Miracles Still Happen

By Tatiana Gertsik

Is there any chance that the plainest girl in class can have the heart of Vlad, the cutest guy in school? Obviously not, since miracles don’t happen. Nastia is the first one to be realistic about it, just like everyone else is. Everyone but Vlad...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tatiana Gertsik
• Release date: Oct 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311277817

Book preview

Tatiana Gertsik

Miracles still happen

A Novel

Smashwords Edition

Translation from Russian Anna Blinova

Copyright Tatiana Gertsik Miracles still happen

Copyright Татьяна Герцик Чудеса все же возможны

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of this material in any way. You must not circulate this book in any format.

Is there any chance that the plainest girl in class can have the heart of Vlad, the cutest guy in school? Obviously not, since miracles don’t happen. Nastia is the first one to be realistic about it, just like everyone else is. Everyone but Vlad…

CHAPTER ONE

Alevtina’s voice on the far end of the line was sharp with poorly hidden discontent.

‘Everyone will come over, Nastia, and you’re the only one trying to shrug it off! It’s been ten years now, high time for us all to meet!’ The voice grew more insistent upon hearing ambiguous inarticulate noises on the other end of the line. ‘I shall not have that from you, again! Three in the afternoon, sharp, the Rainbow Bar. Don’t be late! I’m putting you next to Vladimir, just in case you care for an update on him!’

Nastia hung up and looked wildly around, as if trying to escape the omnipresent gaze of the head girl. The news had shaken her routine badly, making her lose the sense of gravity. Anguish and bitterness that seemed to be safely buried somewhere deep down at the bottom of her soul had now surfaced, flooding her day with vivid memories.

Vladimir… or Vlad, as was the usual way for her. She definitely detested other diminutives like Vova or Volodia, being quite consistent with ‘Vlad’ as the only name for this man. That name only, as she silently spoke it, was nearly as crushing as to make her temples burst with pain.

Nastia pressed her cool fingers to both sides of her head and closed her eyes. Her inner vision was suddenly flooded with images: a flash of his smile, his mocking eyes observing her with a condescending ‘no’. How many times has she confessed her love? A hundred, at the very least…

It has started in the kindergarten. Their first meeting was in a blur, but her mother told her that she was the tallest girl in the group, used to dominating over the other children. So when a new boy was brought in, she tried to exercise her authority upon him in some way, being smashed on the head with a toy car in return. Probably the head was slightly concussed, since from that moment she was ever desperately in love with him. Ever. Literally.

As long as she remembered herself, they always stuck together. Through the kindergarten and school years, they were seldom seen without one another, sitting at the same table over lunch and the same desk in class. Despite her unspectacular looks, he condescended to her willingly, flattered by her attentions. He would even stand up for her occasionally.

Her mind went back to a scene that preceded her first romantic declaration to him.

Which grade was it? Fourth or fifth? She and Luba Gorodilova were chatting along the way towards their respective homes. Their calm was abruptly violated when Igor Ovchinnikov, a famous school bully, crashed upon them from nowhere. Almost burying Nastia in a heap of snow, he overwhelmed her with shellfire of snowballs, shouting, ‘Nobody needs you, you stupid cow!’

Luba fled in fear, leaving Nastia struggling to get back on her feet, her boots sliding and slipping on ice barely covered with snow. Rock-hard snowballs left hurting spots on her thin body, which as she knew would turn to bruises on her sensitive skin. She never felt as helpless and humiliated in her life. When she realizes that tears were running down her cheeks, it was too late to stop them, and the hooligan was delighted. She said a dirty word then, a word forbidden in her family, which made her even more embarrassed and she was about to burst into sobs, for Ovchinnikov’s vile pleasure.

He would have taken his time with her, were it not for the unexpected help that came with Vlad’s appearance. He approached them coolly, held out a hand so that she could grab it and spring to her feet. ‘Hubba hubba, ding ding, don't forget the wedding ring!’ Igor shouted venomously. Vlad faced him with calm dignity and asked to repeat what he just said.

Ovchinnikov scanned the surrounding area and, spotting the dangerous proximity of Slava, Vlad’s mate and fellow in wrestling classes, wisely chose to scuttle. His own buddies stopped giggling and followed on his heels, disoriented without the lead. This was the exact moment when she failed to catch it, treacherously escaping her mouth.

‘I love you. ’

Vladimir observed her with a superior grin and advised mildly to go home and wash her face.

She shook the snow off thoroughly and headed towards home, feeling weirdly weightless, smiling, her vision still blurred with tears. She watered her face and then, for the first time in her life, peered intently in the mirror for assessment of her female potential. The result was unsatisfying: she saw her chances were negligible.

