Chapter 31: 28.

I don't know what the latest science is on the subject, but I believe in the possibility of being in two places at the same time. I would even dare say I'm an expert at it. I've been doing it my whole life—looking out bedroom windows, classroom windows, stained glass windows. My whole life, I've spent imagining being anywhere else but where I was. Imagining being anyone else but Ru Konstantin; son of Stefan Konstantin, sole heir to Ljerumlup.

I look back and I marvel at the things my childhood mind used to conjure up. When I was six, I got a phone call from my mother telling me I now had a younger brother. A healthy little baby, but she wasn't sure he was a baby just yet, because, you see, he looked more like a raisin. A raisin with my eyes and nose, she explained. Closer to Viktor's size than my own, but I wasn't to worry because he would grow up in no time and we would play together, right there, in my grandmother's living room in Rujga. I had yet to visit Rujga, but the way my mother described it made me believe it was paradise on earth.

- In Ljerumlup? I asked. Clammy hands gripping the receiver.

- Yes, of course, in Ljerumlup, too. All day, every day. The both of you chasing each other, biking and running, and causing all types of ruckus.

I latched on to her words, and for the first two years of Boris's existence they fuelled such naive notions as Boris and I being mistaken for each other, consequently switching places. Me living with my mother in Rujga and Boris stuck under my father's claw.

By the time I first saw Boris, lapped in layers of cotton, lying in his golden cot, those childhood fantasies of mine had dulled. Corroded by the realisation that there was no point in fantasizing about a life that was an urbanised version of my own. Indeed, my father would've been too thrilled with Boris Abramov, the grandson of an important diplomat, as his son, and I couldn't have it. Instead, I began dreaming of mud, of foul-mouthed Brommian boys tackling the Arash on the pitch as if their pride depended on it; of wilderness and freedom, and of all things my father detested.

I was fifteen and scarcely anything had changed. I was running, feet trampling blades of grass until the crunch of the underbrush, the rustle of my movements, blended with the roar of the wind. I could taste it, the pine and the dirt and the decaying leaves. My lungs hummed freedom chants. I craved no oxygen for I had become the wind itself, travelling at the speed of one tree crown bowing before the next. I'd become so good at existing in two places at the same time, were it not for my disgruntled reflection staring back at me from inside two layers of window panes, I would've forgone one for the other.

Anger tasted a lot like melancholy when intermingled with cigar smoke. I would've preferred just the anger, and judging from the way the smoke was making me dizzy, just normal cigarettes. But I couldn't cross the room. Not because of the shards of glass on the carpet—no, to rummage for the packet in my jacket, I would have to look at his shirt. It was inevitable, seeing as they both lay beside one another on the floor next to the dresser. I didn't want to be reminded of crystal-blue eyes and his voice, telling me I kissed like I was devouring shashlik. Something would shatter—something other than the vase, I was sure of it.

I settled for cutting my father's cigars to smithereens with his cigar cutter. Channelling every mafioso I'd seen depicted on the big screen, I pictured the cognac coloured tobacco rolls as my father's fingers. The anger that had made me steal his Latin American cigars from the glass display cabinet in his office; the same anger that had torn through my room, trashing the place, abated when I discovered the case's hidden compartment, holding the matches.

I opened the window, lit one up like Mr Benofs had taught me, and watched the flames greedily devour the stick. I dreamt myself away as I stared, hypnotised, at the forming and disappearing tendrils of smoke. In there, somewhere, was a life just a stone's throw away. Wilderness and freedom, calling from the evergreen-clad hills of Elhem beyond the window. And if I just dared, if I took a chance and dived, head first, without a neurotic bone in my body second-guessing and nitpicking, I could have it. Happiness was mine to claim beyond the twenty-meter tall barbwire fence of fear that separated me and that other reality.

I couldn't think of happiness without thinking of Yuri Karamov, and I couldn't think of Yuri Karamov without seeing Christ's cracked face in the deesis and my aunt's bony hand working the prayer rope; without recalling my father's cologne, and the peacock's many eyespots. I was a coward. I was a coward and Yuri was brave. I was shackled to Ljerumlup, to all I was and that which was expected of me whilst Yuri was free. I didn't know which of these statements made me angrier. And because I was a masochist, I thought of him. I picked at the scab, in the hope that the pain would lessen if I just prodded more. As if remembering his lips on mine enough times would inure me to the ache in my chest. It didn't. It made me wish the grass was drier, and the embers hot enough to ignite a forest fire.

I don't know for how long I stood leaning on the windowsill, watching the tobacco shrivel up and fall. Time felt viscous like honey. I had destroyed more cigars than remained in the case. The majority of which lay scattered, their insides gouged out, next to a handful of burnt matches beside my elbows. The pendulum of tumult was beginning to swing away from anger back into melancholy, and yet there wasn't a single remorseful bone in my body. I was gloating at the thought of my father finding his precious cigars gone, barely keeping back a smile, when a rap at the door interrupted my schadenfreude.

