olebile_bamalete
Back in Kazan, they called her a fashion icon.
In St Petersburg, School 209 has a different word for it.
Alexandrina Sorokina arrives at School 209 in St Petersburg with starched classic Fit jeans a couple inches too long, a pressed crease, a Hijab, a red lip, exact change for the metro, and absolutely no intention of changing any of it for anyone.
For 10 days she is mercilessly bullied. For 10 days she holds her position. Then, just as she is about to Fold and Crumble,
On a cliff above the Gulf of Finland, she meets Konstantin - a shirtless, arrogant, insolent, impudent boy, in September, at 5:30 Pm, in fourteen degrees celsius weather, leaning against a birch tree like it was placed there specifically for him.
He mocks her tormentors, issues instructions about her wardrobe, eats her mother's pirog, drinks her Dilmah tea to the last drop, and dives off the cliff before she can object to any of it.
She does not know his last name. She does not know his age. She does not know why he keeps showing up on her cliff on the exact same days she does. She knows only that he is insufferable, that his grandmother deserves a formal apology on his behalf, and that she is absolutely, definitively, not going on Sunday.
She goes on Sunday.