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Chapter Eleven

Dimitri

I woke up in a bed that wasn’t mine.

For a split second, panic gripped me—tight and sudden, like the jaws of a trap snapping shut.

The ceiling above me was unfamiliar, lit gold by the first hints of morning.

My legs were tangled in sheets I didn’t recognize.

My chest tightened. Had I been found out?

Arrested? Killed and sent to some strange version of heaven with peeling wallpaper?

And then—

Arms. Warm, solid arms, wrapping tighter around my waist. A breath against the back of my neck—hot and slow. Petyr.

I smiled.

The relief came all at once, like the thaw after a bitter frost. I was safe. I was with him.

And for the first time in my entire life, I didn’t feel alone in my body. I felt… right.

I shut my eyes, not because I wanted to sleep, but because I wanted to remember this. How it felt to be held. How it felt to belong in a space where someone wanted me close—not out of duty or obligation, but want.

Then—soft lips against my neck. Barely a kiss, more like a promise.

He shifted behind me, rolled over quietly, and when I opened my eyes, he was facing me, finger pressed to his lips.

Shhh.

We sat up together, like conspirators in a fairy tale, moving in perfect silence.

The sheets whispered as we slid out from under them, the floor cool beneath our feet.

We pulled on our clothes piece by piece—shirts rumpled from sleep, pants that still smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and damp Leningrad air.

I couldn’t stop watching him. Every movement of his arms, every little stretch as he bent to pull his pants on… I wanted to reach out. Just one more minute. One more kiss. One more impossible morning.

But we couldn’t.

He’d said we had to be up early—and we were.

The sky outside was turning from indigo to peach.

I hadn’t slept for more than a few hours, but I didn’t feel tired.

I felt alive in a way I never had before.

Like my skin was new. Like I had cracked open in the night and something brighter had poured in.

Was this what they called love?

It was nothing like the stories, if I’m honest. My parents never spoke of love. They spoke of duty. Of patience. Of practical things—how many kilos of cabbage they needed, how many rubles for heating, how many days left until spring.

My mother loved me. I know she did. But it was a quiet love. Dutiful. Efficient.

What I felt now was nothing like that. It was messy and wild and sharp around the edges. It was a kind of freedom I hadn’t known I needed.

And it scared the hell out of me.

I glanced at Petyr as he yawned and stretched, the waistband of his trousers slipping just low enough to make my thoughts dangerous again. I wanted to pull him back down into that bed, wrap myself around him, and let the world disappear.

But I didn’t.

Instead, we crept out of the bedroom like thieves. The hallway was dim, a faint squeak coming from a radiator. I moved carefully, careful not to let my footsteps echo on the wood floors.

At the front door, we crouched to pull on our shoes. My laces were tangled, and I fumbled them twice before giving up and tucking them inside the sides of my boots. Petyr didn’t speak. Neither did I.

There were too many thoughts in my head.

Thoughts about art. About life. About who I really was, now that I’d tasted something other than fear. I felt like one of those statues you see in books—marble men with their arms cracked off—only now I had my arms back. My hands too, and my heart.

We descended the stairs slowly. Each creak of the old wood was a reminder that this world wasn’t built for people like us. We moved in silence, like shadows slipping out of a dream.

When we stepped outside, the cold took my breath away. But Petyr exhaled instead, long and slow, like he’d been holding it in all night.

Then he turned to me, eyes still soft with sleep.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “For the best night of my life.”

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even smile.

He paused, then added, “But remember, we can’t speak of it to anyone. As far as the world is concerned—including Vera—you didn’t spend the night.”

His words stung more than I expected. They weren’t cruel, but they were… final. Like waking from a dream you didn’t want to end.

I nodded—more of a shrug, really. A non-verbal agreement. My mouth couldn’t form words yet. I wasn’t ready to let it all evaporate just because morning had come.

But something twisted inside me, low and mean. A flicker of resentment I hadn’t anticipated.

Vera got to sleep beside him every night. Vera, who (I was sure) didn’t feel what I felt. But she got the days and nights with him, and I didn’t. The routines. The ordinary things.

I only got the miracles.

We walked side by side toward the tram stop, not touching, not speaking.

But inside, I was wide awake. Alive. In love, or something dangerously close to it.

And terrified of what came next.

* * *

The shift was nearly over, thank God.

My hands ached from threading yarn, and my back felt like it belonged to a man twice my age. The factory air was thick with wool dust and machine oil—same as always—but today it sat heavier on my chest, like guilt I hadn’t earned. Or maybe I had.