Eline wouldn't have knocked, and my father never came into my room. Petra was too impatient in her old age to stand by for an invitation. That left one person.

- Go away! I yelled as I put out the cigar on the ledge.

- Master? The usual sarcasm in Mjinska's niece's voice was overpowered by concern as she peaked her head through the door.

- Are you daft? Which part of go away don't you understand?

She stepped inside the room, her pigtails swinging from the force of her back shutting the heavy oak door.

- Have you been smoking? I couldn't believe her audacity to sniff the air and then grimace. She might look like a spitting image of Mjinska—who I was sure forced her into the same plain hairdo every morning before she sent her out—but she had none of her aunt's class. For one, the proper etiquette was to knock and wait for an invitation, not knock and then let yourself in.

- Get out.

She did the opposite, inching her way closer until a shard of glass crunched under her slipper. She looked down, then scanned the scope of the destruction on the carpet; her bemusement replaced by her only other expression—disdain. Her gaze landed on the windowsill, eyes going wide as she took in half a dozen or so destroyed cigars. I had no idea if she understood their significance, something about the way she went motionless indicated she did, but then again, perhaps not, because in the same second she smiled.

- I suppose you want me to clean that up as well? She asked.

- Let me guess, you had a row with your papa and you came here and decided...what? That the vase and the candelabras would look better on the floor? Oh, poor you-, her smile turned upside down in sardonic pity, - you know his kind doesn't cry over broken vases, right? If one breaks, he'll simply buy another. You have to go for what's in here, she said, pointing between her nonexistent breasts.

- I suggest you take a knife to that family heirloom hanging in the stairway-, she slashed the air, giving me an exact visual of how she would tear apart the rug, and said, - I saw how you were looking at it, don't tell me you don't want to.

- I wouldn't snitch if you did. Her mouth quirked upwards. - In fact, I could do it for you. I would gladly tear his disgustingly smug expression to pieces. Do you know what it feels like being greeted by my coloniser every time I walk up here; by the monster who single-handedly ousted my people from their land? I feel disgusted, and I wonder, Ru, how many people would let this house stand if they knew what I knew. If they had to repeatedly look at that rug and serve the very people—

There was something about her. Something ineffable in her mousy face that I wanted to burn down till nothing but black soot remained. She'd been honing her skill in wearing my patience thin. Her goading getting bolder and bolder over the months; her words falling in a sequence she'd learnt by trial-and-error was key to igniting my rage. For it was boiling rage I felt, and nothing short of it. I don't know if I sprinted or lept like I imagine a jaguar pouncing on its prey, but I crossed the distance and seized her by her braid.

She must have seen me approaching and decided to bolt for the door because I was pushing her against it, closing it with my weight pressing into her. I was tugging, pulling her head back. She was skin and bones and warmth under my body. Small enough that some part of my brain was fearful of my strength. Fearful of crushing her ribcage. She was laughing, shrieking like we were old acquaintances playing a murderous game of tag.

- You think you're funny? I seethed into her ear. - You think I won't have you sacked like Uncle Amet?

- Finally! Her voice was muffled against the door. Her constant wriggling to try to push my weight off didn't help much in terms of intelligibility, - I've been...trying...to get you to pin me down for weeks. How that feel, princeling?

She arched her back, pressing her arse up against my crotch, knowing I would jerk back. She took full advantage of her curveball, turning around to face me with a grin of distilled malice.

- You think you're tough because you've got bruises to show off. You're a child, a ba—Ah!

I grabbed a handful of hair closest to her scalp and pulled. The grimace etched on her face made her look a lot younger than her seventeen years on this earth. In a moment of misplaced sympathy, I eased my hold. She twisted out of my grasp, but instead of scrambling away like I expected her to, she pressed closer, taking hold of my hand and cupping it to her breast.

I pushed her away in the wrong direction. I wanted her out of my room, out of my sight, but in my hurry to snuff out the words forming over her triumphant expression, I grabbed her dress and pushed her in the direction of my bed. She fell to the floor, amidst shards of glass and golden candelabras; her cotton dress pooling around her. I saw maroon, and forest green, and fraying hems. I saw spots of yellow, and the red of her cut-off pyjama bottoms beneath her dress, and lastly—the detail that will always be imprinted on my mind—her teary-eyed glare.

- Your whole family is scum, she hissed, - but you...you belong in the lowest tier in hell. What? You don't think I've figured it out?

My heart stuttered. My confusion, my bewilderment, my fear must have shown on my face because without a prompt she said, - The Brommian. She said it like I was the one spewing nonsense.

- Who?

- Yuri Karamov.

It felt like I had been saying his name in my head all this time, like a mantra, a prayer; hearing it aloud in a female voice was an electric shock to the stomach. She knew. She'd plucked the truth from between my lips and was dangling it in front me, her expression dripping with self-satisfaction. Instead of fear, I felt a numbness akin to frostbite. I was touching my face, reassuring myself that my treasonous lips weren't parting, that my cheeks weren't reddening, that my head was still attached to my body when her voice slowly tuned in over the buzzing in my ears.

