Valerya

Dedicated to my mom, and my husband.

I was so jealous that Lyna's name started with an L, and mine with a V, because that meant she got to graduate first. No matter how superior I was, I still had to go second over something I couldn’t change. Second to Lyna. That helpless, wet dog whom I bothered to keep around because of boredom.

“Lyna, I think you’re next. I’ve been counting the names, and they’re already on K,” my voice quiet, yet somehow still emphasizing more excitement than I meant. I shook her half-awake. When they called her name, she rubbed her eyes and rolled her socks back up before going up to the stage, too disoriented because of her pointless dreams to even look back at me, or realize what was going on.

My brother was part of the older kids helping with the graduation, and I could see how he didn’t even pretend to be cautious when giving me the finger, smiling, confident–in front of a whole audience. He put the scarf around Lyna, and, foggy-eyed, she raised her hand, swishing up and down, and repeated “Pyoneer, always ready.” I facepalmed louder than I thought, earning a stern glance from one of my old teachers, since she did not sound as heroic as we thought she would, and it was all her fault because of her slurred speech and that lame lisp we hopelessly tried to fix. But my reaction contradicted the voice of the crowd–people were yelling her name, and not only her family. Just seemingly random people. And I still don’t know why they did that.

She walked back down the side of the auditorium and back next to me. She untied the scarf, but kept it around her neck, pulling it up and down like some seesaw. When my name was called, she still only paid me indifference, quietly listening to some adult praise her. I didn’t care that she was sleepy, only that she wasn’t paying attention to me, specifically. As I walked to the stage, I wondered why I was still friends with her. My brother blew a raspberry and tied the scarf, which was way too tight to even be considered as a piece of clothing, around my neck. More of a noose, I’d say, according to the way he did it. I held my pin in my free hand as the other did the salute, and from my lips came “Pyoneer, always ready!” in a much more enthusiastic way than Lyna.

Back at my seat, I was bored of the next few dozen people graduating, so I shifted my attention back to my pin, now feeling more heavy in my hands than when it was on my chest. The face of Dedushka Lenin on the gold center was nothing short of comfortable to me since I had seen it in every classroom, but seeing his young, chubby face, knowing mine was once like his, was suddenly strange. I had no connection to this pin anymore. I was grown up, my scarf more than proof of that. But it still felt strange to be distant all of a sudden.

“Lyna,” I started again, saying her name slow enough for her to actually process I was saying it. “Are you gonna keep your pin? Because you know you don’t need it anymore, remember?”

“Yeah.” She turned it around in her hands, poking her finger on each point of the star. “Are you?”

I sighed. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know. You’re the one who brought it up.”

“So?”

She shrugged and kept rotating the star. I could see Lenin’s face in hers more than mine. I think it’s because she has fatter cheeks than me, and her hair is short. She looks like a boy. Even her uniform gets dirty easily. I kicked my legs back and forth in my seat, desperately waiting for the assembly to end.

Eventually it did, and as everyone was filling out, Lyna lagged behind, and I, being the generous friend I was, stayed with her. I pulled her by her arm. “Let’s go. What’s the point in waiting here?” I looked to the other people talking with their friends, with their family, showing off their new scarves. I pulled mine and made it out of the auditorium, with her dragging behind like a tin can.

I felt jealous at the people whose moms were here with them. I saw a classmate with her family, her older sister holding the scarf high above her head, too high for the girl to reach it, but not high enough for her to be angry that she was holding it captive. I sighed and looked at Lyna. “Lyna, stop holding that pin!”

I reached for it, but she backed away. I was shocked she would do something against me, and I froze. “What’s wrong with you? Give it, throw it out, give it to your mom, you don’t need it! We graduated. We’re older now.” She kept fighting me, and I kept trying to get it out of her hands. When I did, the pin was strangely warm. I looked at her hand, and her fingertips were blue and her palms had five thin, red creases equally apart. “Why were you holding it so tightly?”

She shrugged. “I just don’t feel deserving, you know? You saw my grades. I barely passed to graduate.”

“Who cares? You did it anyway.”

“Yeah, but I just don’t feel it. I guess you don’t understand since you’re, like, the smartest. You and your brother. I bet your parents are proud that their genes run in the family.” My mom was busy talking with a few parents, since she was the main organizer for the whole event. When I wasn’t looking, she stole back her pin. I didn’t do anything other than look over her, shocked. I left, not even waiting for my mom to finish talking, nor Lyna.

Lyna followed me. But I marched back to my house, it being near the school. She still followed me inside. I sunk on my bed, and she hopped down next to me, looking back down at her pin. “I just don’t think I deserve to be a Pyoneer.”

“But I’ve been saying–who cares? You are, and that’s what matters. You’re such a kid!”

“You’re only older by two months!”

“Well you behave like you’re five.”

“That’s mean.”

“It’s true.” She rolled over to face her back to me. “I’m only mean to you because you’re stupid,” I continued. “I don’t know why you’re attached to that weird pin. You see his face everywhere, and it’s not like he’ll go away anytime soon. His portrait is in every classroom. He’s basically your own dedushka. Grow up,” my voice exactly as harsh as I intended it to be.

