FIFTEEN
Roman
I hear Vitali and Sasha’s voices as I approach my old room. The door is open, so I walk in. Their voices are coming from the closet.
“I feel like this could be my room,” Sasha says.
“I thought you might,” Vitali replies dryly. “This closet would finally give you room for the five shirts you own.”
“Excuse me, I own twelve shirts. Some of them just look the same. How many shirts doyouhave?”
Vitali snorts. “More than twelve. But maybe we could give this some time before you move your shit in here.”
“Well, yeah. I didn’t mean right now.”
I go to the closet doorway. “You should take it now,” I tell Sasha.
She startles, dropping the tie she was rolling up. “Good god, you can be surprisingly quiet.”
“Take the room. I don’t want it.”
She picks the tie up off the floor. “There’s no rush, Roman. I was just bullshitting.”
“I’d feel much better with someone else in here.” I force the admission out because if I don’t, she won’t take the room, and I want this space to stop feeling like it’s mine. I want to move on from it.
Sasha nods. “Okay. I get that. You hear that, boss?”
Vitali just grunts, watching me from the corner of his eye as he grabs a few hangers draped with jackets and transfers them to the cardboard wardrobe box.
Now that I’m noticing his avoidance, it really stands out to me. But it’s not just him. I avoid him like this too. Things are always a little tense, a little uncomfortable, enough so that Lucas noticed it. And yet, Vitali is in the middle of doing something for me. Like Lucas, he’s trying to help. He’s been trying to help all along.
And I need it.
I need help.
Vitali realizes that I’m trying to catch his eye. When he meets my gaze, I ask, “Can I talk to you?”
“Of course.”
Vitali edges around the boxes and follows me to the sliding glass door. I open it, and we step out onto the deck. I hover at the railing for a minute, lookingout over the lawn to the woods. It doesn’t feel right, so I head down the steps.
Vitali follows me, and I find that I’m okay with him being behind me. It makes me realize that I’m getting better, a little. But things are still so hard, and I’m making them hard for other people too. Lucas especially, but not just Lucas.
Vitali and I end up on the pool patio. It feels right. Nothing bad has ever happened here, and Lucas likes it. So do I. I like watching him in the water. He always looks so happy.
I keep my eyes fixed on the pool’s bright, still surface. I say, “Lucas wants me to, um …” I trail off then try again. “He thinks I should … see someone. Like a …”
I don’t know why I can’t say it. I don’t know why my face is hot. I didn’t get embarrassed when Lucas brought this up. I said no, but I wasn’t uncomfortable. But with Vitali …
“Like a therapist,” he fills in.
From the corner of my eye, I can see that his hands are in his pockets, but I don’t really look at him. “Yeah.”
Vitali takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I think that’s a really good idea.”
I frown because the idea doesn’t feel good to me. It feels weird. And weirdly scary.
“I don’t know what it would do,” I say. “It feels … fuck, I don’t know.” I walk away from Vitali. I stop at the edge of the pool.