- You put on a tattered old shirt, and told him you worked for the folks here, didn't you? And the stupid country bumpkin he is, he believed you. You're sick. What kicks does your kind get out of—

A hiccup like laughter escaped my lips, interrupting her barrage. For a second I was convinced that I'd been sucked into that other reality that was so close to mind. How else could I explain the liquid venom in her voice? This Brommian girl knew nothing about me. She couldn't be accusing me of—no, she couldn't.

- What are you talking about? I asked.

She tried to make up for the flicker of uncertainty in her expression by enunciating her words. - The Brommian. Yuri Karamov. The reason he was here to return your shirt. The reason he looked excited. A Brommian, excite—

- Was he here? The arhythmic drumming in my chest started up again. Yuri had been here, at Ljerumlup. The thought would scarcely fit inside my head.

I needed her to confirm it. My whole body was strung so tightly, any second now, she'd speak up and I would spring apart like an elastic band. I was begging with my unwavering stare, with my careening heartbeat, with every shallow breath that died and reincarnated in our midst.

- Why did he have your shirt? There was an accusation there, in her words, which was slowly getting eroded by the long stretch of silence that ensued.

- Wait, she said, and it felt like the room sucked in a breath. She was no longer sure. She was asking, and in my head, it had become clear that the tables had turned. I had hurled her across the room and onto the carpet with brute force, and now, she wielded all the power.

- You can't be serious, are you—, are you really friends...with a Brommian?

I wanted her expression to stay frozen in bafflement. Bafflement I could handle. Her anger, on the other hand, was an active volcano; the threat of it enough to make my chest heavy with dread. I wanted to keep her calm and docile, to brush back the stray wisps of hair I'd pulled loose from her braid. I wanted to compliment her though there was nothing there to compliment; she was painstakingly plain, and it seemed especially cruel that my desperation should force me to kneel before her, but I did. I fell to my knees like a dying man making his last supplication.

- When was he here? I pleaded.

- So it's true?

I couldn't be sure what she saw on my face, but it made her scoff—equal parts disbelief and mirth.

- Why? He's nothing to you. You're Arash, you're—

- Of course, I'm Arash! I yelled. - Can I be anything else? I wasn't aware that there was an option. Let me ask you this, did God himself descend from the Heavens to ask you what you wanted to be when you were born? Because I didn't get that option. I'm in this skin, I said, tugging on my shirt, - and I will be for the rest of my life. I'm Arash. This is who I am.

It felt like I'd been having the same conversation over and over again; going around the same maze, running up against the same wall, it was exhausting. I was heartbroken.

- Please, I said. - Please don't do this, I've had enough.

- What's the meaning of it? I asked because I was young, and stubborn, and had something to prove.

- What's the point of all those nursery rhymes we sang about your brother being my brother, of all of us being a big family? What was all that about? When do we grow out of that and...and into this? I pointed between us, our animosity fresh in my mind. - Is it so strange that I love him? That I can love a human being different from me?

- They weren't made for us. What is it you Arash don't get? She asked, her voice crescendoing. - It's like you don't even see how shitty you treat us. Which is bullshit, you know exactly what you're doing. They made those nursery rhymes for you. She held a forefinger up to my chest and for all the strength she put behind it, she could've easily been wielding a knife instead.

- There isn't a single Brommian torn from his parents' arms and put in indoctrination who doesn't understand that. From the get-go, we're the ones to be feared, and we have to make ourselves smaller, because what if we dared? What if we took back everything you took from us? What would you be then? The answer taunted me from behind her smug mien. I wanted to refute her, but whatever words I'd assembled to do just that scrambled the second she started singing.

- My brother your brother, my sister your sister, this arable land—our mo-ther-land. Only it's not, is it, Ru? This castle isn't my castle. My siblings aren't your siblings because my siblings are sick. My whole family lives on rations from Food Aid. And I'm working when I should be in school; when I should be trying to get an education; when I should be trying to get out of this town before I'm arranged to a forty-year-old chuvak. So tell me again how my brother is your brother, how we're the same.

But I love him, I wanted to shout. Wasn't that enough? What did I have to do? What part of me did I have to sacrifice to mend all this trauma and pain and ethnic rivalry? If I knew it would make her happy parting with my possessions, I would gladly rid myself of it all. Take my house, take my name, take my skin. I don't want it. But the longer we kept staring at each other, the more I realised that to appease her—them, the Brommian—I would have to renounce ambition. I would have to be the exact antonym of everything my father wanted. I would have to veer off the course my life was heading and carve my own path. And with the same ardor I often fantasized about it, I was terrified of letting everything go. Who was I without all of this? I wouldn't be Arash, and I wouldn't be Brommian. I would be nobody, nobody's heir, nobody's son.

