, he stops abruptly, letting Anton bump straight into him.
“Um, actually, I’m not hungry anymore. You stay here and get your chips or whatever, though. Don’t follow me, I’ll meet you back here in twenty!” Just like that, the familiar head of bleached hair disappears into the crowd, leaving Anton alone.
He blinks, regaining his bearings. Sasha seemed like he was in a hurry, but it came off more like Sasha-typical weirdness than anything he should be concerned about, so he grabs his chips and sits down on a nearby bench. Frankly, they just make him hungrier. He’s already bought gifts for Grechka and his parents, so maybe he should go back and buy a bigger bag, for the two of them to share–
But he should probably buy a gift for Sasha. Shit, how could he have forgotten about Sasha?
Hit with a sudden sense of urgency, he pockets the empty chip bag and puts all of his determination into the grand act of standing up – only to deflate when he realizes he has no idea where the fuck to go. What does Sasha like? He’s always got jewelry on, but he barely has enough for a cheap ring… He loves his stupid english shirts, but he’d never find anything I <3 MILFS adjacent here…
He stops his search when he spots it. A small makeup store, tucked between a row of clothing stores and an overpriced shoe store.
He confidently marches in, but shrinks back a little when he notices how many middle aged women there are, afraid they’ll look at him weird. Taking a deep breath, and wondering how on earth Sasha has the balls to do this, he blindly heads for the eyeshadow section. He tries to ignore the cacophony of pasty models staring back at him from the sides of the shelves.
He’s immediately overwhelmed by a sea of nude tones. He’s never seen Sasha wear brown, though, it’s always grey or black. He stares at the wall for an embarrassingly long amount of time. Menacingly, it stares back. The models are going to jump out of their packaging and kill him. That’s how he’ll die. He won’t even be able to say goodbye to Sasha.
Upon closer inspection, there are a few palettes with black in them, but he has no idea which one to get. Giving it far too much thought, he eventually settles for a small palette, praying that it’s a good brand. On his way to the register, he grabs a cheap black tube of – eyeliner? Mascara? He has no idea – in case the eyeshadow isn’t enough.
He hesitates to go up to the cashier, but after checking his phone, he realizes he was supposed to be back outside Perekrestok five minutes ago. He grits his teeth, avoids eye contact to a degree that makes him look gayer than he would if he’d taken the confident approach, hides the contraband in his coat pocket, and rushes back where he came from.
Sasha’s waiting on the bench, awkwardly hiding the logo of the new bag he’s holding from Anton’s view. “Finally. What took you so long? I was scared you ran and left me behind.”
“I could ask you the same thing. Where’d you need to go so urgently?”
“Sex shop, like I told you! I bought that plug you wanted to try! It’s got the heart shaped jewel and everything, just like you asked.”
Anton loudly clears his throat, looking around to make sure no one heard his friend’s shitty joke. “Shut up, Sobakin.”
“Anyways, I have no money left. Wanna stop by the park?”
“Isn’t the snow still bad?”
“Fuck, you’re right. Where do you wanna shoplift from first?”
“I am not going to jail with you!”
Anton’s next impression of the boy is confusion. There’s a weird sense of nervousness mixed in.
The snow has calmed down, anticipating the New Year with a silence that would be eerie if Sashka’s voice wasn’t eagerly filling the void. Underneath his winter layers, Anton’s wearing a brand new Arctic Monkeys shirt. On Christmas afternoon, Sasha had shown up on his doorstep, wordlessly shoving the gift into his hands and booking it like he’d be shot dead if he stayed on the Tyanochkin household for any longer; Anton almost didn’t react fast enough to give Sasha his own puny little gift. It turns out that Sasha doesn’t wear eyeshadow after all, and his complexion just makes his natural eyebags appear like grungy makeup. But he didn’t laugh, and he held the offending palette to his chest like his heart wouldn’t beat without it. Even though he can’t apply it for shit, he’s wearing the mascara today, already runny and half teared off by the cold.
He looks like a clown, but every time a passing stranger raises an eyebrow at him, he smiles and quickly explains that his nonexistent girlfriend made him do it on a dare or something. Sasha never seems all that afraid of anything.
Anton has never liked the New Year. At this age, he’s never been so numbed to the passage of time. Still, around this time of year, he feels so much pressure to catch up to it before it can yank him by the balls toward some mediocre university, away from everything he’s ever known. But with Sashka, wrestling and laughing and breaking curfew to shove snow into each other’s clothes, he gets the idea that this New Year will be different.
