"Happy Thursday." I hear and feel small arms wrap around my waist. I turn around and see Sasha standing behind me and I take her hands, leading her out of the school.

I love Thursdays, I think they might be my new favourite day of the week. Everything these past few days had felt different than it did last week. We were spending the same amount of time together, but it didn't feel as depressing as it did. I figure we're both just adjusting to spending less time together, but we're also learning how to make our time together count. 

"So what do you want to do?" I ask, pulling her to my side.

"Coffee?" She suggests. "Something low-key?"

"Sounds great." I tell her and she smiles.

The two of us hop into my car and as we pull away from the school, Sabrina and Jake are walking to the parking lot. Just seeing the two of them made me tense. They'd been particularly quiet these past few weeks, just passing Sasha and I both dirty glares. It made me nervous, I knew when they got like this it didn't mean anything good.

"Are you alright?" Sasha asks as we step out of the car. "It seemed like you had a lot on your mind driving over here."

"Yeah, it's nothing serious." I assure her, opening the door and ushering her to a table.

I'm back a few minutes later with two coffees and I sigh pouring some sugar into mine.

"I'm just a little worried about Sabrina and Jake." I tell her and she nods. "They don't stay quiet like this unless they're planning something."

"What's the worst they could do?" She asks and I reach across the table, looking for her hand.

"Sabrina knows things." I tell her. "She has connections and she knows people. I've watched her pull some ridiculous strings before, like calling someone to change her GPA at the end of every year. I've watched her pull strings in things around this school, like putting her friends onto sports teams and she manages to get teachers fired if they don't bend over backwards for her. I know she's just a sixteen year old like us, but she knows everything."

"S-so what are you saying?" She asks and I sigh.

"Just watch who you talk to, don't spread personal things around. Everything you think you keep secret, she finds out eventually. I don't want her to do anything that could interfere with your skating."

"She could do that?" She asks and I shrug.

"She could do a lot of things. Like tell everyone I used to figure skate or make up a rumour about you. I don't know who's secret you know or who you're protecting, but whoever you helped on Saturday-"

"She could expose their secret too." She concludes and I nod, giving her hands a good squeeze. "You said you've seen this type of thing happen before?" She asks and I nod.

"You remember Alyssa?" I ask and her eyes widen.

"The girl who had a drug problem and had to go to rehab a few months ago?" She asks and I sigh.

"She never had a drug problem." I mumble. "It was a made up rumour from Sabrina, Alyssa was the only person in the school who's GPA matched Sabrina's. The only difference was that she was actually putting in a lot of hard work. Sabrina told her to back off or she'd regret it, she didn't and suddenly there was a few 'questionable' pictures posted to an anonymous instagram page." I tell her and her eyes widen.

"She got teased so relentlessly that her parents moved out-of-state. Sabrina covered it up by telling everyone she was going to rehab for help with her drug problem. Just like that she was back on top." I say, feeling disgusted just retelling the story again. 

"That's horrible." She says quietly. "So you think that's what they're trying to do to me?"

"Or me? Or us? Or the people around us?" I tell her and she nods. "I have no idea."

"Well we'll just have to be careful." She says.

"I don't want to scare you, I just want you to know what could be a stake." I sigh and she sighs too.

"Well whatever it is we'll deal with it together." She says and I smile. Then her phone starts vibrating and she picks it up. "Hello?" She asks and then her face changes. "What's up?" She asks furrowing her eyebrows. "You are? That's wonderful, did you want me to-oh he's going with you? Good for you, I know it seems scary but I know it'll feel better once you tell them."

Who is she talking to? I keep seeing her answer these mysterious phone calls all the time and it's starting to confuse me.

"I'm with Nate....no don't be sorry I told you I'd be here for you." She says and I raise my eyebrows. "No....you told me not to. Because you made me promise." She laughs and I hear laughter. "Are you sure? It's fine if you're not ready.......alright. Well good luck." She says and nods a bit as the person on the other end answers. "I'm proud of you, I'm supporting you and I'm glad you feel confident enough to do this." 

After a few more 'uh-huh's and nods she wraps up the call. "Text me if something happens, say hi to Dean for me.......alright, bye Micheal." She says and ends the call and I just feel more confused. The person she was trying to help was Micheal?

"Sorry." She says and I just laugh, shaking my head. 

"Micheal?" I ask and she nods.

"This is a big story, come on let's take these coffees to go." She says and I nod following her back out to my car.

"So.....the person you were in tears over on Saturday was Micheal?" I ask shutting the door and she nods. "And that's who you've been taking secret phone calls and texts from?" I confirm and she nods again. "Why?"