Uncertainty was a bottomless chute. I felt myself slipping, plunging. Moisture accumulated in the folds of my clenched palms. Tears brimmed on my eyelids, making the burgeoning pity on her face blurry. I hated her in that second, more than I'd hated anyone before. For the first time since stepping into my room, I glance at Yuri's shirt. If I reached into the back of my mind, I could still feel its weight. His scent. Everything about him at the moment of our parting. We weren't the same, he and I. We would never be.

- I put your shirt in the laundry basket, she said. - He told me it had blood on it.

Something like softness settled in her features. I told myself I must be imagining it through the tears. Nothing about her could be described as soft. Whatever she'd been through in life had hardened her. Had made her bark just as painful as her bite.

- It's going to hurt a lot more than this. Lover's love always does. And you might as well run towards the train instead of lying down and waiting for it to run you over because it's not going to get any less disastrous.

Lover's love, coming from her, should'vebeen laced with venom and disgust, but she looked almost nonchalant as she dried her palms on her dress. - So? Are you going to sulk in here all day like a child, or are you going to go to him?

When I said nothing, afraid that this was a trap to get me to admit the words that so desperately wanted to tumble out, she said, - Never mind then.

- I guess it's of no interest to you that he's waiting for you as we speak.

- Where? My response was immediate; its desperation bringing a sly smile to her lips.

- I don't know.

I froze, and it must have been apparent because she added, - he said you'd know. He said he'd be waiting and you'd know where.

My heart sputtered awake so fast it might have stopped beating altogether if, in the very next second, it hadn't launched me off the floor. Mjinska's niece was laughing in that exaggerated way that reminded me of old-school slapstick reruns.

- When? I asked, grabbing my jacket and his shirt. She lounged on the carpet, watching me.

- A while ago.

- How long ago? I was pulling the jacket on, hardly feeling the fabric's added weight. I bunched Yuri's pullover into a ball and forced it under my windbreaker.

- A while.

And then I was running. Flying down steps, hand trailing lacquered wood and iron. Spiralling. Spiralling. Spiralling. Footsteps echoing off wood and then stone and lastly nothing as I burst out the back door into the green vastness that surrounded Ljerumlup. It had started raining. Not much, but enough to shatter the hope levitating between my heart and brain. The wind was a physical force, tearing through the trees and patching together the bruised clouds into one unison mass that promised destruction.

I hesitated, and in that fraction of a second doubt seized my mind. It told me he wouldn't be there. It told me not to get my hopes up. He'd already left. I should head back home, to my room; my solitary confinement. I should find Eline and apologise because unlike Yuri, she was actually waiting for me. Didn't I know there was only heartache on the other side of the barbwire fence? I should be smart. I should stop acting on my whims and start looking out for my own interests.

But what if? The hopeless idealist in me countered. What if he was still there, at the Tree, waiting for me?

This time I sprinted, and not even the sonorous thunderclaps overhead could slow me down. I was the wind. I was the naked branches lashing at my body as I made a shortcut through the trees. I was Elhem; its decaying leaves, its hues of brown and orange, its absoluteness. My existence was bleak, momentaneous, compared to the song of blackbirds, the gushing of streams, the sounds of nature above me and around me. All of which at that moment felt like they would stretch on for all eternity. And if I were to draw my last breath right then and here, there was no doubt in my mind that I would be returning to my rightful place.

My grandfather, Mikhail Konstantin, once made a toast that my father loves to reuse. "God granted me four wishes and promised me one: land I can claim as mine, a spouse, children, wealth. And to one day perish in Elhem."

The surrounding forest was chanting to the staccato of my heartbeat. The trees roaring. Promising that if I were to fall, they would claim me as their own and make a worthy grave for me—all of their roots meshing beneath me into a single pulse point. I understood my grandfather, understood wanting to die where you were born. I knew no other place like I knew Elhem. This was my land. I wanted it to love me, to recognise that I was of its blood. I wanted the wind to stop lashing at my body, and the rain to stop pouring down. Arrogantly, I wanted to best nature, to possess it, and at the same time, for nature to yield to me. To show me mercy.

Of course, that never happened. The universe seemed to be mocking me with my insignificance when I stepped out into the glade and saw a lone pendulous birch swaying from the force of the wind. The rain was dripping down my face and I had to wipe it away with wet, cold hands before I peered through the downpour once more, knowing full well that what I saw was not some other reality that could simply be fantasized away. It was the reality; the one and only. And Yuri wasn't in it.

I could have stood frozen in place and let the dejection coursing through me turn me into a popsicle, or I could've turned around and trudged home with unshed tears washing back the disappointment lodged in my oesophagus. I did neither because there it was—the tree. The last of its yellowing leaves holding on for dear life as it shook and creaked. I had blocked out its existence for four arduous years, being back in its presence felt listening to your once favourite song. I remembered everything; every note, every word. And I could connect every single fleeting emotion flickering in and out of my chest to a face, a voice, and a pair of glinting blue eyes.

Without the protection of the trees, the rain trickled down the collar of my jacket, soaking me from the inside as well as the outside. I don't know why I didn't head back home. Why I insisted on tracing the etchings on the bark that Yuri and I had keyed there so many years ago. I would like to attach a greater design to the events than they probably merit. It would seem almost anticlimactic not to assert that we met through divine intervention.

