I’ll go with the flow with this. With everything.
It doesn’t mean it won’t knot my stomach. Doesn’t mean that I’m unfeeling, like some of my cousins believe. It just means I’m not going to whine or throw a tantrum.
Faster, I pass the kitchenette, sponged-clean, and head to my bedroom. When I push inside, I immediately spot my sixteen-year-old sister.
Katya peers beneath the wooden frame of my stripped bed. I shut the door, and her head pops up. Long, straight brown hair sticks to her overdone pink-glossed lips.
I frown at my little sister. When did she start wearing makeup on regular weekdays?
Her saucer eyes widen even bigger on me. “Oh crap,” she says, clutching a…really?
I sigh. She grips a black heavy-duty trash bag, partially filled.
“It was Timo’s idea.” Katya picks herself off the floor, skinny and long-limbed like a ballerina but with prominent, ethereal features: orb-like eyes, pronounced ears, and big lips. “He said that you wouldn’t mind if we packed up for you.”
I don’t mind.
What bothers me is that he enlisted Katya’s help to throw away my things. Here’s the deal: I’m really close to Timo and Kat—as close as most siblings come—but they still have no clue what I can’t get rid of.
(The cactus paraphernalia better not be trashed.)
“Can you say something?” she asks. “You just look…sad.”
“I’m not sad,” I say coolly. “Just please don’t trash my shit unless you ask, Kat.”
She drops the garbage bag like it’s suddenly toxic waste. “I won’t again. I promise.” Guilt sweeps her youthful face.
My features soften almost instantly, and I nod. Kat, more than anyone, respects my privacy. Whenever our older brother Nikolai tries to pry through my things, she’s the most vocal: just trust Luka, Nik. Why are you searching through his gym bag?
I ask, “Where’s Timo?”
She points to the walk-in closet.
I shuffle around an open box, stuffed with my wardrobe: a lot of gym clothes, plain T-shirts, some jeans, and baseball caps. Nothing flashy or brazen.
At the closet, I stretch the door further open. I distinguish the back of my brother’s head that bounces to the beat of music. He’s wearing earbuds, the song inaudible.
Timo is also lost in a mound of shoeboxes and towering stacks of snow globes, and to be completely honest, a lot of shitty Vegas paraphernalia that has no place or name.
It’s junk.
I can admit that any day, any time.
Timo rifles through a shoebox, not noticing me, and after careful examination, he chucks the box into his trash bag.
“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.)
Nik wouldn’t wait until the last minute for any Aerial Ethereal deadline, and Timo has probably been working just as long to clean up our place.
My little brother is one of the most professional artists here. Always on-time for rehearsals, stagings, and meetings. Goes above and beyond at practice, and would never send Marc Duval an email that called his decision bullshit.
As soon as Katya shuts the door on her way out, Timo says, “You said you wouldn’t start hoarding.”
“Dude.” I sigh heavily. “I’m not hoarding. I have no attachment to most of this stuff. You can throw out a ton of it.”
(Just not anything that reminds me of her—it’s all I have left.)
I ache to say it, to plead, to tell him all that’s weighed on me for years.
But I do what I have to do.
I push her aside. I try to forget.
Yet, I’m still clinging.
Timo balances the snow globe on his bent knee. In smooth Russian, he tells me, “I’m just worried.”
In the same language, I say, “You shouldn’t be.”
He rolls the Christmas globe into the trash bag. “Luka…”
“It’s just my shit to deal with, okay?” I’m upset because I don’t want them to see how much I’ve been stealing recently. I wish I threw out all that stuff ages ago, but I just put things off. Shove them aside and try not to look back.
That’s my life.
I cram my figurative drawers full of shit and more shit and pretend it’s all nonexistent. That it’s not bearing on my chest like a fifty-ton elephant.
Timo rests the back of his head against my dresser. “I like focusing on your Robin Hood tactics. It helps take my mind off our new room situation and the fact that my life is completely fucked.”
I kick the trash bag out of our way. “Your life isn’t completely fucked.”
Timo laughs once. “You, Luk, are the best roommate in the world. You don’t hound me when I stumble in late or blare music. You don’t care when I bring my boyfriend over and fuck loudly. Really, it takes extreme work to piss you off.” He pauses, as though saying, seeing you pissed today scares me.
I rotate my baseball cap, brim in front.
Lately, I just feel like I’m losing all of my control with Corporate. Not that I had much to begin with, but I was artfully fooling myself for a while there.
