Chapter 83 – Tabloid

AN: The Caps are on to round 2!!



Sasha’s POV


When I came home from a five game road trip Nef and my mom were sitting in the living room talking. Under normal circumstances this would have been okay but considering where we’d been for the last year and change I was nervous. I didn’t know what would come of the two of them meeting without a mediator.

”How are you two doing?”

”Good, your mom is showing me pictures of you when you were little!”

”Oh no, this can’t be good.”

”Hush now,” my mom admonished.

”Oh this one is soo cute!!” Nef nearly squealed.

She held a picture; I couldn’t have been older than two.

”That was when he was first potty trained,” my mom said. ”One day he just took his diaper off and said “Big Boy.” After that his father and I decided that it was time for him to be potty trained.”

I looked closer and sure enough it was me sitting on the toilet. Crap. I went to take the picture away from Nef but she held it out of my reach.

”Put those away,” I said.

Of course they both ignored me. Maybe my mom and my girlfriend getting along was a bad idea? After dropping off my stuff in the laundry room I went to my room to change before heading back downstairs. I inserted myself on the couch between them. My mom had given Nef several of the pictures to keep.

”They better not ever see the light of day.” Nef rolled her eyes at me before leaning on my shoulder.

I wrapped my arms around her and just held her. I’d been gone for 12 days.

”So, family dinner,” Nef said. ”We have a date but is it going to be here, my parents' house, or neutral ground?”

”Did you tell them it was my fault we haven’t done it yet?”

”Maybe?” Of course she would. I tickled her sides and she nearly elbowed me in the stomach trying to get away.

”Ahhh no! Stop!” She called me a bully as she scrambled to sit on the other couch. ”You stay over there.”

My mom made dinner and Nef decided to hang out in the kitchen with her to help planned for the dinner with our families. We would be having it at my house like originally planned in January. It was just easier for my schedule and it would be easier on my mom. I sat in the living room watching television, relaxing from a long, hard road trip. I’d been there for maybe about half an hour before my phone rang. It was Lana. I hadn’t talked to her for a little while. It was a little weird for her to be calling since there is a 12 hour time difference between DC and Krasnoyarsk.

”Hi Lana, what’s up?” I said.

”We have a problem?”

”What? What are you talking about?”

She told me to get in front of a computer. There was a tabloid story running that I needed to see. I didn’t pay attention to tabloids. They ran nothing but lies and garbage. I tried to stay as far away from them as I could. When I pulled up the website for Russia weekly, the equivalent of US weekly, the headline read “Tragedy Strikes Alexander Semin’s American Dame: Infidelity and a Miscarriage.” There were pictures from the NHL awards, from Nef’s trip to Russia over the summer – the day of our lake trip, when we went to Club Mio, and pictures from the time Nadiya, Lana, and other friends of ours went out in Krasnoyarsk. There are few things in life that make me angry but I could barely contain the rage that was flowing through me.

I must have cursed or done something because my mom and Nef came back into the living room asking me what’s wrong. I showed them the article. My mother’s face blanched but Nef looked rather unaffected. She sat down beside me and read the article.

”Alexander Semin’s American Dame, Nefertiti Hassan, has recently been the victim of tragic circumstances. Shortly after the New Year and Christmas Holiday Nefertiti found out that the Snarling Siberian had been unfaithful during his summer break at home in Krasnoyarsk. He had been seen at the popular Club Mio with both Nefertiti and his summer lover. Immediately after this revelation Nefertiti was rushed to the hospital where she found out that she had lost the child she was carrying.

Russian Weekly has identified Alexander’s summer time lover as Nadiya Sergiovicha, childhood friend of Alexander. It seems that his mother declaration of America admirers was true. Does this mean that Alexander is indeed settling down with a Russian Beauty? ”

”Well I guess we know what Nadiya’s been up too.” Nef said as she finished reading the article.

”How do you know it’s Nadiya?” my mother asked.

”Look at the pictures. They’re taking by someone who was there at these events with us. They’re not paparazzi photos. There are none from the other times we went out in Krasnoyarsk. There weren’t any reporters or paparazzi following us around. ”

It made sense. When looking at the pictures in the article I realized that Nef was completely right and had been completely right all along about Nadiya. My mom went upstairs, presumably to call Nadiya. I hadn't spoken to her since that day. I honestly did even know when she left to go back to Russia. If I never saw her again it would be too soon. I was doing my best to forget that she even existed.

