That night, I spent what felt like the longest time on algebra. When I finished the last assignment, I checked the answers in the back of the textbook and breathed a sigh of relief. My back ached from the long minutes over the notebook, and I stretched over the chair, enjoying the crackle of my joints. The dim light of the desk lamp illuminated the spine of the history textbook, in which I still had to catch up on three entire sections. Fortunately, the night was still deep.
I pulled the textbook from the stack and, cross-referencing Dasha's messages—she had diligently sent me lists of homework for every day I spent in the hospital—I began skimming the text, trying to imagine the events while deliberately skipping the cruelty, so as not to ruin my mood.
By morning, algebra, history, Russian, and English were done. If it weren't for the alarm on my smartphone, I wouldn't have even realized it was seven a.m. The house was as quiet as if my father were away on duty again, but my heart remembered everything that happened yesterday. Trying to cheer myself up, I clung to the doctor's words that Kostya might wake in the morning. I hoped to hear his voice from the next room, but I only heard my own breathing.
After a quick hot shower, I tried to shake off the last traces of fatigue, but in vain. After drying my hair, I returned to my room and packed my backpack for school. Looking at Dasha's messages, I was ready to scream at how much there still was to do this week. At the very least, I had to prepare a biology report for tomorrow and review a ton of material for the dreaded geometry test. If there was hope to handle biology quickly, the last three years of struggling with geometry had been no picnic.
My grades were crying by the end of the term. I certainly wouldn't fail out of school, but my GPA could clearly drop, which was absolutely unacceptable in the eleventh grade.
Kostya's pleas not to go to the open day now seemed like a perfectly reasonable decision, even if motivated by a completely different reason. If only the university doors opened more often for applicants — I would have skipped it without a second thought. But what if this was my last chance to see the campus with my own eyes? What if there would be no other opportunity to talk to the teachers and hear about the programs I could apply to? The mysterious possibilities beckoned me like a bright light under the dome of a delicate lamp to a reckless moth, and I wanted so badly to give in. To give in to the girl inside who so wanted to go with her friends and taste student life.
The more you forbid yourself something, the more you actually want it. I didn't know what to do, and I had no strength left to make a balanced decision. Having come up with nothing better, I decided to make a wager with fate: if Kostya came to, I wouldn't go anywhere. I'd go to class and then come straight home to dive into geometry prep. But if my father didn't wake up before I left for school…