### CHAPTER 7 - ROOMMATES
Roman Callahan stands in my doorway with his hockey bag over his shoulder and a look on his face like someone just told him his dog died, and he doesn't knock because he already has a key card that works.
"Well," he says, and his eyes go straight to me sitting on my bed. "Princess. Looks like we're roommates."
I don't move. I can't. I'm sitting on the edge of the mattress with my guards still on my skates and my left ankle still wrapped in tape that's gone sweaty and loose, and my phone is in my hand with the text from Alina still glowing on the screen, *He's moving in today. His name is Roman Callahan*, and my brain just keeps reading it over and over like if I read it enough times the words will rearrange themselves into something else.
No.
"This is a mistake," I say, and my English falls apart the way it always does when I'm scared, too fast and too thick. "This is mistake."
Roman drops his bag on the floor and it lands so hard the whole desk shakes and his sticks clatter against the wall. "Tell me about it," he mutters.
He walks in like he already owns the place, and in a way he does because he's been here three years and I've been here three hours and everyone in this building probably knows his name. He looks at my side first, at the bed I spent twenty minutes making perfect, at the duffel bag I tied shut with a shoelace because the zipper is dead, at Lev's little red car sitting on the desk next to the Korovka candy I hid under my pillow, and then he looks at his side, at the empty bed and the empty desk and the empty closet waiting for him.
"Which side you want?" he asks, and he doesn't even look at me when he says it, like it doesn't matter what I answer.
"I'm already here," I tell him, and my voice sounds smaller than I want it to.
"Cool," he says, and he throws his massive hockey bag onto the bed by the window like he's claiming territory. "I'll take this one. Window's better."
He starts unpacking right away, no asking, no is this okay, he just moves in and takes up space the way big guys do without thinking about it. He pulls out jerseys and hoodies and throws them in the closet, he sets up a PlayStation on his desk and plugs it in, he pulls a mini fridge out of his bag and plugs that in too without asking if I mind the noise, and then he tapes a photo to the wall above his desk, him and three other guys all in blue and white hockey gear, all holding up a big silver trophy, all smiling like they own the entire world.
I just sit and watch him, and my whole body wants to do what it's been trained to do since I was seven years old, shoulders back and chin down and mouth shut, make yourself small and maybe they won't hit you.
Not here. Not anymore. Not with him.
"You can't stay here," I say, and the words come out louder than I planned.
Roman stops with a hoodie half out of his bag and turns his head slowly. "Excuse me?"
"This is my room," I say, and I force myself to look up at him even though my neck hurts from it. "Private. Scholarship says private."
He laughs once, not a real laugh, just a short sharp sound. "Yeah, well, scholarship also says they overbooked athlete housing and hockey brings in money and figure skating doesn't, so guess what, princess. You get a roommate."
Princess. Again. Same word Papa used when he was drunk, same word Kirill used before he pushed me into the boards.
"Don't call me that," I say, and my hands curl into fists on top of my knees.
He raises one eyebrow like he's amused by me. "What, princess?"
"Don't."
He takes a step closer and he's so big up close, six three and probably two hundred pounds of muscle, and I'm five ten and maybe one sixty soaking wet, and he could pick me up with one hand if he wanted to.
"Or what?" he asks, and he doesn't yell, he goes quiet, which is somehow worse. "You gonna tell Coach Dubois? You gonna cry to the office?"
I stand up and my left ankle screams the second I put weight on it but I lock my knees so I don't wobble. "I'm going to ask you to not call me that."
He looks at me for a long second, his eyes moving over my face like he's trying to figure out if I'm serious, and then he smirks. "Fine. What do you want me to call you? Twinkle toes?"
My hands are shaking now, not from fear, from something hotter and newer, because I want to hit him and I've never wanted to hit anyone in my entire life. I don't. I know better. I turn around and I grab my skate bag off the floor and I go for the door.
"Where you going?" he calls after me.
"Out."
"It's six in the morning."
"Then you have the room to yourself," I say, and I slam the door behind me so hard it beeps red instead of green.
The hallway is empty and cold and I limp to the elevator and hit the down button and wait while my heart hammers so loud I can hear it in my ears. The doors open and I ride down to the lobby and I push outside into the dark.
It's minus ten and I don't have a coat on and the snow is falling soft and slow, and I sit down on the frozen metal bench in front of the Athletic Centre because I have nowhere else to go. My breath comes out in big white clouds and my phone is at twelve percent when I pull it out of my pocket.
Dima has already texted me: "YOU ALIVE? DID YOU SKATE? DID YOU MEET ANY HOT CANADIANS?"
I type back with fingers that are already going numb: "My roommate is Roman Callahan."
The three dots bounce for a second and then: "THE Roman Callahan? #18? NHL prospect? The one you said was an asshole yesterday?"
I write: "Yes."
He replies instantly: "OH MY GOD. THIS IS LIKE A MOVIE. ENEMIES TO LOVERS. YOU'RE GONNA FALL IN LOVE AND HAVE GAY HOCKEY BABIES."
I stare at the screen until my eyes blur. "I hate him," I type.
Dima sends back: "THAT'S HOW IT STARTS, BABY."
I put the phone away and I put my head in my hands and I let the cold bite my ears and my nose, and my ankle throbs inside the tape and my head throbs behind my eyes and everything just throbs. I sit there until the sky turns from black to grey and students start walking past me with coffees in their hands, staring at the weird Russian kid on the bench with no coat.