There was nothing we could do. This wasn’t the first time my name had popped up in a tabloid paper and it probably wouldn’t be the last. I tried as hard as I could to keep my private life private and out of the media.

When I went to practice the following day Kettler was swarmed with Russia reporters. There’s always a presence of foreign media but very rarely are the more than Dmitry Chesnokov and maybe one or two other Russian reporters. Today there were a lot more. I immediately went to Bruce and George. They called Ted on the phone and we had a meeting where I told them everything. I had spoken to Nef about what she wanted to do. Her response had been “I don’t live in Russia. I don’t care what they think. If you want to tell them or sit for an interview that’s fine but I don’t want stories about my miscarriage splashed across the front page of every tabloid.”

I chose to ignore it. I didn’t give any interviews about anything other than hockey. Nef and I tried to go on about our lives as normal. Any media personnel that tried to force the issue had their media pass revoked by Caps staff. That lasted to about two days. The same tabloid ran another article. This time a reporter had interview Nadiya about what had been happening over the past few months. She spoke about how her and my mother had gotten along, about how my mother had preferred her over Nef, she even went as far as to say she thought that Nef had gotten pregnant on purpose because she thought that I was going to leave her.

I tried to keep it as far away from Nef as I could. Whenever a report asked a question that was related to her I ignored it. But when the tabloid and Nadiya started to talk about her trying to trap me and about how my mother tried to drive Nef away I agreed to talk to a Dmitry Chesnokov and one other Russian Reporter. I worked with my agent and Ted’s PR team to arrange a meeting. Nef and I had decided that she would attend. We’re not hiding our relationship. We simply tried to avoid the media spotlight. I hate having my private life splashed across the front pages of the news. I hate having people scrutinizing my private affairs. I wanted to shield her from this as much as I could. Hell even during interviews for the Winter Classic when I was asked who I had with me I’d never answered any questions about having a girlfriend…even when Nef was standing right beside me. Nef is a good person and the last thing I want was for the media to try and tear her apart.


Nef’s POV


I should be in the library studying for class but instead I’m sitting across from two Russian journalists talking about one of the most private things in my life. It seems that as of late Nadiya has taken to giving interviews with Russian media outlets about her “affair” with Sasha. She’s gone so far as to suggest that I got pregnant to keep Sasha from leaving me for her. We started off trying to ignore it but it has gotten progressively worse. It’s got to the point where local US media outlets are hounding Sasha and myself for interviews. There have been reporters camped out at the end of the cul de sack where Sasha lives for the past three days. It’s getting to be a little ridiculous.

I kinda, sort of, knew Dmitry. Sasha had done interviews with him before. He was nice and respectful and kept all of his questions related to hockey. The second reporter, a woman whose name I didn’t catch, was not as pleasant. She seemed to be more focused of getting “dirty” details from us. I swear she was disappointed when Sasha said that he hadn’t cheated on me.

”Nadiya had been a friend of mine since we were kids. Our moms met because they worked at the same bank. We she came back home from University at the beginning of last summer our moms thought it would be good for me to show her around. She’d been away from Krasnoyarsk for a few years.”

”She came to Washington right after New Years, was that your idea?” the female reporter asked.

”No, that was my mother’s idea. Nadiya had been looking at going to graduate school in DC. My mother invited her to come so she could look at schools. I assumed it was because they didn’t want her to be alone in a strange place.”

”Did you know about Nadiya?” Dmitry asked me.

”Yes, I first spoke to her over the phone last June and then I met her in person when I came to Russia in July. She seemed nice enough. We hung out a few times during the week or so I was in Krasnoyarsk.”

”Do you believe that Alexander slept with Nadiya?” the female reporter.

”Sasha has been nothing but honest with me during our entire relationship. Has she tried to sleep with him? Yes. Has she been successful? No. Has she tried to convince me that she has? Yes.”

”Is it true that your mother preferred Nadiya over Nefertiti?”

”Yes, our families have known each other for a very long time. To my mom Nadiya was safe. She was someone she could trust.” or so she thought.

”Was this one of the reasons for the start of your slump?” Dmitry had been trying to bring the conversation back to hockey.

”Sort of, I was playing with an injury at first and then I didn’t take any time off to deal with our loss. Hockey was constant, it helped keep me sane. It gave me a purpose when it felt like my world was falling apart. I probably should have taken the time off but I couldn’t. I’d been out injured and I hadn’t been scoring goals so I didn’t take any time off.”