I was thinking of departing, thinking of hanging his pullover on one of the branches, perhaps tying its sleeves together around the trunk, when a flash followed by a thunder split the malevolent sky. I swore I heard my name in its crackle.

- Kon-stan-tin!

Another thunder rolled overhead, making it impossible to discern where the voice was coming from. But I knew it was him. I spun around in the clearing, scouring the tree line for his emerging figure.

- Ru!

This time from my right, closer. I took off running towards his voice.

- Yuri!

I couldn't see him. I couldn't see him. I couldn't—

- Ru!

There, in an alcove of intertwined branches and side-by-side bushes waved a frantic figure. And I remembered this place, too. How could I've forgotten? It had been raining that day, and Yuri had said—what did he say?—something about his shoes. No, he hadn't been wearing a jacket. That's right. He'd insisted we wait out the downpour. It had been spring and the trees had been lusciously green, the yew bushes ripe with red berries, and I'd told him we could beat the rain, but he'd dragged me inside the makeshift alcove and we hadn't adjourned home until just before sunset.

Funny how on the outside seemingly nothing had changed. Yuri was waving me over with a grin on his face; one arm in the air, the other gripping his abdomen. I was waving back. My facial muscles contracting, my lips stretching into my first smile since leaving him that morning. We could've been eight and nine years old again. We could've been eleven and twelve. But we were fifteen and sixteen; he was Brommian and I was Arash. We had kissed. The rug was being yanked under my feet and I was reeling. Slipping. Floundering as I fought to grasp hold of an emotion which could anchor me. I was plunging into a pool of anxiety, into memories neither here nor there; heart jackhammering against my sternum. I was a mess. I was a mess. Iwasamess.

- Thank God, Yuri was saying, - thank God, I would've probably missed you and gone home. He was pulling me inside his little hide, hand on my windbreaker. Our jackets rustled as we came to stand shoulder to shoulder and then pec to shoulder. I was dripping, soaked through. Not an inch of me felt dry, but that wasn't saying much seeing as I'd lost feeling in more parts of my body than the cold could account for. And by the looks of it, Yuri had fared little better. Raindrops hung like crystals on a chandelier from the tip of his nose and his earlobe. His bomber jacket was darker at the shoulders, indicating he'd gotten rain on him, but not to the same extent as me.

- What's that? I asked, my attention stolen by a set of deformities bulging from his stomach, and his hand, hindering whatever he was hiding under there from falling out.

- Don't laugh, this was before I knew it would rain, he said, grinning. - It's persimmons and bread. Mama's flatbread.

- You think I'm stupid. His face fell in the most adorable way after seeing my expression, and I couldn't hold back the chuckle that surged out of me. It was the sound of welcome surprise and anxiety leaving in one graceful breath.

- No. I was shaking my head, digging under my jacket and pulling out his shirt. - I brought something too. Not as appetising, but it kept me warm.

- Keep it, he said, squatting so that he could better open the plastic bag. I mimicked, squatting next to him, surprising myself by admitting, - I'm starving. I hardly ate anything at lunch.

- That bad? His eyes danced with an intangible emotion. I didn't want to think it was pity. I didn't want to regret sharing that with him.

I took the persimmon from his outstretched arm, buying myself time by revelling in its details before I looked up at him again.

- I think he's going to send me away.

I bit the persimmon because there was no way I could force the words back. And there was no doubt that I would've. I would've bitten my fingers off had I not had the persimmon at hand. That was raw pity etched on his face. Wasn't it ironic that Yuri Karamov should have something I didn't? How would it have been to grow up with Krié as my father? Would the anger brewing inside me still be there? Would I have been as quick as I was to reach for it?

- Why did you come? I asked. - And just how long were you waiting?

- For you, you ungrateful vhinsk, I would've sat here the whole day. I knew you needed saving, and I knew you would'vebeen too scared of your father to eat anything-, he flashed me a grin, - so I brought food. We can make a picnic out of it. Just imagine it's not raining, okay?

Against my better judgement, I reciprocated his growing smile.

- What about the cold then?

- I have a solution to that, but something tells me you won't appreciate the answer.

There was something there beneath the mirth in his eyes. I wanted to look away. I couldn't for the same reason I couldn't uncurl my toes. I enjoyed it. I enjoy the nervous churning of my stomach; the arousal making itself known.

- Are you this idle all the time? You could've gotten yourself a girlfriend the time you spent preparing all this. I scuffed my boot against the ground, kicking up a few twigs with my tennis shoe. I did it to show I said it in jest, but, of course, it didn't come across that way. In retrospect, I wonder if some part of it was deliberate; if a part of me was goading after a response.

Yuri took a bite of his persimmon, and even before he opened his mouth, I knew I'd said the wrong thing.

- A girlfriend? He asked.

- Yes, you do want one, don't you? Or do you already—

- Is this your way of telling me to fuck off? Disbelief, and then louder, angrier, - What? Afraid I might kiss you again?