At eight o'clock my phone buzzes again and it's Alina Petrov from the office: "Viktor, I'm so sorry about the mix-up. We are working on a solution. It may take a few days. Please be patient with Roman. He's a good kid."
Good kid. Right.
I go back inside because my fingers are white, I go to the dining hall and get a banana and eat it so slow it takes twenty minutes, and at nine I have class, English for Academic Purposes in room 201, and I sit in the very back and the professor talks too fast for me to catch everything so I just write down words I don't know in my notebook and I never raise my hand.
At twelve I go to the Oval when I know no one will be there and I skate for an hour, no jumps, just edges and turns and brackets until my legs shake, just me and the ice and the sound of my blades.
At three I have to go back to the room because my passport is in my bag and Lev's car is on the desk and I can't leave them with him.
I open the door slow and it beeps green.
Roman is on his bed with his shirt off and his headphones on, playing some shooting game on his PlayStation. He doesn't even look up when I come in.
I go straight to my side. My bag is exactly where I left it. My skates are there. The red car is still on the desk. He didn't touch anything. Small miracles are still miracles.
I sit on my bed and take my shoes off and start wrapping my ankle in fresh tape, winding it tight.
"You're back," Roman says without looking at me, and he pulls one headphone off.
I don't answer him.
He pauses his game and turns his whole body toward me. "Look, man. I don't want this either. I had a single last year. They stuck me with you because the school needs your scholarship to look good for diversity or whatever. Nothing personal."
Nothing personal. He called me princess in front of his whole team. He called me twinkle toes. He told them all to laugh at me.
"Nothing personal," I repeat, and I keep my eyes on my ankle.
He sighs loud and runs a hand through his hair. "Listen. We don't have to be friends. We just have to not kill each other. I stay on my side, you stay on yours. I don't touch your stuff, you don't touch mine. I have practice late, you have practice early. We'll barely see each other."
"Fine," I say, because it's easier than fighting.
"Fine," he says back.
He puts his headphones back on and goes back to his game and the room fills up with gunshots and yelling.
I lie down on my back and stare at the ceiling and listen to him breathe and I think, this is my life now, four years, with him.
At six p.m. he gets up and pulls on his practice gear and throws his hockey bag over his shoulder. "Practice," he says to no one.
He leaves and the door closes and beeps red.
I breathe out and I didn't even realize I'd been holding my breath the whole time he was here.
I get up and I walk over to his side of the room, and I don't touch anything, I just look. There's the photo on the wall, him and his teammates with that trophy, all of them grinning like they know they're going to win everything. On his desk there's a notebook left open and I don't read it because I'm not that kind of person, not yet.
On his bed there's a hoodie, U of T Hockey, blue and white, and before I can stop myself I pick it up. It's heavy and still warm from his body and it smells like him, like deodorant and clean laundry and something underneath that I don't have a word for in English or Russian.
I drop it fast, like it burned my fingers.
I go back to my bed and sit down and pull out my phone.
Dima: "UPDATE? DID YOU KISS YET?"
I take a quick photo of the room, of Roman's side with the jerseys hanging and the PlayStation glowing, and I send it.
Dima replies instantly: "OH. HE'S HOT. YOU'RE SO DEAD."
I lock my phone and don't answer.
At ten p.m. the door opens and Roman comes in sweating, his hair wet and stuck to his forehead, his practice jersey stuck to his back. He drops his bag and it hits the floor hard enough to rattle my desk.
He looks at me and I look at him.
"Shower's free," he says, jerking his thumb toward the bathroom. "If you want it."
I don't move. I'm not giving him anything.
He shrugs and goes into the bathroom and I hear the water turn on and I hear him humming under his breath, completely off key.
I stare at the ceiling and I think about Saint Petersburg, about Mama at the sink washing dishes, about Anya and Lev doing their homework at the kitchen table, about Papa in the bedroom with the TV turned down low so no one knows he's home.
I think about the ice at six a.m. this morning, empty and white and all mine.
I think about Roman on the blue line calling me princess while his whole team laughed.
I think about the way he looked at me when I told him to fuck off, like he was seeing me for the first time.
The water shuts off and the bathroom door opens and steam rolls out, and Roman comes out in just basketball shorts with no shirt on and a towel around his neck, water still dripping down his chest and his stomach.
I look away so fast my neck cracks.
He sees it and he smirks. "You good, Orlov?"
"Fine," I say to the wall.
"Cool," he says, and he walks to his bed and flops down on his back with his phone in his hand, and he still doesn't put a shirt on.
I lie down and turn on my side to face the wall and pull the blanket all the way up to my chin.
His lamp clicks off. My light was never on.
"Night, princess," he says in the dark, and his voice is quiet, almost soft, not like this morning at all.
I don't answer. I close my eyes and I count to thirty twice.
I listen to him breathing across the room, slow and even, already asleep like he doesn't have a single worry in the world.
I'm awake for hours.
At 2:13 a.m. my phone lights up under my pillow with a text from a number with a Russian country code.
Mama: "Vitya, are you safe? Are you warm? Did you eat?"
I type back with hands that are shaking for no reason: "Yes. I'm safe. I'm warm. I ate. I love you."
She answers a minute later: "I love you more. Papa doesn't know. Don't worry. Win."
I put the phone down and I slip my hand into my hoodie pocket and I hold Lev's little red car so tight the edges dig into my palm.
Across the room, Roman rolls over in his sleep and his bed creaks loud in the quiet.
I close my eyes.
Tomorrow, six a.m., I skate.