”Part of that was my fault. I ended up going away for a little while. I had my mom and my grandmother to help me through it.” I said. ”But I still needed to get away from here. I thought I needed to be away from Sasha to sort things out.”

The entire interview lasted about an hour and a half. I really hoped I wouldn’t have to go through this again. We’d been working so hard to deal with losing a child and it seemed like all the progress we’d made was being torn apart.
Sasha apologized to me yet again. He’d been doing that a lot lately. I guess he was worried about me being upset and running away again. I’m not doing that any more. I’ve run enough. I’m not leaving and I’m not letting anyone take what’s mine.

Chapter 82 – “A friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself.”

AN: Short chapter but I've got a longer one coming up soon! Between school, work, and games 1 & 2 I haven't had much time to editing.

Enjoy! I'm off to watch game 3. Good Luck boys!

Nef’s POV

“Hey chick, wanna go to the mall?” I asked Jackie. Jesse and I were about to head to Pentagon City Mall for some shopping. I was in an amazing mood after talking to Sasha’s mom.

“Sure.”

We piled into my car and took the 35 minute drive to the mall. We always stop at a Starbucks for coffee before we actually started shopping.

“So how’d it go?” Jackie asked, referring to me talking to Tatiana.

“Good. Mommy Dearest doesn’t hate me anymore.” We’d taken to calling Sasha’s mom Mommy Dearest whenever we spoke about her.

“That’s good…does this mean I won’t get to ogle your half naked boyfriend because you guys will be staying at his place.” Sasha had gone from staying at Ovie’s place to staying at my place and he did tend to walk around without a shirt on a lot.

“I don’t know. We’ll probably try to find that balance from before…but I’ll tell Sasha to put clothes on.”

“No! Don’t do that. I need to be able to look at the Russian Adonis.”

Jesse nodded in agreement with Jackie. I couldn’t help but laugh. My roommates are insane and I love them.

“I’m telling Chris and Norman on you two slut bags!” I said.

“Well if Norman looked like Sasha I wouldn’t have to look elsewhere,” Jackie said.

“Chris and I have a rule – if the person is famous, it doesn’t count!” Jesse and Chris have a really weird relationship…but it is a pretty funny rule…I wonder if Sasha would ever go for that?...No, probably not.

“You can look but no touching,” I said.

“Come on Nef. Didn’t your parents ever teach you to share?” Jesse.

“No. I’m the only girl. I never had to share.” It’s true, being my parents’ only daughter did have its perks.

“You’re just so selfish!” Jackie giggled.

I told my roommates that I’d made plans to go back and visit with Tatiana more. I wanted this to work so that Sasha could be happy. We stopped in BCBG so I could get a new dress. Last night on the phone Sasha and I had picked a date for our parents to have dinner at Sasha’s house and I wanted a new dress for that.

“But really, are you and Sasha okay?” Jesse asked. “He’s been staying at our place for a while but there’s been no noise coming from your room.”

“What?!”

“You two have not been gettin’ busy. Why?” Jackie.

“I can’t believe you two…wait, yes I can,” I said. “Well if you must know I started a new pill and my doctor said that I should not have sex for a couple more weeks…and Sasha has been healing from a pulled groin muscle.”

It had been a while since Sasha and I were intimate. As soon as the doctor told me it was okay and as soon as his groin was good to go I was going to jump him, tie him to my bed, and have my wicked way with him. With the way I’ve been yearning for him it would probably be weeks before I let him go.

The past few months have been incredibly difficult on all fronts. I could only hope that this marked a turning point for us. Things had to be getting better now that we’d experienced the worst.

Chapter 81 – "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday."

Nef’s POV

The Caps have left to go on a 5 game road trip. Twelve days without Sasha. Right now I’m sitting in my car at the end of the cul de sack where he lives. I’ve spent the last two days trying work myself up to go and talk to his mom. The first time I couldn’t stop the car. Literally, I pulled into the cul de sack, did a U-turn and kept on going. Yesterday I managed to almost pull into his drive way before I left.

Come on Nef, you can do this. I pulled into his drive way and I sat there again. I couldn’t bring myself to turn off the engine and get out of the car. After what seemed like hours I turned off the engine, grabbed my purse, and got out of the car. I still had the key he’d given me. I even managed to put said key in the lock before I turned around and left. I can’t do this.

