“Timo,” I call out, loud enough that he spins around.
Items clatter beside his lean, athletic frame, but he manages to crawl out. Sweating, he shoves the longer strands of his dark, disheveled hair out of his charismatic face. He’s only a year and a half younger than me, but I’m an inch taller.
His gray eyes glimmer like a thousand-watt bulb, and he smiles an incredibly contagious smile. To the point where I almost forget that I’m supposed to be irritated.
Timo pops an earbud out, an upbeat song blaring through the tiny speaker. “Hey, Luk.” Then he unplugs the cord, music booming through his phone. Timo swings his head heavier to the rhythm and shifts his body with the harmony, goading me to join his dance.
My body craves soulful rhythms like an animal craves an endless field to sprint. To run.
For me, it’s unnatural not to dance. I don’t know how, and it takes effort to force my body still and not move to the beat.
Timo must see that something’s off with me, so he lowers the volume of his music. His black cross earring sways, and he pockets his phone in his cut-off shorts. Wearing a leather jacket, no shirt beneath—Timo is the kind of guy you wish you knew. Intriguing. Captivating.
I’m the shadow to his ceaseless light.
(Don’t pity me.) I’m grateful to be anything next to Timo. Even a shadow. That’s how much I love him.
I nod to the garbage. “Dude, what the hell is that?”
Timo eyes me weirdly. “Trash…?” His mouth falls. “Are you glaring at me?” He rocks backwards, surprised.
“You can’t just throw away my shit without asking.” My knuckles whiten as I grip the door frame harder.
Timo touches his chest. “I’m doing both of us a favor. Didn’t you read AE’s email—no, scratch that, you probably skimmed it. Which is why you’re not panicked.” He tosses the garbage bag past me. Glass clinks, the trash thudding by my bed.
“What do you mean?” I don’t scroll through my emails for proof. I trust Timo to tell me the news.
He raises his brows. “We have to move by five p.m. or else they’ll fine us a grand.”
“Fuck,” I groan.
“We’re way past fuck, brother. Aerial Ethereal isn’t playing games with this one.” He strolls past me and effortlessly hoists himself on my dresser.
I spin around, unable to detach from the closet door. On the floor, Katya refolds my clothes and places them more gently in the boxes.
Our salaries aren’t that great, but none of us perform for the money. We do it for the art and to be close to our family.
And because I literally don’t know how to do anything else. I was raised for this. Only this.
Timo catches my gaze. “You could give me a hundred bucks and I’ll turn it into a grand downstairs. Buy us extra time.”
“No,” I decline fast. He could easily spend all day at the casino tables and slots, and while he does win a lot, he loses too. I haven’t given him cash to gamble in about a year.
“Kat?” Timo asks, pouting his bottom lip.
“I can’t afford to share my money anymore,” she says, her words sounding rehearsed.
Timo and I exchange a confused look.
I prod first. “Why not?”
“I’m saving up.” She avoids our intrusive gazes by refolding my shirt. “It’s private, so don’t ask what for.”
“Ouch.” Timo wears mock hurt, but more than a fraction of that is actually real.
I thought we were closer than that, I want to say, but I’m harboring a secret bigger than either of them have ever imagined or considered.
It involves a girl.
I nearly shut my eyes and yell at myself, don’t think about her. Don’t fucking think about her.
So I stay quiet in terms of Katya’s declaration. She fills the tense silence. “I’m sixteen,” she tells us like we’ve forgotten. “I’m a woman.”
“No shit,” Timo says.
I’m not catching on either.
Katya sighs. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Okay,” I say, really baffled. In our profession and our family, the ratio of men to women is severely off balance. I’m not great at math, but it’s pretty much all male around here. Sometimes I really don’t understand my little sister’s female needs.
I unfasten myself from the closet and snatch my Knicks hat from a box, fitting it on backwards. My younger siblings watch me take a seat on my bare mattress.
“What’s left to pack?” I ask Timo.
“Your closet, mostly.” He holds my gaze, a thousand uncomfortable words passing silently between us. I hate each one because they’re all about the shit stuffed in my closet. “You know—”
“Don’t say it,” I cut him off.
He tilts his head. “I was just going to tell you that I rolled all of your Broadway posters into tubes.”
(So I love watching sports, preferably pro-basketball, and Broadway. If anyone wants to laugh or call me a pussy, the exit is stage left.) Timo adds, “I even took better care of them than my film posters.”
“Yeah right,” I say casually. Where I thumbtacked my posters, Timo framed his favorite foreign language and classic films. La Belle et la Bête and The Red Shoes were preserved behind glass.
Timo gapes. “I glued the torn corner of Chicago for you—and you know how much I dislike that one.”
Katya starts singing “All That Jazz” off-key. She takes my side over his, and Timo clutches his heart firmer and drops off the dresser. Gasping for air.
“You’ve killed me, sister,” he chokes, pretending to die better than most people ever could or would.
My lips quirk.
It’s difficult being upset at them. For anything. He settles down when I push the trash bag with my sneaker. I feel the heat of their gazes.
Timo rolls onto his side. Propping his head up with his hand, he grabs a Santa Claus snow globe from the bag, the price sticker stuck to the bottom.
“Technically,” he begins—don’t say it. “These aren’t really your things.” He shakes the globe hard, and fake flurries swarm the glass.
My muscles cramp, and I just stare off. Most stores leave on price stickers, even if you buy the item. But I didn’t buy that.
I didn’t buy any of it.
Timo sits up and leans against the dresser, the globe limp in his hand. My brother and sister know that my room is full of useless, stolen shit.
I seize my brother’s knowing gaze again, and I speak through my own eyes: like you don’t have your own issues.
His reply: this isn’t about me.
Katya swings her head back and forth, realizing one of us is about to explode.
Look, over anyone else, we’ll usually vent to each other about a bad day’s work, grievances, personal bullshit. Because we’re certain that we won’t fucking blab.
We’re in a workplace where everyone knows everyone. Each Aerial Ethereal show employs around 50 to 100 performers tops, and rumors and gossip reach every single ear.
Katya couldn’t even keep her first period a secret. Our cousins (all male) sent her boxes of tampons and pads by the hour.
On top of that, I never attended a typical high school. Aerial Ethereal hires tutors for all minors in between practices and performances, but I bet the gossip here is about as bad as a locker-lined hallway or college campus.
Kat examines us one last time before standing. “I’ll go pack the last of your fridge.”
Our biggest fights start when two of us gang up on the other one, so Kat willingly pulls herself out of the confrontation.
I don’t like when she’s in the crossfires of anything.
Remember how I said there’s a shit ton of Kotovas? Well in our generation, Kat is the only Kotova girl by blood—which means she’s been protected and bubble-wrapped a thousand times over by all of us.
“What about your suite?” I ask as she reaches the door. Kat lives with our older brother, Nikolai, and since she’s still a minor, he’s her legal guardian.
He used to be all of ours, too.
“Already boxed and moved hours ago,” she says.
(Of course.)