They seem to stop wandering once they reach some deserted playground, where the street lights seem a little brighter than the ones by the shitty beaten sidewalk. Sashka’s holding a fistful of snow and eyeing the neckline of Anton’s hand-me-down puffer jacket, eyes glinting maliciously under the golden light, and Anton can’t help but notice how handsome he is.
…A weird feeling settles in his stomach. Frantically, he starts rubbing his hands together, because Mom will kill him if he starts the new year with a flu.
“Sasha… why don’t you have a girlfriend?”
Sasha pauses. His eyes shine, like he’s interested in the turn their conversation has taken. “Why do you ask?”
“Uhh…” He thinks for a moment. “It’s just… My mom constantly bugs me about getting a girlfriend. She always says I bring you over too often, and that I should be bringing girls over instead. But I don’t like any of the girls we know that way.”
Sasha gives him a weird look. Anton can’t quite read it.
“And girls always seem to like you… They’re always bothering you at recess – oh, and those three girls at the New Years disco, too, so I just thought you’d have… advice? Or something–”
His face goes sour, recalling the dance like his charisma was just the worst thing to ever happen to him. “God, don’t remind me.”
Anton snorts. “I don’t understand you at all, Sashka.”
Sasha looks down with an impenetrable smile on his lips. He doesn’t blink when the snowflakes kiss his now grey, once black, eyelashes.
“Do you want to understand?”
The answer comes like breathing air. “...Of course I do.”
The frown that crosses his face doesn’t look pretty. Anton is used to the boy saying whatever thought crosses his mind, right as he conjures it up; he’s always had a boneless tongue. It’s rare to see him thinking so hard.
“...Promise me no one will find out about this.” His voice sounds like it’s going to break. “Promise me.”
“I promise.”
Sasha looks around, takes a breath, and leans in. His breath frosts over Anton’s nose, warming his lips. Anton thinks Sasha will spit in his face and run away. He doesn’t.
“I don’t like girls.”
“Huh?” Confused, Anton laughs. “I mean, I don’t like them either, girls are kinda weird…”
“No, Tosha, I mean…” The smile from before ghosts over his face, but this time, it’s much heavier. “I prefer boys.”
Anton swallows nervously. “Are… Are you kidding? Is this a shitty joke?”
“Nope.” He sighs, idly kicking the snow by his foot into a small mound. “It’s not that I don’t like girls. I do like them, as friends. I just don’t like them like… that, y’know?”
Anton feels nervous. Distant memories of being a boy, maybe five or six, resurface – his father’s voice loudly talking over the news anchor, uncharacteristically upset. He’d been saying something about Western Europe, and when Anton asked, he only got angrier. He doesn’t remember what his dad said afterwards. He just remembers, after that, thinking that faggots were animals, and it seemed like that was just the way things were.
Here, with Sasha, he’s a child again. He’s a child, playing in the snow, without a care in the world. He’s a child, looking to his mom for help; watching her turn her back, trying her best to tune out her husband’s loud scolding with her knife, the cutting board, and their bag of week-old beets.
“Are you going to hurt me?”
His smile is sad. “You’re my friend, Antosha. Nothing more. Do I look like I could hurt you?”
He’s right. Sure, he’s always taunting, but this moron is physically weaker than Anton in every respect – Anton still has to open Sasha’s damn water bottles for him when his hands go all jittery. How could he do anything to hurt him? And why?
Suddenly, he sees that Sasha is shivering, even under the warmth of the streetlights. He’s shaking like a leaf, rapid fire blinking like he’s trying to stop his eyes from crawling right out of his head. Suddenly, the smile stretching across his face looks less sad and more knowing. Expectant, like he’s waiting for Anton to push him to the ground and leave him for the wolves.
Suddenly, he realizes just how afraid Sashka really is.
“Don’t worry. It’s our secret.”
His smile drops, but his eyes shine in that pretty way they did before. In that pretty way they always have. “Thanks, Antosha.”
They talk about it a little more. Anton hangs onto every word out of the boy’s mouth – his old crush, nickname, and friend group. The awful things they’d do to the boys in the class below them, if they were a little too quiet, or dressed a little too awkwardly. Sasha sounds more ashamed than anxious when he recounts it. Anton can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to be on the receiving end of that kind of thing. This time, though, he’s less afraid for himself.
Eventually, he checks his phone. It’s thirty minutes past curfew. Fuck.
“Tosha, we’re probably gonna go to jail. I think I heard the police sirens, y’know…”
“Asshole!”
