Fallen Stars and Broken Dreams - C.C. Masters Page 0,2

were going on ten years of friendship.

Ryan rubbed my back as I cried out all of the anguish and despair that I’d been holding back for the last couple of days. Mr. and Mrs. Logan stood silently by, probably unsure of what to do about a teenage girl having a mental breakdown in the middle of the cemetery. Babulya assigned them as my legal guardians in her will, and they had done the same with her as Ryan’s guardian. The random thought of how Ryan didn’t have a back-up parent anymore just made me cry harder. Days of pent-up grief came pouring out in an unstoppable flood.

Once I started to wind down, I heard Mr. Logan clear his throat, but it was Mrs. Logan who spoke.

“Why don’t we get you back home?” she asked cautiously.

I hesitated to answer. Once again, I was walking away from my babushka, but this time I was leaving her alone in the cold ground. My body shook as I stared down into the dirt-covered coffin, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

Please, let me wake up from this nightmare.

When I opened my eyes, nothing had changed. This wasn’t a dream I could wake up from, and Babulya was truly gone forever. Tears streamed down my face, and I was helpless to stop it.

Ryan cupped my chin and tilted my face up to meet his eyes.

“I can stay here with you if you want,” he offered.

“No,” I whispered as I wiped the tears from my face. “Your mom is right. We should go.”

It was just an empty shell that we were leaving to be buried underground and forgotten. It wasn’t really my babushka in there. I had to believe that she was somewhere better. Maybe she was reunited with the love of her life, and she was smiling down at me with my grandfather at her side.

Ryan kept his arm around me as we walked back to the car that the Logans rented for the occasion. I let out an insane-sounding laugh at the thought of doing something as mundane as getting on the subway the moment that my babushka’s body was lowered into the ground, as if this were just a normal day and not the day that my entire world collapsed.

My laugh dissolved into hysteria, and Ryan’s parents looked at me with concern. Ryan just kept his arm around me and took it in stride. I knew he would be here with me regardless of anything that happened. If I started running through the streets and screaming, he would chase after me.

Ryan’s unwavering support helped to steady me. Ryan and I weren’t just friends; he was my other half. We were frequently paired together in performances because we worked so well together. I trusted him absolutely and knew he would never let me fall - both literally and figuratively speaking.

I tried to take a deep breath, but I was still shaky. There were a million different emotions running through my mind right now, but none of them felt right. What was the right way to feel when you realized that the last bit of your family is gone forever, and you were now alone on this earth?

Just as I had that dark thought, a black SUV pulled up, and four men got out. I ignored them at first, because I assumed that they were visiting the cemetery for their own family member, but when they stopped in front of me, I paused.

An older gentleman in his sixties stepped forward and held out his hands towards me.

“Ekaterina, I came to offer my condolences and to say goodbye to my dear mladshaya sestra,” he said in a thick Russian accent.

My jaw dropped in shock. Was this man truly Babulya’s brother? How did he know who I was?

Babulya had told me that she left her family behind to marry my grandfather, but I had no idea she even had a brother. I knew her parents had passed away when I was just a child, and I thought I was the only family she had.

The Logans kept moving to the car, and Mrs. Logan shooed a reluctant Ryan along with them, leaving me to face the stranger alone. They must have assumed I knew him. Because all Russians knew each other, right?

“My name is Sergei Mikalov,” the stranger said in a deep voice.

“Spasibo,” I murmured to him. “Eta ochen’ mila s Vashey starany.” I took the stranger’s hands in my own and gazed up at him, trying to see