### CHAPTER 22 - AFTER
The next morning is weird because Roman is up first, which has never happened once since September, since I'm usually the one tiptoeing around at six while he's still dead to the world with his mouth open and one arm hanging off the bed.
I wake up at 7:15 to the sound of his little coffee machine sputtering and hissing like it's angry at us, and he's already dressed for class in jeans and that faded U of T hoodie, his hair still wet from the shower and sticking up in the back. He doesn't say anything about last night, he just pours two mugs and adds a lot of milk and two sugars to one without asking, the way I like it, and hands it to me across the space between our beds so our fingers brush for half a second and the mug is warm in my cold hands.
"Morning," he says, casual, like he didn't turn a girl away at our door last night.
"Morning," I say back, and I take a sip because I don't know what else to do with my hands or my mouth.
We don't talk about Chloe, and nothing , and we don't talk about him opening the door for her to leave, we just drink coffee and pretend it's a normal Wednesday and the air in our tiny room isn't still thick with everything we didn't say. It's not normal, though, because he keeps glancing over at me when he thinks I'm looking at my phone, and I keep glancing over at him when I think he's looking at his laptop, and we do this three times until we both catch each other and look away fast like we've been caught stealing.
At the Oval, Maya is waiting for me by the boards before I even get my skates on, arms crossed and one eyebrow up with her pink skate guards still on, wearing her full detective face and her big sister face at the same time.
"Spill," she says before I even sit down to untie my shoes.
"Spill what?" I bend down and focus very hard on my laces so I don't have to look at her.
"Don't play dumb, Orlov. You made Roman Callahan turn down Chloe Miller, Chloe Miller who has literally been trying to get back with him since September, Chloe Miller who brought him homemade soup when he had the flu and then posted about it on her story for three days straight."
I lace my left skate too tight on purpose so my foot will hurt and I'll have something else to think about besides my face getting hot. "I didn't make him do anything."
"Mm-hmm," she says, unconvinced, leaning against the boards and watching me. "He just decided on his own, out of nowhere, to kick out a hot blonde who was already in his room for you, for the guy who wears the same hoodie three days in a row?"
"He had a midterm," I mumble to my skates.
"He doesn't have a midterm," she says, deadpan, because of course she knows. "I have Econ 101 with him, Viktor. I sit two rows behind him and watch him play 2048 the whole class. Our midterm is next Tuesday. He lied to her."
I stand up too fast and push onto the ice to get away from her and this conversation, and my blades wobble because I'm not ready. She follows, skating backward in front of me like it's effortless, like she's not even trying, and her voice gets softer, all the teasing gone out of it.
"Viktor," she says, and it's just Maya now, not the detective, "it's okay if you like him."
I almost fall, my toe pick catches on a rut in the ice and I have to grab the boards with both hands to catch myself, and my heart is hammering against my ribs so hard I'm sure she can hear it echoing off the ice. "I don't."
The lie tastes like metal on my tongue, like blood, like the old fillings in my back teeth.
She doesn't push, she just watches me for a second with eyes that are way too kind and way too knowing, then she shrugs and does a little turn that sprays ice at my shins. "Okay. But if you did," she says, casual, like she's talking about the weather or our program music, "it would be okay. Just so you know. It would be more than okay, actually. It would be about damn time."
We do our warm-up in silence after that because my head is too loud to talk anyway, too full of the way Roman said my name last night, *Viktor, don't,* not angry, just sure, like he wanted me there and that was the end of the discussion.
At lunch, Roman sits with us instead of with the hockey table, he just walks over with his tray and slides into the seat next to me like it's where he always sits, like he hasn't sat with his team every single day since September. Jamal raises both eyebrows at me over his burger in a slow, deliberate look that says *oh?* and I shrug and stare very hard at my fries like they're suddenly fascinating.