“Henceforth,” Timo continues, “my new roommate will never be as great as you.” (Likewise, Timo.)
I give him a look. “Henceforth?”
“It annoys John when I say it.” He smiles wide, a magnetic grin that could make grown men and women bow in adoration.
I shake my head. Henceforth. “I don’t think you’re using that word right.” Maybe he is. I don’t really know.
“That’s the beauty of it,” Timo says easily. “Henceforth, I will say it however I want.”
I smile, my chest lighter just talking to him. He has that effect on most people.
As the quiet falls, we skim the emptied room and the trash bags. Half of my life is filled with garbage. The other half with necessities. The problem is trying to sort out which is which.
Nineteen years of living with Timo. Gone.
In one fucking email.
“Who are you rooming with anyway?” I ask him.
He scratches his temple, his face a little pained. “I’ll tell you later.”
Timo has no enemies. Where I’m the Least Favorite Kotova, he’s without a doubt the Most Beloved. Last year, Marc Duval said he was “life and youth personified”—and he’s never slept with anyone in Aerial Ethereal, so he’s pretty drama-free too.
“Okay,” I say, not pressuring my brother. I know he’ll open up in his own time.
Timo nods to me. “What about you?”
I dig in my pants pocket and pull out the crumpled letter from HR with my room assignment. I hand the paper to Timo. I’ve read it a hundred times already.
Artists Assigned to Room 4303
L. Kotova
D. Kotova
Z. Li
B. Wright
That last name—B. Wright—skids my heart to a complete stop every single time. It’s not a good feeling. No matter how much I wish it could be.
Her name so close to my name is just bad.
Act Two
Luka Kotova
The exact layout of my suite is the same as the last one, but two things are noticeably different.
One: the window-view is of the Vegas strip, not the hotel pool.
Two: three other people live with me now.
That’s four people total in the same sized space.
I didn’t focus on this detail until I entered my new bedroom, and I was met with a bunk bed like I’m at summer camp. No box springs. Not even a real mattress, just some blue vinyl-wrapped foam insert that pretends to be one.
I prop my arm on the doorway, my gray eyes plastered onto the atrocity that Corporate calls a bed. My older cousin paces the length of our tiny, shared room and rubs his unshaven jaw and chin. Completely distraught.
“What…I…what…” He lets out a gnarled sound. This might be the first time I’ve seen Dimitri Ko
tova lost for words.
“Hey,” I say with a nod and shake my box of Junior Mints, dumping candy in my palm. “You can take top or bottom, whichever you want.”
Dimitri is tall, not just for an acrobat’s standards. Everyone calls him “the tank” for his muscle mass and towering height.
He’s 6-foot-5-inches like my older brother Nik, but the difference: Nik is more agile, more natural—a gifted, talented artist. He out-flips, outmaneuvers, and outperforms everyone.
Except for Timo.
Dimitri tries ten-thousand times harder to do what Nik can do in one breath. I know what it’s like to be second-best to people you love. Hell, not even second-best.
Third best. Fifth best.
In some scenarios, the worst.
So yeah, I like Dimitri, even if he has a lot of undesirable qualities.
Dimitri stops by our plain dresser, the only other furniture in here. He blinks a few times, and I pop a Junior Mint in my mouth. Waiting for him to wake the fuck up.
When the shock escapes him, he finally acknowledges my presence. “Are you looking at me?”
I nod again, brows raised. Wondering where this is going.
Dimitri points to his chest. “Do I look like a third-grader? Huh? What in the fuck is Aerial Ethereal smoking?” His face nearly shatters at another thought. “How am I supposed to have sex on this thing? As soon as a woman sees this, she’s going to laugh right in my face.”
Dimitri sinks down on the “mattress” and the whole structure creaks. He looks simultaneously murderous and wounded. Covering his face in his hands, he’s one step away from proclaiming my life is over.
My cousin loves sex, women, and the teeterboard. Not always in that order.
In his family, Dimitri is the oldest of ten children, and at twenty-six, he’s six years older than me. But we were all born into the circus life together. Four generations. No other options.
Only one love.
By the age of five, I was a kid actor, collecting props. Clearing the area for the next act. Performing simple floor acrobatics in group routines.
Our job is to produce magic for an audience. No bunnies in hats or card tricks. With our bodies we do the unthinkable. Scale walls without handholds, lift people twice our size in perilous positions, slice through air with the strength of one arm—flips and twists that’d make most gymnasts go, “What the fuck?”
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