Chapter 2

Twelve Years Ago

Tomorrow is the first day of school. There's a celebration at our orphanage where the schoolchildren are congratulated on the start of the school year and given gifts. I pick at a ragged crease in my dress and crane my neck to look at the guests who have arrived for the celebration.

We're standing on the stage of the assembly hall, which is decorated with balloons. We are first-graders, and I am also starting first grade tomorrow. Now, I am waiting for my turn, feeling nervous. I'm even more nervous because Tim Frost is here for the celebration.

The headmistress, Mary Stevenson, congratulates the future first-graders on starting school. Tim Frost is sitting in the front row. He brought gifts: clothes, backpacks, and a variety of other school supplies. I saw them unload boxes of pencil cases, pencils, notebooks, and pens from the minibus. I'd like to think he bought everything for me personally, though. I received a beautiful pink backpack with Belle from Beauty and the Beast on it, and I could cry with happiness. If Tim had given me a gift in person, I'm sure I would have chosen this one.

The headmistress asked everyone what they wanted to be after school and what they wanted to do. All the boys want to be businessmen and make money. The girls want to be models and appear in fashion magazines. Even Leya Morriss, with her big butt, wants to be a model.

"And what would you like to be, Ava?" Stevenson asks.

I raise my beaming face, clutch my backpack to me, and say loudly so everyone can hear,

"I want to marry Tim Frost and be his wife."

The room falls silent. The teachers begin to smile tensely. The headmistress first looks at Tim with confusion and then breaks into a smile of her own. Everyone in the room laughs at me, except Tim. Except for Tim; he never smiles. He stares at me intently, and I try to hold his gaze even though I'm a little afraid. What if he gets angry?

But Tim isn't angry. He's silent. Everyone around him falls silent, too, looking at him. I stand there, clutching my backpack and clenching my teeth so hard that they start to grind.

"I'll watch you study," Tim finally says, and the adults breathe a sigh of relief.

I want to stamp my foot and shout, "What difference does it make how I study if I love you?" I whisper this softly, looking stubbornly at him. Tim seems to hear. But he says nothing more. He gets up and leaves, casting only a fleeting glance at me. I suddenly think I see a smile in it.

* * *

I've loved Tim since the moment I first saw him. That means I've loved him longer than I ever will. I was six and he was twenty when I first saw him. It was summer, and Tim had just arrived to coach our boys' team. Like us, he was from an orphanage, and he often visited us back then. I saw him through the window—he was so handsome and strong! I immediately decided that I would marry him.

When I arrived at the orphanage, I couldn't understand where my parents were or why they weren't picking me up. They told me various things: first that they were in the hospital, then in a sanatorium for treatment, and finally that they had gone abroad to earn money. I waited for my uncle or grandmother to come for me, but no one came.

My uncle killed my parents and went to prison, and my grandmother had a stroke. Then she died. I learned all this much later. At first, I waited for them, certain that my stay at the orphanage wouldn't be long.

Then I saw Tim. I remember that day as clearly as if it were yesterday. I was little and sitting on the windowsill with my nose pressed to the glass. I watched the older kids do push-ups on the horizontal bar in the yard.

Next to them stood a tall, tanned boy wearing nothing but jeans. He seemed like a giant to me, even from the second floor. He had blond hair and blue eyes, like the prince in the book my mother and I used to read.

After watching the other boys do push-ups, the boy jumps up, grabs the bar, and begins doing pull-ups.

His muscles twitch and ripple under his skin. I watch in admiration, my mouth hanging open in delight. He seems as strong as the athlete on the poster hanging in the gym. We go there for physical education, and I always stop in front of the poster to get a better look.

"Tim Frost!" Leya Morris shouts as she climbs onto my windowsill. She sticks out her tongue while watching Tim. I want to push her off the windowsill, not just because I can't stand her, but because I'm jealous. I'm the only one who can look at Tim, and I don't understand why others don't understand that.

From Leya, I learn that Tim's last name is Frost and that they call him Tim Frost because he never smiles. Conversely, maybe they gave him the last name Frost because he never smiles. Leya is either lying or doesn't know. Tim was abandoned—brought to the orphanage gate and left there. He was young and said his name was Tim, but he couldn't remember anything else.

After the incident in the assembly hall, the other kids teased me about being a bride for a while. Then they forgot about me, but I remember everything.

I try to study, and not everything works out, but I grit my teeth and keep trying. If this is what it takes for Tim to praise me, I'll do it. But he doesn't even come to coach the boys anymore. Every morning.