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I can feel tears start to sting the back of my eyes, but I know if I cry, it’ll only make things worse.
“Can I go, please Papa? Babulya?” Dasha says.
“No.”
“But I want to celebrate my brother’s graduation.”
My eyes are full of tears, I can’t hold it back anymore.
Stef steps around his dad and puts his hand on my back. “Mr. Simakov, I’m sorry you feel the way you feel, but Alexei’s happy and you should be really proud of the man he’s turned into. I love him, and we’re gonna have a really good, happy life, and if you can’t accept that, then it’s your loss.” He takes my hand. “Come on Alexei, let's go and celebrate."
As he’s leading me away, my eyes meet Babushka’s and she holds her hand out to Dasha. “Come on Dasha, let’s go, Papa can go home and sulk alone if he wants.”
As we all walk away, I see Tolis trying to reason with Papa, but I know it won’t do any good.
Stef pulls me away from everyone, which isn’t easy as the lawns surrounding every campus building are full of graduates with their families, taking pictures, laughing, crying happy tears.
“Give us a second, we’ll catch you guys up.” He says.
He knows me so well. He knows I want to cry, but I’m scared to do it in front of my family.
He pulls me under the shade of a big oak tree and puts his arms around me while I let it out.
“I knew this was gonna happen, I’m so stupid. Why did I think this would work?”
“You’re not stupid.” he says, rubbing my back. “And hey, your grandma and your sister are coming.”
I nod against his shoulder before pulling away and wiping my face. Brushing his shoulder where I’ve soaked it with my tears. “I’m gonna ruin your suit.”
“It’ll dry, don’t worry. Are you okay?”
I nod. “At least I haven’t lost everyone.”
“Alexei,youhaven’t lost anyone. If your dad keeps being like this, thenhe’slostyou,okay?”
I nod, my eyes filling back up with tears. I take a step closer, but this time, instead of crying on his shoulder, I take his face in my hands and kiss him.
“I’m so lucky to have you.”
“Everyone in your life is lucky to have you too.”
When we find our families, Tolis has rejoined them, alone. He’s wearing this apologetic, sad look on his face when he looks at me. He puts his hand on the back of my neck – his protective dad thing he always does to Stef.
“He’ll come around.” He says.
I give him a sad smile. “Thank you for trying.”
“You’re family now, and you’ll always have us, no matter what, okay?”
I nod, choking back fresh tears. Though these ones aren’t sad tears. I can’t believe these people are being so nice to me. So automatically welcoming. I think about that first day at the restaurant. How Tolis saida friend of Stef’s is a friend of ours.
“Unless you hurt Stef, then I’ll have to kill you.”
I laugh. “Impossible, I’d rather die than hurt him.”
“Good.” Tolis gives my neck a little tap. “Let’s go eat, I’m starving!”
A heavy feeling sits on my chest as we take the subway into Queens. I think about Papa’s face. How he’d used that term, even though we don’t live in fucking Europe. It’s all the same to some people. The Western world. With it’s supposedly broken morals and lack of ethics.