She was objectively unattractive, despite the lack of genetic reasons to be so. Her mother was good-looking, for one thing. Father left them long ago, but his old photos suggested he was relatively handsome as well. And look at her…

A long hawk nose like Baba Yaga (1) in Alexander Rou’s movies; narrow slightly squinting eyes, big protruding mouth with corners gloomily hanging downward. She didn’t need a mask to play monsters.

Nevertheless, she was not prone to long sulks, no matter how dramatic the circumstances were. Scraping the beauty contests off her list, she immersed herself in books. Fictional adventures and exaggerated passions were a nearly sufficient distraction from her own inadequacy; meanwhile, it did nothing to improve her grades. She was good at her grammar, literature, and natural sciences, while maths never really worked out, going merely satisfactory.

Vlad was the one to put her back on track there as well. His own grades being excellent, he couldn’t quite fathom the mechanics of her low academic performance, always admitting that she was altogether rather intelligent. After she snagged another two (2) on geometry, he pursed his mouth saying that either she was planning on entering a very lousy culinary institution straight after her 9th year graduation exams, or had to collect her wits to pass the tests to the 10th year at school (3).

She could still hear his words stinging her ears:

‘I just see you decorating cakes. Perfect career opportunity. ’

She would have done it well, though - her fingers were delicate and deft. But that mockery of a compliment spurred her up in her studies. Last but not least, she was horrified at the prospect of not being able to sit next to Vlad anymore. She dived deep in math studies and soon caught up with the most successful of her peers. She resorted to Vlad’s help a couple of times, too, since she was lagging behind too badly in algebra and physics.

He visited her at home, where they were drinking their tea in her kitchen domestically, and then he would explain the things she didn’t catch in the class. They felt really good together when no one was watching them in mockery of their misalliance friendship.

Nastia guessed that her feelings were to some extent reciprocated, because otherwise he wouldn’t care to spend his precious time with her. For instance, he never gave a damn about other girls’ grades. She recalled him turning down a flirty request for a theorem explanation from Sveta, a prime beauty of the school parallel. Making it blatantly clear that he knew the theorem was not the point, Vlad measured the hottie with an arrogant glance and coldly stated that he was not available for any of this nonsense. Svetlana turned deep red, retreating, and Nastia gratefully thought that Vlad never spoke to her in such a dismissive manner, and was always available for her.

Eventually, she graduated from the 9th form with two fours only – physics and athletics – and was admitted to her 10th year without any problem.

On the 1st of September they were given a choice of desk neighbor, as a first token of approaching independence. All the boys were eager to affirm their distinction by territorially separating themselves from girls on the back rows of the class.

Nastia was sure that Vlad would be sitting with Slava and prepared herself for some lonely times. She occupied her old place in the third row next to the window and tried to console herself with a false bravado: she was going to have all the space in the world – there were only seventeen of them left, and it was certainly too much for fifteen double desks. She had no doubt no one would fancy sitting with her. Unprecedented privacy!

When Vlad, unbelievably tall and handsome after the three months of the summer holidays, was all of a sudden right next to her, throwing his bag casually on the adjacent chair, just like he did all those years, she was so dumbfounded that her first words were, ‘But… you don’t sit here anymore…"

He straightened himself slowly and asked her in a cool and strangely sulky voice, ‘Why? Do you not want me to? Or is there someone else?’

She was too embarrassed and babbled incoherently, ‘Do you… want… to sit with me?’

She wasn’t so sure but it seemed that he sighed with relief. The next moment he was frowning, as he sat at their desk, saying, ‘Would you stop deciding things for me? I am perfectly capable of doing it myself!’

She could still feel the all-encompassing happiness she experienced at that moment. Vlad threw an inscrutable glance at her and snorted ambiguously. She looked around only to notice that they were the only mixed couple among the classmates.

She could also appreciate Vlad’s selflessness. It was plain as day that his friends were going to come up with sarcastic comments. On the other hand, there was no chance that they would dare a blatant mockery – as things were, Vlad would never tolerate abuse, especially when it concerned his friendship with Nastia.

It seemed to her that the next two years passed in the blink of an eye. She would hurry to school as if to a date, and went back home reluctantly, like a women violently severed from her beloved. Still, she felt warmed up by a thought that tomorrow will be another day for her to sit next to Vlad, talk nonsense to him, laugh carelessly together, over and over.

The graduation tests were a true disaster. It was not about the results, which were quite presentable; but what was going to come next? She knew that ‘tomorrow’ will eventually turn to ‘never’: she would never, ever, be happy again. Never would she sit next to Vlad at their desk; never would the casual ‘how’s things?’ be addressed to her, never would she join him to his basketball or hockey matches.

An anticipation of their pending separation brought a hurting void that sucked her in with a relentless pull, and it was becoming increasingly harder