His neighbors must think I’m crazy. I’m sure they think I’ve lost it. Tomorrow. I’ll come back tomorrow. I can do it tomorrow.




That whole tomorrow thing? Yeah, that was a lie. It took me another two days before I could work up the courage to go back there. I called and spoke to Valeri. He apparently had noticed me driving by the house and figured that I was trying to work myself up to it.

”If you don’t want to talk to Tatiana you could at least come and talk to me.”

I hadn’t spoken to him since Ovi’s house, which was weeks ago. Since the second time I met him when we went out to lunch together I talked to him multiple times a week. When I arrived Valeri was in the living room watching television. He told me that Tatiana was upstairs taking a nap.

”She doesn’t have to hide. I won’t say anything to upset her,” I told him.

”I think she’s more worried about saying something to upset you.”

”What did I do wrong? I mean I know she’s never liked me but why?” From the moment she laid eyes on me she’s hated me and done everything she could to drive me away. It had to be more than just because I’m not Russian.

”She doesn’t hate you. She didn’t choose you and she thinks that you’ll take Sasha away from her. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but she’s a little controlling,” he said.

”A little controlling?” Understatement of the year.

”When Sasha didn’t come home after the hospital she was terrified that she’d driven him away. You know he still hasn’t slept here since then? If he’s not with you he’s with Ovi. When he did come home it was just to pick up clothes. He hasn’t spoken to her all that much. It’s hard losing a child, no matter how far a long you are. We know that. We know that better than either of us would like. I know that she would never wish that on you.” I could imagine that sometime during their 30 plus years marriage Tatiana had a miscarriage or two.

”Valeri, I know that. I know she doesn’t like me and I know that she doesn’t want me anywhere near her son but I don’t think that she would ever intentionally do something to hurt me.”

I sat there talking to him for a long time. So long that I was surprised when my phone rang. Sasha was calling me to say goodnight.

”I didn’t realize it was so late,”

”Where are you?” he asked.

”At your house, talking to your dad.” There was silence on the other end. He hadn’t expected that.

”Umm, okay. Is everything alright?”

”Yeah, I just hadn’t spoken to your dad in a while and I wanted to catch up…and talk about you behind your back.” I laughed into the phone.

”Oh you’re so funny.”

Valeri took the phone from me and told Sasha not to worry, that he would take care of me. I still hadn’t spoken to Tatiana so I made plans to come back the following day. Now I wanted to talk to her to keep Sasha from worrying. I didn’t want to cause him any unnecessary stress or heartache.



The next time I arrived at Sasha's place Tatiana was sitting in the kitchen waiting for me. Valeri left us alone to talk.

”First I’d like to apologize to you,” she started.

”Keep your apology. It doesn’t do either of us any good. You don’t like me. I don’t particularly care for you. We do however need to find a way to coexist.”

”What do you suggest we do?”

”The same thing I’ve been trying to do since I met you. Let’s be civil to one another and we’ll be fine. I don’t want Sasha to feel like he has to choose between us. We both love him and that should be enough to get along.”

”I just wanted what’s best for him,” she said gripping her coffee mug tightly.

”And what you thought was best cost us our child. Let Sasha and I decide what’s best for us. It’s bad enough I have to worry about other women throwing themselves at him, I shouldn’t have to worry about his mother trying for force women on him. I shouldn’t have to worry about what plans or plots you have to ruin my relationship.”

”I didn’t give you a fair chance and for that I’m sorry. I was so worried about what you were after and how you were going to take advantage of Sasha that I didn’t take the time to get to know you.”

This was the first time that Tatiana and I had sat down together to talk to one another. I learned that she had been the matriarch of her family for so long that it was difficult to let go. It had been her ingenuity and strength of character that had saw her family through the Soviet collapse of the early 90s. Valeri had gone from the Chief Financial Officer of a major industrial company to next to nothing.

”It didn’t matter how much money he was making it was still worth next to nothing. We didn’t want to take anything away from our children so we worked hard so that we could give them whatever they asked for.”

”Sasha told me about how you moved with him when he went to Trakor. He told me about what you were willing to give up so that he could live his dream.”

There was still a long way to go before either of us would be completely comfortable with one another but we were making progress.

”Are the two of you planning more children?” she asked toward the end of our conversation.

”We’ll try again when we’re ready. We want to try living together first.”

It was still too soon to considering having another baby. Sasha had promised that we could have as many as I wanted but it’s too soon for that.

