Settling Slowly

Chapter 1 - Fir Trees and cookies

I sighed as I looked at my calendar. There was a picture of a Lynx on the top and already there were a few dates circled in. Tuesday 13 – go back to school; Wednesday 14th – have sketch books finished and handed in; Friday 30th – have new design completed. I wasn’t looking at any of those dates though. I was looking at today. January 7th. January 7th marked Christmas Day in the Russian Orthodox Church. I wasn’t Russian so the date should have meant absolutely nothing to me apart from the pain of Papa Nikolai’s ice cream parlour being closed.

The date marked a few other things too – the day after my great-great-grandmother’s birthday, being a whole week into the new year, the first Wednesday of 2015. On a more important level it marked the fourteenth day I hadn’t seen Grigory – the longest amount of time that I hadn’t seen him since we met, but that was because he taught the Russian class I was in and we were on holiday still – and the day I invited Grigory over to have dinner with us.

I wasn’t sure he was going to come. It wasn’t that he was busy, it was because he’d just split up with his childhood sweetheart and the argument had been about me. Grigory and I hadn’t tried to fall in love, hell he’d tried his damnedest to not fall for me, but it had happened anyway. Katya had gone back to Russia on the twenty- first or -second of December and I’d been giving Grigory space to grieve the romance he’d lost and sort himself out. He’d asked me to stay away for a while.

Being the sentimental, festive loving sap I was I’d invited him over because no one should spend Christmas alone. I’d originally asked him to come on our Christmas because no one should be alone on that day either, but he’d gone to his aunt’s on the other side of town. He hadn’t celebrated New Year and that was a bigger deal for Russians than Christmas was (weird I know, but the celebration according to Lexie had been phenomenal, I’d bowed out of it so that Grigory could see his family without bumping into me). A week later and he hadn’t emerged from his house.

His family was worried about him, his cousin Sergey the most. Sergey had been visiting him every couple of days but he’d been in London overnight meeting some author he liked. He was on his way home now. He’d taken Lexie with him since she liked the author too and I think he would have liked to keep her to himself for a little longer, but his mother wanted him home for Christmas dinner at the very least. He’d text me earlier to ask if I’d seen Grigory.

That was what had me staring at the calendar.

“Zoey?” Dad asked from the open door.

I was lying on my bed and looked over to him. He was in a knitted jumper his witch of a mother had knitted for him. It had a snow flake on it. Even though it was a Christmas jumper made by a woman I couldn’t stand the sight of, I had to admit it was really nice. Dark blue and white. She’d made me a bright pink hat with light pink snowflakes on it. As usual with her presents I was going to give it to charity. Dad always got a little upset that I did that, but this time he’d suggested it. It was well made, but a monstrosity of colour I hated.

“You ok?” Dad asked.

I put the calendar down and carefully sat up. Dan and I shared a room and had bunk beds, being horrifically clumsy was all part of the joy and being me and twelve years after getting the bunk I still whacked my head on Dan’s bed. “Yeah,” I sighed.

Dad smiled a little and sat next to me. “You don’t have to worry about him. You shouldn’t.”

“Well I am,” I snapped.

He sucked in a breath not wanting to turn this into an argument. “After what he did to you –”

“We’ve been over this,” I said firmly. “Yes he should have told me about Katya, but I’ve forgiven him. You need to as well.”