Across the floor, Petyr was bent over a loom, showing some greenhorn how to keep the threads aligned.

I watched him when I could. When the noise of the machines drowned out the static in my brain.

His sleeves were rolled up, exposing his forearms—strong, capable, familiar.

I wanted to be over there with him, laughing under our breath like we usually did.

But today, we were playing our parts. Petyr, the cheerful senior worker. Me, the quiet nobody at loom six.

The clatter of steel and wool was nearly overwhelming. I’d never realized how loud this place was until I had something—someone—to miss.

A few hours before the end of our shift, the door creaked open behind me and I felt, more than saw, someone walk onto the floor. I turned my head just enough to catch her out of the corner of my eye.

Vera.

She cut across the factory like she owned it, dodging carts and oil stains in those heeled boots of hers, coat cinched tight around her waist like she was off to the opera. And she didn’t even glance at me.

No, she went straight to Petyr.

Right in front of everyone, she stood on her toes and kissed him on the mouth. Not a quick peck either—long enough to make my stomach clench. Something ugly twisted inside me. A feeling I didn’t want to name.

But then, just for a heartbeat, I saw it.

Petyr flinched.

Not much. Just a subtle tension in his shoulders. A twitch in his mouth. A blink that lasted one beat too long.

Nobody else would’ve seen it. They weren’t looking the way I was. But I noticed.

He didn’t want that kiss. Not from her.

The twist in my stomach loosened. Not all the way, but enough to breathe again. Enough to keep me standing.

Vera turned, heels clicking against the concrete, and walked straight toward me. I turned back to my loom and tried to look busy.

She stopped beside me and leaned in close, voice syrupy and sweet.

“I hope you boys had fun last night,” she said, then gave me a little wink and walked away.

My heart stopped.

I stared at the loom, seeing nothing. Had she heard something? Seen us? Was she warning me? Or did she somehow already know?

She disappeared through the door like nothing had happened, and I was left standing in the din of machines, hands still, sweat prickling the back of my neck despite the chill.

Stolen moments. That’s all this was ever going to be. Guilt and silence and the space between things. Love wasn’t illegal, but ours was. Not because of any law—though there were plenty—but because of life. Because of what people expected us to be.

By the time the end-of-shift whistle screamed, I was half-numb. My boots echoed on the concrete as I stepped out into the icy twilight.

And parked just outside the gate was my father, sitting in his blue Lada Samara.

Petyr stood beside me, arms crossed, eyebrows lifted as if to say what the hell is this? I slowed down, my heartbeat tapping a warning in my ribs. The window rolled down, and there he was—my father, Ivan—stern as ever, expression unreadable.

I glanced at Petyr. “This is my father,” I murmured. “I guess he’s picking me up.”

Petyr nodded once, noncommittal. Said nothing. His eyes didn’t leave mine, though. Not even when Vera came striding toward us from the factory door.

I couldn’t do this right now. Whatever she knew, whatever she thought she knew, it would have to wait.

“Goodbye,” I muttered, and slipped into the car.

The door shut behind me with a solid thunk, and just like that, the world outside disappeared.

Inside the car, it was quiet. Warm. My father said nothing as he pulled away from the curb. Neither did I.

The car rumbled over a cracked patch of road, and I slouched lower in the passenger seat, body aching from the weight of little sleep and too many emotions.

My eyes burned, lids heavy. Petyr’s silhouette had disappeared in the rearview mirror the moment we turned the corner.

Vera had waved, but I couldn’t even look at her.

I didn’t trust the expression I’d wear if I did.

The silence inside the car was thick, almost cloying. I heard the click of my father’s jaw as he ground his teeth and heard the leather of his gloves creaking against the steering wheel. I shut my eyes, just for a second. Just to rest them.

The darkness behind my lids was strangely comforting. Safer. I let my mind drift. Not to Petyr, exactly, but to the way I’d felt in his arms. The warmth, and the certainty. The terrifying clarity of it all. I could’ve slept right there in his bed for a hundred years, as long as he stayed beside me.

Then I heard it, just under Papa’s breath. A low grumble. A curse, maybe. Or my name? I couldn’t tell.

The car slowed to a stop, brakes whining. I blinked back into the world and found we were sitting at a traffic light. My father’s hand reached out, rough and sudden, and clamped onto my forearm.

I turned to look at him.

His eyes didn’t meet mine, but his jaw clenched hard enough to crack a stone. Finally, he muttered through clenched teeth:

“Where the hell were you last night?”