- What—No. It's just...it's just...You go out with girls all the time, you're not...you're not that way...you're not...homosexual.

I thought of Mjinska's niece and how she'd said lover's love. How poetic it seemed compared to that bare word; that clinical, scientific term. I wanted to express myself just as eloquently. But more ardently, I wanted to strip the uncertainty down to its core. Even at the cost of Yuri's hatred. For I was certain that if he hadn't hated me before, he did now.

He shifted so that our knees aligned.

- Why do you say it like that? He asked. - Are you saying that you're not? You kissed me. Not once, mind you, but like five times. And I kissed you back. It doesn't have to be more than that. We can pretend it never happened if that's what you want. But I can't promise I won't think about it. No, fuck that, I will think about it. I'll think about all the time because I liked it. I wanted it.

My heart clenched in my throat, choking me. - How can you...how can you be—

How could he be so open about it?

- What would you father say? Or your mother or...or-, I gesticulated wildly trying to assemble the words falling off my tongue into some sort of coherent pattern, - Millin? What would he say if he found out? What if...what if one day he wants to set you up with a girl? Are you going to go: No, I'd rather smooch Ru Konstantin? What about a wife? Don't you want children?

- What about you? He countered. - In fact, if I remember correctly, your first kiss was today, and it was a boy, so tell me Ru, tell me all about your plans to have a wife and children who can repopulate that empty castle of yours.

- I want that because I'm not homosexual.

- If that's what you think makes you not homosexual you're dumber than I thought. It doesn't work like that. It's not choosing the life with the wife and two children in it or choosing dishonour, it's choosing not to exist or choosing hell. And I don't know which one you'd choose, but I'd choose hell every day of the week. I'd choose to exist while also loving whoever my heart chooses to love, and if it happens to be a boy, then so be it.

- You're telling me you'll never marry? You'll never have children?

- I didn't say that.

- Do you even know what you're saying?

- I'm saying...I'm saying...for God's sake, Ru, I'm saying that it shouldn't matter if it's a girl or boy. Girls can be...they can be incredibly sexy, and their laughter can me you lightheaded, and their-, he held his cupped hands up to his chest, - can make you drop everything you're doing, and cross the street just to say hi. But boys. A boy. A single one. Can make your brain do somersaults. And although he sometimes—no, scratch that, almost every time—makes you want to strangle him with his own stupidity, one genuine, gap-tooth smile from him beats all the tits in Dronesk.

What he was saying bordered on ridiculous, but it was making me so, so light. I tried hard fighting the smile squirming its way past my defences, but he ended up seeing through it.

- See, you should smile more, he said.

- And kissing him is like opium, he continued, - even before the haze of it wears off you're already thinking of the next time you'll kiss.

- You're stupid.

- No, I'm just tired of talking. Why aren't we making out?

- Because...I don't know-, I was painfully aware of my heartbeat on every surface of my body, aching like a giant bruise, - I'm scared.

- Of what? He asked, looking around our small shelter. - We're in the middle of nowhere.

- It's difficult to say. It's just a feeling.

An insecurity.

- I think I'll regret this moment for the rest of my life if I don't kiss you, Ru.

I understood that. I understood it to my core. I wanted the same. I was clenching my hand so hard, I was afraid I might dislocate a joint. I wanted it so badly, so why wasn't I moving closer? Why wasn't he?

- Say you do get married—

He let out a theatrical sigh, his neck going slack, head lulling backwards with a pained look on his face. Undeterred, I forged on, - Say you do get married, will she be Brommian or Arash?

- Brommian, he responded, not missing a beat. My breath hitched. An involuntary bodily reflex that made me feel even more crestfallen than the situation merited. Didn't I know this already? I did. So why did it feel like a knife to the stomach?

And because I was a masochist, I just had to twist the knife deeper by adding, - Will she be a Flatlander? I couldn't look at him this time around. My eyes landed on a branch behind him; somewhere close enough where I could still see his face in my peripheral vision, but far enough where I couldn't read his expression.

- Why are you asking this?

- So I can make sure I have absolutely no chance with you.

My bare honesty floored him.

- So that I can crush the fantasy of there ever being a reality in which it's just us, you and I, in like Rujga, or perhaps somewhere altogether outside this country. Somewhere like...Prague or Krakow or London.

- But no-, I cut off before he could get a word in, - that can never be because I'm me and you're Yuri Karamov. You'll finish high school and marry a nice, Brommian girl from the flatlands. One who's devout and modest, and who prays five times a day. And then you'll build yourselves a home once you've brushed up on those building skills handed down from your father. Then you'll take a job at his firm and live happily ever after. And I'm...I'm going to-, dissolve I wanted to say, dissolve from your life and everything tied to it, but instead, I picked up my tone, making it even more chipper, - be my father's son, Ru Konstantin; a boarding school educated, finance man. I might move away from Dronesk altogether, settle down with a wife in...Moscow or something. I honestly don't care wherever's the farthest distance from my father that's where I'll go.

