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He nods uncertainly. He’s two heads taller than she is and twice as big around the middle. But he’s looking at her like a spooked cat. It’s not that he’s uncomfortable or wary around Polly; it’s just that he needs time to adjust to being around anyone new, especially when he hasn’t been for a while. I do the mental calculation—it’s been almost seven weeks since Polly came home for the weekend. For Lev, that might as well be years.
“Can I get a hug?” He shakes his head vigorously and she just smiles harder. “How about a high five then?”
He glances at me. Then at Polly. Then back at me again. “I’m hungry.”
He walks around Pol and sits down in a chair that scrapes across the floor like nails on a chalkboard. I give her shoulder a little squeeze. “Just give him some time.”
She forces another smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I should come home more often.”
“You can come home whenever you want to. You know that.”
We sit down to dinner. A cheeseburger for Lev and meatloaf with roasted veggies for Polly and myself. Lev picks at his burger, deconstructing it first before he so much as takes a bite. He examines each mouthful carefully before he eats it.
Polly tries to engage him several times but he either acts like he doesn’t hear her or he just mumbles to himself. When she starts getting frustrated, I pull her into a conversation of our own.
“Tell me about school.”
She rolls her eyes and sighs melodramatically. “It’s been a shitshow. Danielle has a thing for Peter but Peter’s totally into Hannah. Pretty sure Hannah bats for the other team, though, ‘cause I saw her checking out Kaitlyn in the showers last Friday.”
I snort on a sip of my red wine. “Sorry I asked.”
She giggles and Lev recoils in his seat at the unexpected noise. “My bad, Lev,” she mumbles, but he doesn’t make eye contact with either one of us.
“But Hannah can get fucked, anyway. She’s a bitch and I want her to stop picking on my friends.”
Nikolai likes to say that Polly collects strays. Anyone sad, broken, lost, or lonely, Polly takes them under her wing and tries to protect them.
Nikolai says it’s because she’s a born leader. I think it’s because of Lev.
“If she doesn’t, just beat the shit out of her. She won’t come near you or your friends ever again.” When I glance towards her, she’s staring at me with an amused smile on her face. “What?”
“You realize that no normal person, parent, or guardian would give a teenager that advice, right?”
I shrug. “We’re not like other people.”
She slides back against her seat. “You don’t have to tell me that twice.”
“Basement!” Both Polly and I whip around in Lev’s direction. He’s still not looking at either one of us but he’s wringing his hands together anxiously. “I want my basement.”
“I told you, Lev: it’s being sprayed for rodents. You just have to wait a little—”
He jackknifes out of his chair so fast that it falls backwards. Abandoning his half-eaten burger, he darts out of the dining room. Polly is halfway out of her seat when I stop her.
“Leave him. He needs space.”
She falls back into her seat but her smile is gone. Those hazel eyes of hers are pinched at the corners and filled with disappointment. “Sometimes, I forget how… how bad it gets with him.”
“He’ll be fine.”
“No, he won’t,” she retorts curtly. “He won’t befine, Uri. He’s always gonna be like this. Suspicious of everyone, terrified of change, obsessed with everything familiar…”
“It’s going to be okay.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because I’m going to make sure it is. I’ll look after him, Polly. I’ll look after all of you.”
She sighs and sinks into her chair. “You need a life, Uri.”