A week later, I finished with my exams. The final day of school, but the first afternoon of summer. Lyna and I were sharing a bike with some of the older boys in my brother’s grade. They were taking us to someplace I didn’t know.

Lyna kept complaining, saying she didn’t trust the boy she was with, that she would rather I be the one to be driving her. I told her if she was scared to hold onto the boy tighter. She shook her head and clutched the side of the bike. I saw the boy roll his eyes and pedal faster. I laughed.

I thought back again to why I stayed friends with her. She wasn’t fun, and it’s obvious to anyone with a quarter of a brain that she’s not smart. She was right to question why she was allowed to graduate. But what was worse than all of that to me was that she was a wuss. She liked sticking to things that she already knew, which is why I’m assuming she was attached at the hip with the pin, but her unimportant fears kept her from even sitting on the bike properly.

When she let out a yelp, the boy howled with mischief, but slowed down. He tilted his head back to her, only to be met with her huge fivehead, and then met her gaze. “Are you always this scared? Do you not have a bike at home?”

“No, she usually walks to school,” I answered for her.

“You walk with her?”

I shrugged again. “Sometimes?” He frowned, confusing me.

They abruptly halted their bikes and took off running. One of my brother’s friends carried me, sweeping me off balance, barreling straight for the lake. I was laughing while looking at Lyna’s shrunken self.

The boy threw me in the water, and I accidentally inhaled some of it from the impact. I oriented myself underwater before feeling the quicksand-like floor and standing. But as I wiped the wet hair from my face, I found myself looking around for where everyone went. I heard them, because clearly their laughter was hard to miss unless you’re seriously deaf, but I heard the sounds of their bikes first.

“Where are you going?” I yelled after them, wading to shore, covering my chest since the water made the fabric see-through, everywhere. I hated to admit it at the time, but I had barely anything to cover anyways. I called after them again, but not fast enough to stop them from pedaling away.

I looked around, and found Lyna sitting on the rough sand. “What are you doing here?” She shrugged. Always nothing short of mute, and it pissed me off. I got out of the water, walking past her, walking home. She didn’t follow me this time.

When I reached home, my legs were muddied, and I was shivering. I opened the door to find my brother eating an apple, sitting in the dining room, and illuminated by a solitary bulb. I felt like I was in a horror film, but despite that, I ran towards him, hugging him from behind, seeking immediate warmth.

“Yuck! Get off of me!” he said while I persisted to act as a parasite does. He tried peeling me off seeing as I was getting his back wet, but I think at some point he just gave up, because he stopped. He sighed, “What are you doing?”

“Getting warm.”

“Go find a blanket. Or a jacket.”

“But you’re right here.” I dug my face into his neck, the situation doing little to help with the cold. I looked out the window. It was dark. “What time is it?”

“21:00.”

“Why aren’t mom and dad home?”

“They didn’t tell you? They have work. They won’t be back until at least 23.”

“Oh.” I hit him on the head, still embracing him. “Hey, why did you leave me out there? I was cold, and alone–with Lyna! I hated it! When I was walking back, it was so embarrassing. You know Totya Olga? Yeah, she asked me what was wrong with me, why I swam at night. That’s embarrassing!” I didn’t say much, yet I felt as if it was enough, for now. I hated arguing against my older brother, since he usually told on me after.

He pushed me away. “You’re just annoying, you know that? That’s why we did it” he started. “You say all these things, like ‘communist this, communist that,’ ‘Lyna this, Lyna that,’ preaching your word as if it were God himself, when really none of it matters to you, at all.”

“Fine. Whatever. But then why do you like Lyna so much? You didn’t push her into the water. She doesn’t do anything.”

“Who said I like her? She just happens to be around when you’re around. But I know she’s not as irritating as you.”

“So you like her over me?”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, then, quickly: “You know, fine. Sure. I like her more than you. Does that make you happy?”

“Are you just saying that to shut me up?”

“Yes. Because you won’t stop pestering me.”

“Well, don’t do that.”

“Well, I did.” He huffed, and I huffed in turn, mocking him. I walked out of the dining room, my footsteps heavy and unmeasured, and landed on my bed, a soft squish sound following my fall.

I was just so mad at everything, but mostly that Lyna basically didn’t do anything, yet still got praise. And that she didn’t get treated like I do, neglected, that fact especially hurting because I put effort into myself. I hung out with older people, I was mature for my age, I got good grades, and she barely graduated. My brother said I was annoying, but I thought that I couldn’t be further away from that description. Why was it that I, someone who worked, got treated worse than those who sat stilly, compressed into a corner? I wish I knew, because that question was unfortunately my guiding star through life then-on. Yet I found myself to be distancing myself from the star that was my Oktybrat pin. I guess I wasn’t as ready as I said I was.

Currently, I work as a teacher, teaching a subject that disconnects me from my USSR past, now lifetimes away. I burned the pins and scarves long ago. And the last I ever saw of Lyna was at her funeral.