Papa’s men were already waiting for us outside the theater when we finally left.
They didn’t drag me outside as I had imagined in my paranoid fantasies they would. They didn’t scold my friends or cause a scene. They simply approached with quiet disappointment, their expressions carved into polite severity as they said, “Miss Morozova, we should go,” and that was that.
I was escorted out to the car with barely any fanfare and packed away like a spoiled child finally coming down from a tantrum.
I thought I would be grounded when I got home, maybe even interrogated and have every bit of teenage independence I'd managed to scrape up ripped from my grip.
But Papa didn’t yell.
He simply told me, “Going out like that will get you shot, Alina. Or worse, taken right off the streets and used as blackmail against me. Is that what you want? You want the people of Moscow to mourn you like that? They see you as a daughter.” As if their feelings were more important than mine.
After that, I obeyed the rules because what other choice did I have?
I weave through the crowd now, clutching my bag strap tighter as I shove my phone back into my pocket and move past clusters of students. I envy them with a kind of muted ache. Freedom is such a normal thing when you’ve never gone without it.
I’m halfway up the Philosophy Building’s steps when Irene spots me.
“Alinochka!” she calls, waving dramatically as she jogs toward me, nearly spilling her coffee all over the steps. “Oh, my God, you look like death. Did you sleep at all?”
“I did a little bit, but I was up half the night doing prep for Friday’s exam,” I admit, adjusting the strap on my bag.
“Ugh, tell me about it. I’m already freaking out. I hate that it’s worth thirty percent of our grade.” She bumps her shoulder against mine affectionately, and I let myself smile.
Irene is one of the few people who can make this place feel less like a set piece in a political drama and more like a campus I actually belong to.
“Sooo… yoga at four?” she asks as we push through the double doors.
I nod. “Apparently.”
She snorts. “I’ve never seen someone look so glum about a workout routine.”
“It’s not like I have a choice.”
She gives me that look she’s perfected over the years, half sympathetic and half annoyed on my behalf. She opens hermouth to say something else, something probably bold and reckless because she can never help herself, but then she clamps it shut.
Because she knows.
Shealwaysknows.
There has always been an unspoken rule between us, an invisible line neither of us can cross for fear that my father and his men will separate us. Their watchful eyes are always over my shoulder, even when neither of us sees them. One wrong word and I’ll be pulled from this campus faster than either of us can blink.
That’s how it goes with the daughters of political figures—public image is more important than personal feelings. No matter how much I would scream and cry and beg for my father not to do something like that, I know he would in a heartbeat if he felt it would protect the career he’s spent my entire life building.
We climb the staircase toward the lecture hall and stop right at the Y-shaped hallways. She nudges me again, softer this time. “I’ll save you a seat at lunch?”
I nod. “Look forward to it. If you get there before me, grab me one of those grilled sandwiches before they sell out.”
She offers me a smile. “You got it.”
She disappears down the right-hand hall, her golden blonde ponytail swishing behind her like a metronome of effortless confidence. Irene never seems weighed down by the things that drown me. She breezes through life with a kind of boldness I envy and sometimes wish I could borrow for a singular day.
I sigh under my breath and shift the strap of my bag higher on my shoulder before heading left toward my own lecture.
When I step into the Econ lecture hall, the room is already half full. I spot a familiar face—Arin, the American exchange student who somehow manages to stand out even in a room full of polished, hyper-ambitious Muscovite elites.
He’s all sharp cheekbones and expensive cologne that definitely violates some university guideline on classroom distractions. His family tree roots itself in American oligarch money, his father rumored to own half of Manhattan and a concerning chunk of Cyprus. He’s charming when he wants to be and unbearable when he doesn’t.
He lifts two fingers in a lazy salute when he sees me.