The thing about human speech, the thing that makes it so unique; it's many tonalities and patterns, also leaves it open to many different interpretations. Sometimes the most obvious ones only reveal themselves once they've marinated in the silence. What I said wasn't supposed to be complicated. It wasn't supposed to be what it became in the quiet—me tallying my privilege and throwing it back in his face. I saw my words drain the amusement from his expression as he digested what I'd said.

- It must be nice to have it all figured out. Do you know what she'll look like, this imaginary wife of yours? Will Papa have picked her out or will it be your own choosing?

- What do you think?

- I think you're a coward. If you don't feel the same way, just tell me. If you're disgusted by me, tell me...if you're...I don't know, just say it! Say what you're not saying. Why are you making this up? We're not in the future. We're here. I'm here, right now.

- Yeah, but one day you won't be, and I'll...I'll be alone again. And-And it will hurt more than never knowing. You don't understand. I...I have you, and that's it, but you, you have all these girls swarming around you all the time. And one day, you'll realise that what we're doing is wrong, that you have obligations and duties, and you'll just leave. For a girl. For a Brommian girl.

- I could be with a million girls and I would still be wishing I was with you instead. I don't think you understand, Ru. I'm terrified. I don't just like you. I want to crack myself open-, his hand cut a vertical line through the air, - and gouge my insides out until all that's left is a shell, and I want to fill it with you. Your body-, he put his persimmon down, and brought his other hand up to his first and pressed them together, - enveloped by mine—always with me everywhere I go. I've never felt this feverish before like I'm going to throw up, but also fly, but also faint.

He dragged his hands across his reddening face, hiding his agony, his despair, his want from my probing gaze. He made me acutely aware of my fifteen years on this earth. My lack of finesse. How could all of that have come out of his mouth without a single stutter? How did he manage to look so hot and graceful in the aftermath? I had words, so many words, bouncing against the roof of my mouth, wanting out, yet they never would because I didn't possess an ounce of what he had. And I would rather be buried alive than have him laugh at my mumbling, stumbling confession. So, instead, I reached for his hands, prying them off his face.

- Come with me, I said, looking into his ocean eyes. - Let's get out of Dronesk. Just us. We'll take the train to Rujga. Out there we can be whoever we want. Do whatever we want.

He held my gaze. His was so fragile, like a house of cards waiting for the gust that would undo it. I brought his hand to my lips and pressed it there. Skin against skin. I kissed the space between his knuckles and wrist, feeling his skin glide over his bones. His wriggled free of my constraint and started tracing my lips while I fought time to kiss his still sticky fingers before they slid out of reach.

- Who would you be? He asked.

- Yours.

Something in his expression cracked. He was pulling away even before he physically pulled away.

- And who would I be...out there?

I refused to let go of his hand, pleading with my eyes. He wanted out of my grasp. I didn't stand a chance, yet I fought to keep it there until the very second his hand slipped out of mine. I could've reached for it. I knew I could've. It was resting on his knee, no more than ten centimeters away, but it felt oceans away. It felt like we were tectonic plates and the cold gust that found its way between us, an earthquake  that was moving us apart.

- Yuri—

- You have a mother and grandparents over there, he said, interrupting my plea, - I have no one. My family's here, and I can't leave them. I can't leave Dronesk.

- You—

- No, listen,- his voice was louder, resolute, - You don't understand. You can go anywhere in this country—anywhere in the world if you choose to. I can't.

- Yes, you can. You can be anyone you want. You can—

- What's wrong with being this? What's so wrong about wanting this life. I don't want to be some...some wide-eyed bird, gawking at everything in the big city. Or worse! A city pigeon—fat and complacent. I want this right here. I want to fight for this life. I want to own land in Elhem, a small house next door to mine. I want peace and serenity, and I want Mama's cooking. I want to buy Eid attire with my sisters, and to skip school to sleep in because I've been dancing in some god-awful, pissy, hole-in-the-wall discotheque in the East Villages and I can't be bothered with school and all that. I want the simple life, right here. There's nothing for me out there.

Rewind time. Please, rewind. Take me back. How many times have I wished that in retrospect? How many times have I replayed this scene in my head imagining myself crouching in the same position, looking at his distraught expression, only I'm not fifteen, I'm older and I'm wiser, and I'm asking the questions that keep me tossing and turning at night. Tell me more, I tell him. Who do you want to be? What exactly happened in those three years to change these aspirations? Did you get everything you wanted out of life? Where are you now?

If I had known this would be our last, real conversation, I would've listened closely to that word, the one the world would forever associate with the BKA. Kaklishié. Fight. He said he wanted to fight for this life, and he'd used the Brommin word. And I'd been too busy staring at his furrowing brow, at the hand I'd kissed moments ago, gesticulating, to notice that the clue was right there, in the fervour of his voice.

I should have asked right then; what do you mean kaklishié? I should have said; I want all of that and more for you. Let me fight alongside you. I should've said; I love you. I love you. I love you. IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou.

