81 Luka's Birthday

Nazar Yartsev:

A week and a half of school had passed. We took the kids to school every morning, and afterward the two of us picked them up together, never forgetting to stop by some entertainment center, pizza place, or park along the way.

The kids had visibly filled out in the cheeks. Luka got some color back, and the dark circles under his eyes disappeared. The little guy had put on a bit of weight, and his pants no longer had to be tightened with a belt all the way to his spine. Masha’s cheeks had rounded out too. She was still a little pale, but those hollows beneath her cheekbones were gone, and that couldn’t help but make me happy.

As for school, Luka is absolutely loving it. Though calling what they do “studying” is a stretch so far. Mostly it’s games and educational activities, tracing little sticks and circles in notebooks, but the kid does everything diligently, and I really hope that enthusiasm sticks with him all the way to graduation.

Masha, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. She goes through sheer force of will, like she’s doing us the biggest favor in the world, and listens to lessons with zero interest. The only homework she bothers doing is languages and math. She mostly ignores the rest, insisting she’ll never need any of it.

But surprisingly, Anya steps in there. I have no clue where she gets the patience and endurance to deal with the kids’ homework. She sits there calmly and understandingly with Masha, helping her get through everything.

As for us, nothing’s changed. While the kids are at school, I head to my salon to deal with work, and Ann is left to herself.

The girl has no idea that I secretly installed an app on her phone that tracks her movements and hides in the settings. I’d probably get my skull cracked for that, but it gives me peace of mind. I see that most of the time she’s at home, occasionally visits her mom, goes to the local gym, her own apartment, her friend’s place. Nothing out of the ordinary. At least she’s not running away.

And at night, I can’t get enough of her. I spend the whole day thinking about her, waiting for evening so I can wrap my arms around my panther girl’s silhouette again. She never initiates anything and never starts the race of passion first, but she can’t resist either. She doesn’t even fight it anymore, knows it’s useless, instantly reacting to my touch.

The most frustrating and confusing thing for me is that I can see how deeply I got under her skin. I know she definitely has feelings for me. Her eyes and body language don’t know how to lie. But she keeps stubbornly pushing me away anyway! I feel like there’s something broken inside her soul, some black hole that won’t let her open herself up emotionally. I’d drag her to a psychologist if I could, but I can’t. She has to tell me herself, and then we could work through whatever’s tormenting her together. But Anya stays silent and silently boils in her own misery, driving me insane too with the despair I so often see in her brown eyes.

Today is Luka’s birthday, and for the celebration we rented a small outdoor area at one of the local restaurant complexes. They decorated it in a Marvel theme, set up a giant inflatable slide, trampolines, hired entertainers. But our birthday boy doesn’t know any of this yet, because he’s at school until noon.

Of course, we all congratulated him this morning and gave him presents, which clearly touched the boy deeply judging by the way he looked at his sister afterward, and then we took him to school.

Since the little guy didn’t really have friends besides his sister, we invited Luka’s entire class to the party. When he found out there’d be more fun besides the morning gifts, he looked genuinely shocked. It was obvious the kid wasn’t used to things like this and everything happening felt like pure fantasy to him.

The party went perfectly. A ton of kids showed up, practically the whole class. There were congratulations, presents, children’s laughter, fun contests, jokes, games, and most importantly, the birthday cake, which made Luka’s eyes go huge with happiness the second he saw it.

He was unbelievably happy and kept glancing over at Masha, while she looked at her brother softly and lovingly in return. Today the girl was unusually quiet, but somehow peaceful and thoughtful. Luka kept coming over just to hug her, and she’d kiss the top of his curly head. The bond between them was incredible, and it was painfully obvious they’d go to war for each other.

Hard as it is to admit, the brats have become painfully dear to me. I don’t know what’ll happen with our futures or theirs, but I know one thing for sure: they won’t be abandoned. They’re amazing kids, even with their difficult personalities and antics.

“Masha, did your parents ever celebrate your birthdays?” I ask quietly while Luka gets distracted with the crowd of kids and the entertainer. Masha, acting all grown-up, wasn’t participating in the contests and just watched happily with us.

At my question, the blonde sighed heavily and her mood visibly dimmed.