”And are you two going to get married?”

”According to Sasha, I don’t have any other option,” She laughed at that. Sasha can be very pig headed when there is something he wants. He’s liable to have a tantrum if I say no. ”I love him but I’m still not sold on the whole idea of marriage so soon. I’m only 24. There is no rush.”

Chapter 80 – Overheard

Sasha’s POV


I’ve pretty much lived with either Ovi or Nef for the last few weeks. I’ve only gone home long enough to drop off laundry and dry cleaning and pick up clean clothes. I was home doing that and my parents were in their room with the door cracked. I could hear them talking.

”I don’t know what to do anymore?” my mother said.

”There is nothing you can do. Let them be and when they are ready they’ll talk to you.”

”But what if she’s never ready? What do I do if she never wants to be around here again? What do I do when they get married? I can’t lose him; he’s still my little boy.”

”You’re not going to. He loves you and he’s not going to walk away from you but you have to stop meddling. It’s only hurting him. I’m honestly surprised that the two of them have put up with this much. For more than a year you’ve done nothing but try to drive those two apart.” My dad.

I’d been catching bits and pieces of their conversations for a little while now. I could tell that my mom had been crying. My mother is controlling. She’s always had this need to try and control nearly everything around her. It hurt her to not be able to fix this. It hurt her to not be able to make everything the way it was. There was nothing I could do to ease this for her. There was nothing that anyone could do to make this go away.

I heard my dad close their bedroom door as he walked out. He walked into my room and sat down on my bed.

”I’m sorry this is hard on you,” I said.

”There’s no reason for you to be sorry.”

I was past the point of blaming anyone for this. I couldn’t hate the people I love. Nef was getting there. Slowly but surely she was finding peace within herself and in our relationship. There were still time when I found her crying or subdued but for the most part she was getting better. I’d promised her that no matter what we’d have as many children as we could. I knew that we could never replace this baby but I would promise her anything just to see her smile again.

Nefetiri and Adjo still wanted to meet my parents and I’m sure that my parents still wanted to meet them…well my dad did anyway. My mother was convinced that they would hate her just like she thought Nefertiti did. We were still working on making a meeting happen.

”I’ll talk to Nefetiri and Adjo tonight. We’re meeting them at a soup kitchen in Baltimore. We’re volunteering tonight with dinner and handing out blankets to the homeless.”

Nef’s family is very much so civic minded. They frequently go out as a family to do community service and make donations to local charities. I didn’t stay home for long. I went back to Nef’s and we drove to Baltimore for a quick family dinner and then off to the soup kitchen. Nef and I had gone shopping the previous evening for blankets, clothing, toiletries, and food to donate.



Nef’s POV


Yesterday Sasha and I had gone shopping for things to donate to a soup kitchen in downtown Baltimore. They were in the middle of a 3 game home stand and I have to say I love having him at home when I get there. The one down side is that he’ll be gone for Valentine ’s Day yet again. So to make it up to me he’d been pampering me for the last week, flowers every day, my favorite chocolates, back rubs, the works.

Family dinner was nice; we’d had one a few nights ago. I expected there to be awkwardness but there wasn’t. In fact my family was more accepting and accommodating to Sasha. Even though he was not officially a part of the family, my parents treated him like they treaded the rest of us. That meant he was expected to participant in family activities when his schedule permitted. He’d been thrilled. I knew that he was concerned about how my family would react when I came back from Egypt. After all I told them everything. They were sad for our lost but understanding of our need to be with each other. My dad told me that he’d been there for Sasha whenever possible while I was gone. Khai and Set just wanted us to be happy again. Im was a little bit more reserved and Sasha would have to work to earn his trust back. He no longer trusted Sasha not to hurt me.

“I never want to see you like that again,” Im told me when I came home. “I never want you to hurt like that.”

”Come on woman, get out of the car.” Sasha yelled to me.

”Don’t rush me!” I playfully admonished. We were supposed to be unloading the cars but I had opted not to.

”Take the blankets inside and I’ll grab the boxes from the trunk.” He’d gotten into the habit of telling me what to do.

Once we’d unloaded the cars Sasha and I went into the back store room to help with setting up for disbursement.

“And who is this?” Mrs. Robinson asked me. She was the Manager of the soup kitchen and the homeless shelter. I’d known her since I was about 8, when my family first started to volunteer here with regular frequency.