Roman acts completely normal, he steals three of my fries when I'm not looking and argues with Maya about who has the better spin, her or me, and loses on purpose just to annoy her, and complains about his professor who talks too fast, but every time his knee bumps mine under the table, which is a lot because the tables are small and his legs are long, he leaves it there a second longer than usual, not pressing, just resting, warm through our jeans, a quiet little point of contact that says I'm here. I don't move my leg away, and I think about moving it closer, then get scared and don't, but I don't move away either. Priya kicks me gently under the table, and when I look up she's smiling at me like she knows a secret I haven't told anyone yet.
After my last class I have therapy, and the office is warm and smells like the tea Dr. Amara always drinks, and the plant in the corner has a new leaf, bright green and curled and reaching for the window.
She asks about the party first and I tell her it was fine, and she nods like she knows I'm editing out all the important parts, then she says, "And how was Tuesday night, with the girl?" and I stare at her because I didn't tell her about the girl.
"Did Maya text you?" I ask, already knowing the answer.
She smiles, just a little, that small therapist smile that never feels condescending. "Maya cares about you. She wanted me to know you might have a lot on your mind this week. She didn't give details, she just said to check in."
I sigh and lean back in the chair and look at the ceiling tiles. "It was fine."
"How did it feel when she came in?" she asks, pen ready but not writing yet, just holding it.
"Like I should leave," I say, honest before I can stop myself, before I can make it sound better. "Like I was in the way. Like I always am."
"Why?" she asks, and it's not accusing, just curious.
"Because that's what I do," I say, and the words feel heavy and true in my mouth, heavier than I expected. "I leave so other people can have the room, so they don't have to deal with me. It's easier for everyone if I'm just not there."
She writes that down, slow. "And how did it feel when Roman asked you to stay, when he told you not to go?"
I think about it, about standing there with my backpack half on feeling stupid and small, about him opening the door for her and not for me, about the way he said *I'm not that guy anymore* like it was a promise. "Confusing," I say finally.
"Good confusing or bad confusing?" she asks, looking up from her notes.
I look at the plant again, at that new leaf reaching for the light even though it's in a corner. "I don't know. Both, maybe. It felt good that he wanted me there, and it felt scary too, like I'm not supposed to want that, like I'm going to get in trouble for wanting it."
She nods like that's the best answer I could have given, like I've just solved something. "You're allowed to not know, Viktor. You're allowed to sit in the confusing for a while. You don't have to figure it all out today or tomorrow or even next week."
On my way back to the dorm the air is cold and bites at my cheeks and makes my eyes water, and my phone buzzes in my pocket. Dima.
Dima: *mama told me papa watched your video again*
I stop in the middle of the sidewalk and people have to walk around me and a girl with a backpack almost hits me with her elbow and glares.
Me: *again?*
Dima: *yeah. the one maya posted from the party where you're dancing like an idiot. he didn't say anything but he didn't turn it off either. just watched the whole thing. mama said he sat at the kitchen table and watched it twice and then got up and went to work*
My thumb hovers over the keyboard and I don't know what I'm supposed to feel because it's not like he's suddenly proud, he's probably just looking for something to criticize, looking for proof that I'm failing over here too, but he watched it twice and he didn't turn it off and that has to mean something even if I don't know what.
Me: *ok*
Dima: *ok? that's it?*
Me: *what do you want me to say*
Three dots appear, then disappear, then appear again like he's typing and deleting.
Dima: *i want you to say you're coming home for christmas. mama wants you to come. i want you to come. lev keeps asking when his big brother is visiting and he's drawing you pictures*
I stare at the screen for a long time, long enough that my screen goes dark and I see my own face reflected back, tired and pale in the winter light, and I think about Mama's tiny kitchen at Christmas and the tree we always put up too early and the smell of her pirozhki and Lev's sticky hands, and I think about Papa sitting at that same table watching my video twice and not saying anything, and I think about having to make myself small again for two weeks straight, about holding my breath the whole time I'm home. I put the phone in my pocket without answering because I can't think about Christmas and I can't think about home, not right now, not when I'm just learning how to stay.
