I reach for the comb on the desk and pull it through my hair slowly. The sound is familiar and grounding. Routine is the one thing that makes all of this—the expectations, this watchfulness, this pretend-normality—just a little bit bearable.
To most people, my schedule is quite simple. Get to the university’s campus by eight, Political Theory lecture at 8:30, followed by Psychology at 10:00. Lunch alone at 11:00, or with Irene, depending on whether she’s out of class by then or not. Then it’s on to Accounting and Business Ethics at 1:00,heading to a meeting with my advisor about next term’s research proposal from 3:00 to 4:00, and then home by five.
After that, it’s dinner with my father if he’s around and if work hasn’t swallowed him whole again. Or if the television crews aren’t filming him touring the new facility he passed the budget bill for. Or if a scandal hasn’t erupted in the media, requiring an immediate press conference to reassure the city that the Morozovs are still the pillars of integrity in Moscow.
It’s all the same.
Day in and day out.
My phone buzzes where it sits on the nightstand with another reminder from my calendar. Eight minutes until I’m supposed to be in the shower. I ignore it and stand again, crossing to the wardrobe instead. Rows of blouses and pants and tailored coats greet me, all arranged by color like a boutique curated by someone who knows exactly what image I’m expected to present to the world.
My fingers trail lightly across the fabrics. Ivory. Dusty rose. Midnight blue. Neutral tones preapproved by image consultants and political advisors who have never stepped foot in this house yet claim to know me better than I know myself.
I finally pull out a soft cream sweater and a pair of dark high-waisted jeans. Casual but polished. Academic enough to not look out of place on campus and elegant enough to appease the invisible eyes that always seem to track me whenever I’m in public.
When I dress, the clothes slip on easily, like costumes worn too often to feel foreign anymore.
I glance once more at the ceiling, at the gold leaf my mother once ran her fingertips over with a smile, and feel something tug underneath my ribs.
Expectation, memory, a quiet grief that never fully settles.
Today will be like every other day, I tell myself, but the restless thing in my chest whispers otherwise. It stirs deeper now, stretching as if waking from a long slumber.
Routine is safe. Routine is predictable. Routine is what I’ve always relied on even when my mind and my body tell me otherwise.
Yet somewhere beneath that polished, curated calm I’ve seemed to embroil myself in, something is already shifting.
By the timeI reach campus, I already want to crawl out of my skin.
The car drops me off at the usual Gate C. It’s the least crowded area and the one my father prefers because it’s “safer”. Whatever that means.
The cold morning air bites at my cheeks as I sling my bag over my shoulder and join the flood of students pushing toward the main courtyard. Laughter echoes off the old stone walls, boots scrape over frost-bitten pavement, and somewhere close by, someone is loudly complaining about an 8 a.m. lab.
Normal sounds. Normal people. Normal life. All of it feels like a costume party where I’m the only one without a mask.
My phone buzzes in my hand before I even make it ten steps inside the gate. When I pull it out of my pocket and look at the screen, I nearly sigh.
Yuri, the head of my father’s security detail.
Of course.
Check in when you are ready to leave campus. Will have a car ready to take you to Yoga this afternoon. –Y
I stop walking long enough to stare at the message, my breath fogging in the cold air. There’s nothing inherently alarming about it. It’s routine and most of all expected. Another line in the script of my controlled, neatly compartmentalized existence to make me seem more relatable to the outside world.
Still, something inside me tightens.
I type back a single thumbs-up emoji. Anything more like words, or questions, or God forbid an opinion on hating going to a stuffy class like that after studying all day would invite a follow-up message I am not in the mood to deal with. Yuri is the type of man who can infer entire novels out of a single sentence. The emoji keeps everything flat and closed-off.
The rules are simple, anyway—one message every hour that I’m not under direct supervision. If I miss two check-ins in a row, the cavalry arrives.
Cavalry meaning six men in black coats, with guns hooked to their belts and earpieces glued to their ears while they scour the city like a private militia until they find me.
I’ve tested the limits exactly once my sophomore year of high school. A lifetime ago, even though it wasn’t. A group of friendsinvited me to see a movie after school. Something stupid and loud and full of CGI monsters that didn’t look at all interesting. But the simple fact that I’d been invited had made me want to go anyway.
My father had postponed dinner again for a “state matter”, which meant no one would notice if I slipped away for a few hours. For the first time in my life, I wanted to do something without permission, without a bodyguard breathing down my neck.
So I turned off my phone for three hours and seventeen minutes.
