Monday is officially a snow day. Campus is closed, the Oval is closed, even the dining hall is on limited hours and only serving soup and grilled cheese. The whole world is white and quiet outside our window.
Roman and I wake up late, which is easy to do when the room is filled with that soft gray snow light that makes everything look like early morning even at eleven. He's already awake when I finally roll over, scrolling his phone in bed with his hair sticking up on one side.
"Snowpocalypse," he says when he sees me move, his voice still sleepy. "We're officially trapped. National Guard might have to airlift us out."
"Good," I mumble into my pillow, because my body still feels heavy from the weekend. "I'm tired."
He laughs, quiet. "You're always tired, Orlov. It's your brand."
We stay in bed until noon, not sleeping, just existing in that lazy snow day way where time doesn't matter. We're on our phones side by side with the blankets pulled up to our chins, and he keeps showing me videos of hockey fights with titles like "TOP 10 DIRTIEST HITS" and narrating them like it's a nature documentary. I show him videos of Yuzuru Hanyu landings in slow motion, the way his blade barely kisses the ice. He pretends to be bored and rolls his eyes, but he watches all of them, every single one, and asks me to replay the quad loop twice.
At 1 p.m., someone bangs on our door so loud it rattles the frame.
"Open up, snow prisoners! I brought supplies for the survivors!" Maya yells from the hallway.
She comes in with a plastic bag full of chips, hot chocolate packets, and a beat-up board game with half the pieces missing, and Jamal and Priya are right behind her shaking snow off their boots. We push the beds together to make floor space and play on the rug in the middle, and it's loud and messy and warm. Jamal cheats openly and moves his piece extra spaces when he thinks no one's looking, Maya yells at him and calls him a menace to society, Priya wins anyway because she's the only one actually reading the cards.
At one point Roman gets up to go to the bathroom, and the second the door closes Maya leans over to me across the board, close enough that I can smell her shampoo.
"You two are disgustingly cute," she whispers, not unkind, just matter-of-fact.
"We're not—" I start automatically, the denial ready on my tongue.
"Shut up," she says, smiling, bumping my shoulder with hers. "Just let it happen, Viktor. Stop thinking so much and let it happen."
When Roman comes back he sits down so close our knees touch under the blanket we're sharing, and he doesn't move away, he just settles in and steals a handful of my chips like he lives here, which I guess he does. I don't move my knee either.
Later, everyone leaves in a flurry of coats and scarves and promises to come back tomorrow if we're still snowed in. It's just us again, and it's dark outside already at 4 p.m. because the snow clouds are so thick, the room glowing blue from the snow light coming through the window.
Roman makes hot chocolate in his little kettle, the one that always whistles too loud, and he burns his tongue on the first sip and curses, loud and dramatic. "Mother— it's hot!"
I laugh. Actually laugh, loud and real, from my stomach, the kind that makes my shoulders shake. It surprises me as much as it surprises him.
He looks at me, surprised, his mug halfway to his mouth. "There it is."
"What?" I ask, still smiling.
"Your real laugh," he says, soft. "Not the polite one you give coaches and teachers. The real one."
I feel my face get hot and I look down at my mug quickly so he can't see, but I'm still smiling into the hot chocolate.
We end up sitting on his bed because mine is still covered in board game pieces and cards and empty chip bags. We watch a movie on his laptop, some hockey documentary he's seen a million times about the 2010 playoffs. I don't really watch, I'm too aware of his arm next to mine, of the warmth coming off him, of the way our shoulders touch every time one of us shifts.
Halfway through, he pauses it. The sudden silence is loud.
"Can I ask you something?" he says, and he doesn't look at me, he looks at the paused screen.
My stomach tightens instantly, that old instinct to guard myself. "Okay."
He turns his head then, looks at me properly. "Why did you really leave Russia?"
I freeze. The safe answer is ready and practiced and sitting right on the tip of my tongue, I've said it a hundred times to coaches and teachers and immigration officers. *Coach. Opportunity. School. Better training.* Easy words that don't mean anything.
But it's snowing outside and it's quiet and he's looking at me like he actually wants the truth, and he turned down Chloe for me and he let me wear his shirt and he didn't push when I said my journal was private.
I give him a piece of the truth, not the whole thing, I can't do the whole thing yet, but a piece, a corner. "Because I wasn't safe there," I say, quiet, my voice barely louder than the radiator. "Not at home. Not at the rink. Not anywhere, really."
He nods like he understands, even though he can't, not really, because how could he. He just nods and doesn't look away. "Are you safe here?" he asks, and it's such a simple question but it feels huge.
I think about the journal in my drawer, about the words I've been collecting like stones to build something with. Safe. Roman. I think about this room, about his bed, about the way he always makes sure I have water at parties.
"Yeah," I say, and I'm surprised to find that I mean it. "I think so. Here, yeah."
He unpauses the movie and doesn't ask more, doesn't push for details or the rest of the story, he just lets me have the piece I gave him and leaves it at that. He just reaches over and bumps my shoulder with his, gentle.
At 10 p.m., I get ready for bed, brushing my teeth and changing into sweatpants. I open my drawer to put my phone charger away and the journal is there, right on top like it's waiting for me.
I take it out and sit on the edge of my bed. I open to the page, to my list that keeps getting longer.
*Safe.
Roman.
Mom.
Maya.
Papa.
Party.
Stayed.
Stay.
нравится.
Scared.
Happy.*
Under *Happy*, I write two more words in my messy handwriting, pressing the pen down hard so the ink is dark.
*Snow day.*
I close it and look over at Roman. He's already half asleep, laptop still open and balanced on his chest, the documentary still playing on mute. I walk over quietly, close his laptop, put it on his desk so it won't fall.
"Thanks," he mumbles, eyes still closed.
I get into my own bed and pull the blanket up to my chin. The room is dark except for the snow light.
"Roman?" I whisper into the quiet.
"Mm?" he answers, sleepy.
"Thanks for not asking more," I say, because I need him to know that I noticed, that it mattered.
He turns his head toward me in the dark, I can see the outline of his profile against the pillow. "Thanks for telling me what you did," he whispers back.
We fall asleep to the sound of snow hitting the window in soft little taps, and the radiator hissing, and each other breathing.
And in my drawer, the journal holds a whole list of words now, a list that is starting to look less like random words and more like a life, like my life, one word at a time.