Anton grabs a handful of snow and shoves it into Sasha’s collar. He screams like a girl. The revenge feels sweet.
“Don’t scare me like that again, dumbass!” He shivers. “Fuck, my hands are freezing…”
“Still?”
Suddenly, Anton’s palms, wet from the snow, are in Sasha’s. Even though Sasha’s breath is warm against his thawing fingers, they still lie frozen; and fuck, that drop in his stomach is back, and he definitely has the flu, doesn’t he?
They walk home like nothing’s changed. Still, things feel different. They feel closer–
And the dick jokes are even funnier now.
“You lookin’ for your friend? He’s probably by the abandoned hospital.”
“Huh?”
“Y’know, the one by the edge of the woods? All the stoners hang out there, especially in the spring.”
That’s what the girl with the cherry red lipstick and the dyed hair had said. She was smiling mischievously to herself, twirling a strand from her jagged bob, like she knew something he didn’t – and clearly she did, because Anton hadn’t even mentioned looking for Sasha. He doesn’t know what being a stoner means, but it doesn’t sound like a compliment. Whatever, Sasha already knows that half the girls in their grade think he’s a player, considering how many of them he’s rejected. He’s probably used to the treatment.
Either way, he doesn’t really feel like defending Sasha, because he’s currently ditching their sleepover-disguised-as-study-session. School ended half an hour ago, and Anton’s still sitting in their classroom, spam calling his asshole friend. It’s not unusual for him to skip school, especially on a Friday – and he let Anton know beforehand, so he wouldn’t be worried – but he said he’d still be free afterwards…
After Sasha ignores the 34th call, Anton decides searching the forest might not be a bad idea. It’s still chilly, but the cold has finally started to thaw, and there are small patches of green scattered throughout the dying grass and the sludgy remnants of snow. Mushrooms are even starting to sprout. Fuck, if Sasha actually decided to eat one, like he always says he will, he’s getting dragged to the hospital – one that’s not abandoned – by his stupid bleached hair.
Even though it’s such a stereotypical horror movie setting, the building looks oddly pretty in the sunlight. It’s surrounded by greenery, vines creeping up the old, graffiti stained brick as they regrow their leaves for the season. The windows are all bashed in, and if he didn’t know any better, it might’ve passed for a school, or even an old-timey mansion. The inside is bare concrete – seemingly, the demolition job was abandoned after the interior was stripped – and it’s littered with fresh graffiti. The stench of something like burning garbage lingers, too faint to be a bonfire but too potent to be anything else. It makes Anton wonder just how many people know about this place.
It’s silent, except for the rustling leaves, the birds chirping, and someone’s shitty phone speaker blasting poser rock music. Just to make sure, he calls Sasha for the 35th time. He’d recognize the sound of that 100 Gecs ringtone, crunched by iPhone 10 audio quality, anywhere.
Sasha’s sitting on the stairwell, by a large window. His back is turned, and he’s too busy rasping along to the lyrics to hear Anton approach. When he gets a rock thrown at his back, he jumps, tosses something aside, and suffers a mild coughing fit.
“It took you long enou– Tosha…?” He seems surprised.
Anton sidesteps old flakes of the ceiling’s whitewash, sitting down on the stair beneath. “It took me forever to find this place. Why weren’t you answering my calls, dumbass?”
Sasha sticks out his tongue. There’s a nasty scar from an old botched tongue piercing, and it always makes Anton wince when he notices it. “I was busy sexting your mom.”
“And you needed to come all the way out here to do that?”
“Uh huh. This place puts me in the mood, really gets me going. I guess it’s good that you showed up when you did, huh, Tosha? –ow!” He gets another rock thrown at him.
He knows better than to argue. Sasha turns off his bad music, and they listen to the birds sing.
“Seriously, why are you here, Sashka?” Anton brushes old debris off his shoulder. Mom will be pissed if he makes a mess of his uniform. “It’s kinda gross here. I’m not tracking you down ever again. You’re too high effort…”
“I dunno. Helps me relax.” He leans his cheek against the old guardrail, brows furrowed. “Didn’t wanna spend all day cooped up in my room.”
“You always come here when you’re skipping?”
“Nah. I hate making the trek in the winter. Too much snow.”
“But you gotta go somewhere when you’re skipping… If you just stayed in, your parents would know, right?”
He only hums in response. Anton recognizes the look on his face. He’s still not used to it – he wonders if this is really unlike Sasha, or if Anton’s just never seen this side of him before.
“My dad’s on a work trip, and my mom’s usually chill, but…” Sashka’s voice is soft. “She’s mad at me today.”