"Because he's a really close friend of mine and he trusted me with a huge secret." She says with a sigh. "Nathan, Micheal's gay." She says quietly and suddenly it all makes sense. That's why she couldn't say anything, he probably asked her to keep it a secret and told her not to tell anyone. She probably chose not to tell me because I'd already made that assumption months before.

"He just asked me if I'd told you, and when I said I didn't he told me I could. I didn't want to betray Micheal's trust, that's not an 'I cheated on my Spanish test' kind of secret. That is a life-changing, breaking-up-with-your-girlfriend, nothing-will-be-the-same, secret. He begged me not to tell anyone, and as much as I love you, I wouldn't tell one of your secrets to Micheal either."

"No that's....understandable." I tell her and she nods.

"It killed me to keep that from you, because I knew you wouldn't say anything to anyone and I didn't want to keep a secret from you." She whispers.

"You're a good friend Sash." I whisper. "So....how's everything going for him?"

"He's planning on telling his parents tonight." She says. "I know it's a huge step, but he loves them and I know it sucks to keep things from the people you love. I know he'll feel better afterwards, he's got this.....friend? Boyfriend.....I don't know, but they connect. He's going with him tonight."

"So that's who Dean is?" I ask and she nods again.

"I just feel bad for him.....he's kept it a secret this long because he knows his life won't be the same if he doesn't deny it." She whispers and I grab her hand. "Micheal's one of my closest friends and I just want him to be happy."

"He will be." I assure her. "It's always better to be yourself and not hide who you are." I lean over and give her a hug that she seems to relax into. "Thank you for telling me, I'm sorry you had to deal with this alone." She nods and gives me a kiss on the cheek.

"Sorry for cutting our date short, but this is a private thing-"

"It's alright." I whisper and she smiles. 

Then she furrows her eyebrows and takes her phone out of her pocket. She laughs and pulls back with a sigh. "I seem to be popular today, huh?" She asks and I laugh. "Hello? Hey mom.......I'm with Nate, I told you we normally do stuff on Thursdays." She says and nods a bit listening and then she smiles.

"Yeah I remember." She says a second later. "Well that sounds nice but-"

"Go." I whisper quietly. "Don't give it up for me."

I didn't even know what it was but I knew that Sasha should be bonding with her mom. Whatever it was she sounded mildly excited about it. She smiles and sighs focusing back on the phone call. 

"Can I bring Nate with me?" She asks. "Perfect, I'm sure he'll have fun. Alright see you in a bit." She says and ends the call.

"Well you're in luck." She says and I raise my eyebrows. "Dad's working late tonight and mom wants to make dinner from scratch. She got struck by the memory of us helping her when we were little and she asked me to do it with her."

"So we're making dinner?" I ask and she nods. "Sounds like a nice way to stay on your mom's good side."

"Mom likes you." She says giving me a shove. "But if you don't want to-"

"No, I'd like that." I tell her and she smiles.

Soon enough we're pulling up to her house and we walk into her kitchen seeing her mom, her two brothers and Nik's girlfriend Grace standing around the large island.

"Wonderful, you're all here." She says. "Wash your hands and roll up your sleeves." 

We all take a turn at the sink and her mom smiles getting out an old book. That must be that heirloom book Sasha talked about.

"Alright, tonight we'll be making Varenniki. But I'll double the recipe so we have extras, Sasha, boys, you know the drill, Nate and Grace come here." She says and I give Sasha's hand a squeeze before walking over to her mom. "Bless you both for being with my children." She says with a laugh.

"This is a very special book in our family, it goes back five generations. It has all our special recipes from home. They were developed and changed by our family making them very unique. This is only something we share with family members, so I'd like to welcome you in."

"That's very sweet." Grace says and I nod.

"Thank you." I add and she gives us both a squeeze. 

"Alright, head back." She says and I smile seeing Sasha starting to pull out cutting boards and knives.

"Mister single?" She says and Alex looks up. "Over here my boy, you'll work with me." We all chuckle as he makes his way back around the island and she smiles. "All of my children know this recipe like the back of their hands. Tonight they're going to teach it to you." I smile as Sasha reaches over to hold my hand and I give it a squeeze.

"Best set of Varenniki, wins." She says and I sigh. "Go!"

"I'm warning you, you might want a different partner." I tease and she shakes her head, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

"No I don't." She says quietly. "I'm pretty bad at this so ours are going to be the worst." I laugh and she does too. "It's about doing it together, not being amazing at it."