In the room, Roman is at his desk and he looks up when I come in, and his face does that quick scan it always does now, checking my eyes and my mouth and my shoulders to see if I'm okay.
"Hey," he says, closing his laptop halfway like whatever he was doing isn't important.
"Hey." I drop my bag by the door, harder than I mean to, and it thuds against the wall.
He stands up and walks over, and he doesn't touch me, he never just grabs me, he just stands close enough that I can smell his laundry detergent, that cedar clean smell that's starting to smell like home. "You okay? You look—"
"I'm fine," I say too fast and too loud and the lie cracks right in the middle.
He doesn't step back. "Viktor. Talk to me."
I want to, God I want to, I want to tell him about Chloe and about Maya saying it's okay if I like him and about Papa watching my video twice and not turning it off and about how my chest feels tight all the time now but not in a bad way, not in a panic way, in a full way, like there's too much feeling and not enough room in my ribs for all of it and it's going to spill out everywhere.
I can't. The words get stuck somewhere between my heart and my mouth like always, they jam up in my throat and sit there heavy and useless.
So I go to my desk instead and open the drawer, and it sticks then gives like it always does, and I take out the journal and sit on my bed with it cross-legged with my back against the cold wall. Roman sits on his bed too, watching me with his elbows on his knees, and he doesn't ask what I'm doing and he doesn't tell me to talk, he just waits, patient in a way nobody has ever been patient with me before, like he has all the time in the world.
I open to the page with all my words, my list, my proof that I'm here and that these things are real: *Safe. Roman. Mom. Maya. Papa. Party. Stayed. Chloe.* crossed out hard.
I take my pen and my hand is shaking a little and I write an eighth word underneath, in Russian this time because English feels too scary and too permanent and too loud, and if I write it in Russian it's just for me, it's a secret I can keep in my own language.
*нравится.*
Like. As in I like. As in I like him. As in I like him and I don't know what to do with that and it scares me and it feels good and I'm not ready to say it out loud yet, maybe not ever.
I stare at it, and the Cyrillic looks stark and dark against all the English above it, and then I close the journal fast before he can see and before I can change my mind and cross it out too, and I put it back in the drawer and push it shut with my knee and it bangs shut loud.
Roman is still watching, and his voice is quiet when he asks, "Five minutes?"
I nod because my throat is dry and I can't speak around the lump in it.
"Good," he says, and he lays back on his bed with his arm over his eyes to block the light from the hallway. "I'm right here, you know. If you want to talk, or not talk. Either one is fine with me, I'm not going anywhere."
I lay back too on my own bed across from his and stare at the ceiling at that water stain in the corner that looks like a country I've never been to, at the shadow of his bed and the shape of him under the blankets and the space between his mattress and mine. It used to feel like a border, like a line I wasn't supposed to cross, like the DMZ between two countries. Now it feels like something else, something that feels a lot like that green light Gatsby kept reaching for across the water in the book I don't even like, something hopeful and stupid and far away and maybe possible.
"I know," I whisper to the quiet room, to him, to myself.
We stay like that for a long time, not talking, just breathing in the same space and listening to the radiator hiss and the muffled music from the room next door with the bass thumping through the wall. At midnight the lights in the hallway turn off automatically with a soft click, and our room goes darker, just the glow from the emergency exit sign by our door painting everything green.
And for the first time since I got here, since I learned how to make myself invisible in every room I walked into, since I learned how to pack a bag in under thirty seconds, I don't feel like I have to leave the room to make space for someone else, I don't feel like I have to disappear to be loved or tolerated or safe.
I feel like I'm allowed to stay, right here, in this bed, in this room, with him breathing across from me, with my stupid list of words in the drawer and my heart beating too fast and all of it being okay.
I close my eyes and let myself stay.