“Damn. When I get my mom really mad, I just do a bunch of chores for her and she fucks off. It’s kinda gay, but it’s never failed me.”
“Huh. Maybe I’ll try that.” Suddenly, melancholic Sasha is gone as soon as he came. “Wait, that is kind of gay. Maybe it’s your housewife instincts kicking in, Tosha?”
“Hey, I’m not the one constantly getting mistaken for a girl…!”
“I don’t mind looking like a girl, if it makes me more palatable to you, Toshenka – OW! Not my knee! Fuck!”
It’s nice, play fighting on the stairs. Eventually, he drags Sasha back to his house, gives Sasha a meal that he scarfs down like a man starved, and learns that he likes Neon Genesis Evangelion far more than he expected to.
Still – he never quite figures out what had been burning.
The lake is far deeper than Anton remembers.
The sun hangs just above the horizon, illuminating the water a shade of blue so crystalline that even his vivid childhood memories of playing here seem a bit less colorful. He’s hated swimming ever since 6th grade – being so exposed makes him feel self conscious. But Sashka wouldn’t quit bugging him about it, and, like he always does, Anton gave in. They’ve found some little cove away from the summer crowds, and they’re probably trespassing, but Anton doesn’t care as much as he would’ve a year ago. It’s golden hour, Sasha won’t stop trying to tickle his feet from underwater, the trees are in full bloom, and Anton thinks this is the best summer he’s ever had.
“Ok, fine, five minutes, five minutes, only because you look like you’re about to die. You should – you should work out more, Tosha.” Sasha sputters lakewater out of his nose, clearly more out of breath than Anton is.
“You’re one to talk. You’re like a twig, dude, I’ve never seen anyone that looks like th – hey! Let go of me–”
“Who’s the weak one? Huh? You think I’m weak? Huh, huh, Tosha?” Anton yelps when he feels spindly arms work their way around his waist, heaving him into the air – for exactly three seconds, before Sasha collapses underwater, dragging Anton down with him.
Frantically, Anton kicks him away. Sasha hides underwater for as long as he can, scared to resurface and face the consequences of his actions. The second he does, the vicious wave Anton sends his way wipes the shitfaced grin clean off of him. They take a second to catch their breath, for real this time, and the droplets framing Sashka’s smile glint golden in a way that reminds Anton of that winter night all over again. It doesn’t feel cold at all. It never did.
“Your hair looks dumb as fuck when it’s wet.”
“Says you. Walked into the barber and told them to fuck your shit up.” He reaches over and grabs a particularly choppy looking strand. “God, it’s so bad when it’s flat. You should sue, Sasha, seriously. It’d probably give you enough to pay back that Minecraft money I lent you. In the fall, by the way.”
Sasha goes weirdly quiet, staring at the bluntly cut chunk of his hair in Anton’s hand – and then he hisses, lifting his palms out of the water and wincing. His cuts have healed a lot since their sleepover a few weeks ago, but it looks like one of them’s reopened.
He still hasn’t said anything about where they came from. They look way too deep to be papercuts, and he doesn’t have a cat–
“Sashka, are you ok? I can run down the road and get bandages – uh, I have that bottle of water back in my bag to clean it until we can get proper sanitizer, how much does it hurt?”
Sasha’s eyes widen with something he can’t read. His palms drop back into the water, like he’s forgotten about them. He looks down at the soft waves, wheezes out a laugh that echoes against them, and throws his palms against Anton’s shoulders.
“It’s been more than five minutes. Truce is over, right?” Sasha isn’t smiling. He’s looking below Anton’s eyes. “Think you can hold your breath?”
He doesn’t get a chance to reply before his hearing goes fuzzy, his eyes start to burn, and he’s already taken in a mouthful of water. Sasha’s painted nails dig into his skin like they’re trying to claw straight through it, and he lets out a silent laugh that looks like it’s stretching the skin off of his face. Sasha’s blocking out the sun. The golden light lines his silhouette, flaring out at the sides; Anton imagines this is what an angel’s halo looks like. His heart begins to pound in his ears – Sasha tends to do that to him, he’s noticed. A bit of Sasha’s blood clouds the water by his shoulder; he can’t see it, but he knows because he can taste sweet metal. He can’t breathe.
He doesn’t remember what happens after that. There’s thrashing, and then there’s air, and Sasha’s violently shaking him, desperately trying to help Anton as he hacks the water out of his lungs. He helps him float to the shore, helps him sit up against the rocks, and lies next to him. The sunset is beautiful. They’re both terrified to speak.
