Free The Second Wave by Leska Beikircher

equally nasty to him.
    A soft rustle startled him out of his revenge
plotting. He tried to see something, but it was completely dark in
the cupboard.
    “John?” a timid voice peeled itself out of
the darkness. He recognized it at once as Vladimir’s.
    “Vladik? How long have you been in here?”
    “I don’t know. When did we have leftover
blinis for breakfast?”
    “This morning.”
    “Since then, then.”
    John remembered breakfast; he remembered Paul
tickling Vladimir until he fell from his chair. Sister Magda
dragged him out of the hall and that was the last time he’d seen
his roommate.
    “What did you do?” Vladimir asked.
    Another angry kick at the door. “I punched
Lena in the face.”
    “Wow! Why?”
    John’s hands curled into fists. “Because
yesterday she says she likes me, and today she kisses that idiot
Yegor.”
    “Really? Man, you miss out on everything when
you’re locked up in here!”
    John rested his chin on his knees, seeking
his own physical contact to protect himself from the cold that
crept through the cracks in the wood into their little prison. The
cupboard was outside in the backyard, which was all right in
summer, but it was snowing outside and John was freezing now.
    “I’m running away,” he huffed. “I hate it
here.”
    “You can’t just run away!” Vladimir cried
out. “They’ll catch you, and then you have to stay in the cupboard forever !”
    “They’ll never catch me. No one will!”
    He’d be gone before anyone would notice
anything, and then, he decided, he could do whatever he wanted and
punch whomever he wanted. He’d learn how to fight and how to kill,
and then no one could lock him up in a cupboard anymore. He’d be
free forever.
    The two boys were silent for a while, until
Vladimir announced quietly, “I’d miss you.”
    Before John could reply to that, he heard the
other boy moving; something soft and wet landed on his ear. John
felt his intestines twist into a knot. He stopped breathing for a
moment.
    “Did you just kiss me?” he whispered.
    “Yes.”
    A small hand materialized on John’s shoulder.
Exceptionally carefully—he was afraid he might rip the air between
them apart, if he moved too hastily, and then the sudden magic
would be over—he turned his face around to try and make out
Vladimir’s silhouette in the blackness.
    “Are you just saying you like me now, and
tomorrow you’ll kiss someone else?” He wanted his voice to sound
sharp, but it betrayed him and came out hoarse, frightened
even.
    “No,” Vladimir told him with the seriousness
of a twelve-year-old who would never tell a lie until he would. “I really like you,” he emphasized.
    It was decided then. “Then I like you,
too.”
    Their hands searched and found one another.
They huddled closer together. It was already much warmer than
before. John could almost feel his toes again.
    “I want to kiss you,” Vladimir mumbled under
his breath and right into John’s ear, sending unfamiliar shivers
down his spine.
    John found enough strength in him to form a
coherent sentence. “But you just did.”
    He sensed rather than saw the other boy shake
his head. “I mean a proper kiss. Nelly showed me how people kiss
properly. It’s super fantastic.”
    And it was super fantastic indeed, John
fancied; amazing even, with the potential to be ground shaking. It
made his skin crawl and his fingers flex and his eyelids flutter.
It turned the cold air in the cupboard into a hot, sticky mess.
    It made John beg Vladimir to run away with
him. He had everything planned out, had collected bits of food over
the months that he had stashed in his mattress; in this warm,
magical moment he told Vladimir everything, because all he wanted
was a better life for both of them.
    Two nights later, the Reverend Mother shook
him out of his sleep, slashed open his mattress, took away the
half-rotten food and flogged John hard enough to leave permanent
scars on his back. She made Vladimir watch, whose eyes