"So what's the main idea of this?" I ask and she pulls a ball of dough over, that sits inside of a metal bowl.

"Well usually you'd make this dough, but mom made it before hand." She says. "We need to cut it into pieces, roll them out and fill them. Then you pinch them closed and boil them for a few minutes."

"What do you fill them with?" I ask and she shrugs.

"Anything you want." She says and I laugh. "That's where we'll need to be creative."

"What was in the ones you had the other night?" I ask and she smiles.

"Potatoes, cheese.....cabbage. Let's swap cabbage for fried onions actually." She says and I nod, just listening.

"Wait no fair, he's eaten them before?" Nik says and Sasha nudges my arms. 

"Trust me, I'll probably be more of a disadvantage." I tell them, earning a small laugh.

"Alright, let's start cutting things up and boiling potatoes." She instructs and I nod. 

The whole process is sort of a mess, but it's fun at the same time. I've never cooked much of anything so this was definitely a new experience. I just trust Sasha and what she tells me to do.

"Should we add dill?" I ask and she laughs.

"Why?" She asks stirring the filling together. 

"Why not?" I ask and shake some of it in and she laughs. "How about some more?"

"That's too much." She says and laughs, giving me a shove. "Nate! Too much!"

"There's never enough dill." I tell her and she smacks my hand away.

"Stop it." She scolds, but a smile starts to creep onto her face. "Okay, some salt and I think we're good." 

Then the two of us take on the daunting task of rolling out the small circles. I watch her do a few and I try to mirror it, but I can't seem to get it to work.

"You might be overfilling them?" She says and fixes them up for me. "Try again, pinch them really tight." She encourages and puts her hands over my own, helping me close the dumplings.

"Ideal'nyy." She whispers, kissing my cheek. "They're perfect Nathan." Hearing her encourage me was all I wanted to hear.

We finish them up and then take them to the stove to boil. She brings a large pot to a boil and smiles.

"Alright, put them in carefully. They cook for maybe two minutes? Or until they rise to the surface." Together we start putting them in and placing them on a plate. In another pan she has butter melting and she drizzles it over the finished ones. "It helps them not stick together." She whispers and I smile.

Soon enough we'd all finished our food and were cleaning up our mess before putting them down in front of the true expert, Sasha's mom.

"Very nice job, all of you." She says and Sasha leans into my side. She tastes them all and smiles giving small cretics, but overall she seems to enjoy them.

Afterwards when Sasha's chatting with Grace and Alex is doing the dishes with her mom, Nik walks over to me.

"Not too bad Carter." He says and I laugh.

"Thanks." I say with a smile.

"You know.....it kills me to say this, but you're really good to my sister. I know she's busy, but she really needs you." He says and I smile.

"Sasha's incredible." I say quietly. "I need her too." He nods and sighs, putting his hand on my shoulder.

"It's a shame I won't get to see her perform at Nationals, I swear that's all she's been talking about since-"

"What?" I ask and he nods.

"Yeah....regionals is that weekend." He says and I feel my eyes widen. "You didn't know?"

"I guess I didn't.....realize?" I say and feel my heart shatter. Neither one of us would get to support each other that weekend.

"Shit, that means she doesn't know either." He mumbles. "I'm sorry man."

"It's not your fault." I say and sigh. "I'll have to break the news at some point."

"I can tell her if it's easier." He says and I shake my head. 

"No.....I should talk to her about it." I say and he nods.

"Nik!" Alex says. "Come help wash the dishes." He groans and Nik gives me a nod, walking away. I start to panic, not knowing how I could fix this or make it work. I'd have to have a great date for her on Saturday. I walk over to where her mom looks at her cookbook and suddenly an idea pops into my head.

"Miss Petrov?" I ask and she nods with a smile. "I was hoping I could ask you a favour."

"What is it?" She asks and I sigh.

"The soup that Sasha ate for dinner last week.....she loves it, says it reminds her of home. I was hoping to do a really special date for her this weekend and I was hoping to borrow the recipe?" I ask and she smiles.

"What was it?" She asks and I furrow my eyebrows, not sure what the name of it was.

"Something with an 'S'? It had sour cream on it-"

"Shchi?" She asks and I snap my fingers with a nod.

"That was it." She smiles and opens the book to the recipe.

"It's not too hard, you should be able to manage it." She assures me. "You said you'd like the recipe?" She asks and I nod.

"I'd like to make it for her, show her I care." I say and she smiles.

"Young man, that's why we cook food." She says and starts writing out instructions and ingredients on a piece of paper. "To share it with the people we care about."