I said nothing.

- There's barely anything for me here, Yuri continued. - But this is where I was born. I've bled on this soil, bled for this land. He showed me his palm—the blood oath. Only it wasn't his left hand, it was his right, and this cut was even deeper—splitting his palm right down the middle.

- I can't leave. They want me—...you don't understand,- his hand fisted, - for so many people here, it's just one less Brommian. Good riddance. One less of them fuckers. I can't give them that satisfaction. I can't.

He meant me, of course. He never said Arash, but it might as well have been written on his forehead.

- You just wouldn't understand, he said, face deflating.

- No, I understand perfectly. Your people, that's what you wanted to say, right? They. Why are you suddenly so polite? Those Arash, those goddamn, awful Arash, isn't that what you wanted to say? Or do you perhaps mean the Bikjaru? Or is it just my family? I asked, voice rising, - because I've met more Brommian this week who hate me, for no other reason than I live in this valley, than I have my entire life.

He was this close to rolling his eyes. - You have no idea what it feels like to be hated, Ru, but I'll gladly lend you my shoes.

I jabbed him in his knee. - Take them off then. I jabbed him again, almost making him topple and land on his butt. He steadied himself, grabbing hold of my sleeve, and shoved me back as soon as he regained his balance.

- Really? He didn't sound convinced. - You sure?

- Yes. Give them to me.

- I don't think you're cut out for it.

A protest was just forming on my lips when he cut me off. - Come with me to Ghjéstan. His eyes twinkled and I unfroze, realising what I had just done. I'd walked straight into his trap.

- What? No, I...I-I-I, I stammered. I felt my cheeks heating. It was preschool all over again, and Yuri's gloating might as well have been a replica of my preschool peers' faces as they watched me try to come up with a lie on the spot.

- Yo...Yo-You can't? Is that it? He smirked. - And you were actually boasting just a second ago. Talking about "take off your shoes", "give them to me".

- Oh, shut up. You know I can't go there. My father will kill me. No, he'll skin me alive, and then send me to the strictest boarding school. Knowing him, he'd probably preserve it in a jar or something, or send it after me by post.

Yuri smiled, his canines showing. - Alright then, let me show you the flatlands. We'll start small and work our way up, okay? First off, Papa Jirke's shop. He makes the most amazing sujuk. The best ones you'll ever taste, I swear on my life. Then I'll get you so high on tatmush—that's concentrated grape juice, for you, you uncultured vhinsk-, he was smiling, so wide, and I was staring at him, transfixed, barely registering what he was saying because he was so damn beautiful, - you won't be able to tell your right from your left, and then I'll take you on a ride through the fields-, he paused, looking me dead in the eye, - on Karim's horse. I bet you've never sat on a horse before, have you?

I shook my head.

For that smile on his face, I would've walked to the world's end and back. I wanted it liquidised and injected straight into my vein. I was lightheaded from just reciprocating it—imagine the havoc once inside my body. My heart wouldn't be able to bear it. It could scarcely function as it was. It had become a fist, a clenching tightness, growing tighter and tighter by the second.

He took my hand, and I let him.

- I'll take you dancing, he said, turning my hand palm-side up, - and I'll photograph you. He pulled it closer while lowering his head. - And I'll kiss you. I'll kiss you so hard you won't know which lips are yours and which are mine.

And he did kiss me. Barely. His lips graze the center of my palm where all my palm lines intersected. And for whatever reason, it was the single most arousing thing I'd ever experienced.

His eyes were amalgams of cobalt and copper when he asked, - Do you want to take an oath on it? His eyes said everything his mouth was too shy to. I was nodding before I knew it. My whole body an exclamation point. And Yuri was laughing. He laughed against my palm, his breath hot, and sweet and—

We never did cut on it. I wonder if it would have changed anything. If any of those things we had talked about would have come true if my blood had merged with Elhem that afternoon. Like ink on paper. Something solid. A scar to prove that what he said was not all in my head. It used to keep me awake all night. I'd lie there, staring at the wooden slats in the bunk bed above mine at Dankovsky University Preparatory School, and wonder how I could know if he'd said all those things when they only existed in my head. I would replay the events over and over again, always forgetting a detail that would come to me at a later time, and I would ask myself if it was a real fragment or something my brain had conjured up. If I was feeling particularly desolate, my mind would venture into the dark corners of my psyche, turning on itself by asking; what if I'd conjured up everything? Not only what Yuri had said and when he'd said it, but his existence altogether. Our existence. Dronesk's existence. What if I was a particle, drifting in space, looking down at planet earth, and just directing everything from up there, like a film? What if, in fact, I was still a child, looking out my bedroom window, and this was all a momentaneous fantasy?

Only when I'd reach a hundred percent certainty of my death, would the anxiety attack, release its hold on my windpipe. My heart rate would decelerate, and I would take long shuddering breaths, listening to my wheezing chest to a background of muted snores in a room full of boys, all my age, all Arash, all longing to return home.