"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.
