"Have you packed everything?" Kostya's eyes swept the room, sharp and assessing.
"I think so," I replied, lingering by the bed I had made with almost obsessive precision, just to keep busy while waiting for him. The medication had done nothing to ease me into sleep, and all night my mind had circled restlessly around home—how badly I wanted to return, what I would need to do first. Kostya had brought nearly all my textbooks right away, determined that I wouldn't slip behind in the gymnasium's curriculum and risk losing my place to poor grades. Still, most assignments required internet access, and the hospital's signal was so faint it might as well not have existed. Dasha had been forced to send me lists of homework by subject via plain SMS. SMS, in the age of messengers and social networks—who even used it anymore? The thought annoyed me endlessly, but annoyance didn't change reality. I had to grit my teeth and endure.
I reached for my bag, only for Kostya to slap my hand lightly aside and step in front of me.
"Dad," I protested, bristling, "I'm not fragile. It weighs nothing. I've lifted it a dozen times while packing."
"Not fragile, no," he conceded, already pulling the strap over his shoulder, "but the nurses mustn't see you striding out with heavy bags after a month in a hospital bed. People here—like most people in town—expect to see a pale, weak girl only just recovered. Feeding their expectations is part of the game. Now, move."
Before I could argue again, he swung the sports bag across his back and gathered two more bulging sacks—my textbooks and novels. I'd managed to read through nearly all of them during my so-called "illness." At home I had only a handful, but as soon as Dasha learned about the dismal internet, she raided her own shelves and appeared with an armful that could have stocked a small library. Naturally, Stas had been the one to drive her, unwilling to let Romanova wrestle with bags on the bus during rush hour. Somehow, it seemed, Smirnov and Dasha had struck up a tentative understanding—though perhaps that was only my illusion, born from her inevitable attachment to Tanya. As far as I knew, Dasha had only two real friends. With one confined to the hospital and the other glued to Stanislav's side whenever possible, she was often left the unwilling "third wheel."
"Dr. Smirnov asked me to remind you," I said as we set off down the long corridor, "I need to come back for a check-up in four days. The treatment course has to be completed."
Kostya gave a curt nod, his brow furrowing, but kept silent. Adjusting the strap on his shoulder, he strode ahead, almost as though eager to leave behind the open wards we passed—rooms filled with the sounds of the sick and the living. From one doorway came muffled groans; from another, the bright encouragement of a gymnastics instructor coaxing patients through exercises. When I glanced into a third, two girls not much younger than me were perched cross-legged on a bed, playing cards and laughing softly.
For a moment I wondered how long they had been here, how much of their world had shrunk to these yellow walls. Maybe I should have left my private room more often. Maybe then the empty weekday mornings, when my friends were at school and I was left alone, would not have felt quite so heavy.