“I’m sorry, Antosha. I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s,” – Anton’s voice is hoarse from all the coughing – “It’s fine, just give me more warning next time you fucking dunk me, Sasha…”
There’s a beat of silence. Neither of them know what to say.
“Next time I’ll be diving three feet deep into something… else…?”
He says it like it’s a question, Anton gives him the most confused look in the world, and they both burst out laughing.
“Ok, seriously, let me see your hand.” He doesn’t let Sashka protest, grabbing him by the wrist and pouring his spare bottle of water over it. For good measure, he wraps a uniform tie around it. Sasha looks away and grits his teeth the entire time, but his hand lingers in Anton’s even after the wound is cleaned up.
The last of the light is soft against Sashka’s face. He looks pale in the night.
“I wasn’t… helping a cat cross the road. Or whatever bullshit I told you that evening.”
“No shit.” Anton clears his throat once he sees the look on his friend’s face. “Uh… I mean. What was it?”
“Glass.”
“Why were you holding glass?”
“Something… important to me. It fell off a shelf and broke. I didn’t want to let go of it, just… sweep it up and throw it out like it was nothing…” He chews on a lip ring, looking away. “But you helped me forget, Antosha. Thank you.”
That’s all he needs to say. Sasha cries into his chest, like Anton’s hold has finally broken some old, weathered dam Sasha’s still clinging to. He’s never seen his friend cry, and it’s selfish, but he can’t help being glad that he’s the one to hold him. He doesn’t know how long they stay like that. He wishes it was forever.
They return to the lake a week later. Something about swimming with Sasha makes him feel like a kid again. He has a hunch that Sasha feels the same.
For the rest of the summer, Sashka’s hands are properly bandaged.
And the flower chooses, as its home, the last warm embrace.
Sasha was never a world class poet. He was a teenage boy with nothing and (almost) no one and too many thoughts that needed silencing. Still, it’s Tosha’s favorite poem. Even if he can only remember one line, and even if it’ll probably never make sense to him.
Their last day had been just like any other. Sasha hadn’t been acting any different. In fact, he seemed just a little more upbeat than usual, although Anton doesn’t know how much of the memory is idealized and how much is truth. He doesn’t remember what Sasha was talking about that day, but it was obnoxious enough to catch the teacher’s ire, like he always did. And he’d challenged Anton to another game of tic-tac-toe. Sasha always beats him. God, he’s gonna train at tic-tac-toe until his fingers are numb, so that when he finds Sasha–
And then they walked home together, planning their next hangout over fall break. And then Anton saw him between the houses, enveloped by the light of the sunset, and he’s still not sure if it’d only been his imagination. He hopes it was. The thought that Sasha wanted to see him one last time – it makes his head pound, and it pisses him off. If Sasha really wanted to see him, he wouldn’t have –
And then he called Sasha to complain about his grades. His grades, of all things. To Sasha, whose mom is dead and whose dad is in jail on the other side of the country; to Sasha, who’s been through hell and back, who wants to go back, and he wonders if the Sasha he’d been speaking to had already been packing his clothes to leave. He remembers his voice being muffled over the call, more so than usual. Or he doesn’t, and he’s reaching. Trying to make sense of everything.
He’s always had a shitty memory. It’s why he did so bad on all of those physics tests, and now, on his chemistry tests. He’s afraid the same thing will happen with Sasha. He knows Sasha doesn’t want a quiet death, wasting away in the depths of Anton’s mind. Sasha doesn’t want a quiet death. That won’t happen.
He’s glad Sasha called him before he left. He wishes he’d said more. He lies awake at night, wondering if anything he could’ve said would’ve convinced Sasha to stay. Or to take his fucking phone with him, at least. His shitty iPhone 10, screen cracked to hell. If he could, he’d cut his palms on the glass just to make Sashka clean the wounds for him. Because he hates him. Because he misses the way his hands felt in his.
He’s made new friends, ever since Sasha disappeared. He’s gotten closer to the old ones. He’s gotten braver, and he finally feels some sense of purpose, even if he’s more miserable than he’s ever been in his life. Sasha might’ve been proud of him if he knew. Sasha has that kind of cruelty in him, he’s learned. He hates Sasha. He feels nauseous.
Sashka Sobakin is annoying. He’s confusing. He makes Anton feel nervous. His hair is never neat, his piercings are botched, his music taste is awful, and he gave Anton the happiest year of his life. On the first week of November, Anton visits that old playground. His hands are freezing.
His own breath isn’t enough to warm them.