August 2013

I’m without a helmet, cold wind hitting my cheeks and tangling my hair. It's always cold at night in the Carpathians. It's the end of summer now, it rained during the day. Now at midnight, it feels like +5°C. I'm freezing in my leather jacket, my pants are all muddy because a car splashed us with water from a puddle while we were on the scooter. Dirty water, as there's no paved road in this country beyond the towns. Or almost none.

We quickly buy a few bottles of cheap wine, and Vlad (yeah, all names are changed) buys me coffee and chocolate, trying to warm me up. We didn't find any onions. We still have to endure the 20-minute ride back and find some onions. Don’t ask why two teenagers need onions at 2 AM.

Well, okay, you're curious. Fine. One of the village boys had a pig slaughtered during the day, and we decided to grill some meat after the disco.

We returned, placed the wine in the gazebo by the river, then decided to go steal some onions from Vlad’s garden. Nearby, you can hear the noise of the mountain river, only after the rain, the smell of mud, coniferous forest and wood from the fire, where our friends are preparing fire for grill.

We sneaked in and wade through the mud to the gardenand started to dig up the onions with a knife, dogs were barking somewhere, the moon was barely shining through the thick clouds. Vlad's mom yells from somewhere, "Who's there?" I stay silent, Vlad stays silent. I lightly punch him in the shoulder. This is not how I want to meet his mom. I even don't know if I want. "Mom, it's me." "What are you doing there so late? Church visiting is early tomorrow." "Looking for onions, then I'll have dinner and go to sleep."

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Phew, his mom leaves. I exhaled, we grabed the onions and go back to everyone.

If my mom saw her 15-year-old kid, covered in mud, stealing onions from someone's garden at 2 AM. And we won’t sleep tonight, and won’t go to church tomorrow obviously.

Then we'll have our usual weekend evening, with typical songs from the radio on a mobile phone: Russian, mixed with foreign and Ukrainian songs: "Лишь бы ты ходила голая рядом," "О боже какой мужчина," "Despacito," "Одержима," "Вибач," "Вона," "Radioactive." In case you wanted to hear the typical playlist of the teenagers from Volosyanka.

Volosyanka is, by the way, a small village in the mountains where my mom is from. About 300 people live here, usually men work abroad, and only women and children are in the village. I often come here for vacations, I love village discos where 50-80 young people gather together every Friday and Saturday.

And Vlad is not my boyfriend, as you might think. We have a weird relationship. We hang out together when I come, but at other times, when I'm not here, we can date other people.

All the relatives think we are dating and ask how serious it is. It's even convenient, less gossip. When I leave, we are texting as friends. Sometimes. If his girlfriends aren’t jealous. It's some kind of incorrect and undeveloped form of polyamory. Although back then, I didn't even know such a word. In our country, even LGBT is still treated like a sin and stared at with wide eyes. Holy Galicia*2, what can you do.