Lips burn from his kiss. And after shaking my aunt, I wanted to hide in his arms. Touch your chest with your hands. Or hair. Stroke the temples, walk the fingertips along the neck. This is the first time. But maybe because he stood up for me? Did you come to my defense? I don't want back. In the suffocating moaning of the aunt. In a small apartment where he lived for seven years.

Simple arithmetic: six years with my parents, six years in an orphanage and twice in different families, where I, like a capricious greenhouse plant, could not take root. And seven years with Aunt Alya. Not the...