She was an older, southern black woman that had moved to Baltimore with her husband. He’s a surgeon that works at Johns Hopkins with my dad. Mr. Robinson had been one of the surgeons who my dad had studied under. Mrs. Robinson knows absolutely nothing about hockey and had no idea who Sasha was. He didn’t want to tell her either. This gave him the chance to do something because he wanted to, to volunteer without cameras present for PR.

“Mrs. Lyn!” I said. It had been a few weeks since I’d seen her last. “This is Alex. Sasha this is Mrs. Lyn. I told you about her.”

“Hello Mrs. Lyn. It nice to meet you,” he said shaking her hand. She pulled him in to a tight hug and laughed.

Mrs. Lyn is very motherly and it doesn’t take long for people to warm up to her. I’m sure that my mother had told her about Sasha. Those two liked to gossip...a lot.

“I was wondering when you would bring him down to meet me.” She gave me a look that clearly meant that I should have done so sooner.

“I’m sorry! Things have just been so busy.”

She didn’t buy it, not even a little bit.

“We’re sorry,” Sasha jumped in. “It just I busy with work that I never have the time before. It my fault, not hers.”

I hoped the donations we brought would assuage her. Sasha and I had been together for more than and year and we had only just now found our way down here. She wasted no time putting us to work.

“And just because it’s your fault, you get the heavy lifting,” she told him.

“Not too heavy, he’s got a game in a couple of days and he’s supposed to be resting.” Not to mention his wonky groin.

“He looks strong enough.” She pointed to the utility shelves along the back wall.

“You and Im grab a case of each of those cans please? Take them over to the table and Neffy and I will start bagging them up. Nef and Adjo and the little ones head to the kitchen and start with setting up for dinner.”

That’s Mrs. Lyn, straight and to the point. It doesn’t take long for her to start giving orders. She’s called me Neffy since the day she met me.

“Now you, Miss Neffy,” she said once everyone started moving to do her bidding.

“Start talking.”

“Talk about what?” I asked innocently. “Sasha and I have been together for a little longer than a year. I met him at Six Flags.”

“So this is serious?”

“Yes ma’am, but I’m sure you know that. You talk to my mom almost every day. I know you two talk about me.”

She wanted to know everything about Sasha; who he was, where he grew up, what he did for a living. She didn’t like that he was a professional athlete. Apparently all of them are bad news. I assured her that he was well behaved and good to me…that was when he wasn’t throwing Styrofoam packing peanuts at me.

“Stop it!” It was nice to see him have that playful spark again.

It wasn’t long before my mother and I switched places. Those two couldn’t stay apart for long. Mrs. Lyn didn’t bring up the baby although I’m 100% positive she knew. She did field questions about me moving in with Sasha after graduation.

“Tell me how they’re really doing,” Mrs. Lyn said to my mom.

“Better. They’re doing a lot better now that they’re back together.”

“Have you met his parents?”

“We were supposed to, but that was the day that we went to the hospital. We’ve told them that Adjo and I still want to meet them. We left it up to them to figure it out.”

I hadn’t told my mom about the stress on the relationship between myself and Tatiana. Or I hadn’t told her that the woman wanted nothing more than for me to disappear. My mom had figured out that there was a bit of tension there. I’m not sure if I want my parents to meet her anymore. I knew I couldn’t put it off forever. Eventually I’d have to face up to this but is it wrong for me to prolong this for as long as I can?

No, Nef. Stop running away. You’re running away from this. That’s what you do. When things get hard you bail.

Stop it.

When I found Sasha, he and Im where handing out meals and blankets outside.

“How are your parents holding up?”

“My dad is fine. He happy that Nef is back. My mom…she…she worried.”

“About what?”

“That Nef hate her. She worried that Nef blame her for what happened.” I don’t hate his mom. I don’t like her very much at the moment but I don’t hate her.

“Well can you blame her? It’s kinda her fault.”

“I know that Nef don’t hate her but I also know that Nef don’t want to talk to her or see her. I not going to make her. My dad did talk to me about meeting your parents. He want it to happen soon.”

I did want my parents to meet his dad. Valeri is a really nice guy. I think they’ll get along well.

I don’t like feeling rushed or forced or pushed. I hate it. I guess that’s one of the reasons why I tend to run away so much. I can’t keep running away from this. Okay. Fine. It’s just dinner. It won’t be that bad. We’ll do it. I can do it.