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MARCH 3, 2009 / DENHVOY ALVOROD INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL

When school ended that day, Asher fell down the front stairs of the courtyard.

Two of his friends had been pushing each other (it was still unclear who started it) and accidentally hit the boy with fragile bones. Down the stairs he toppled.

His brain froze, that same clenching of neurons, as if his mind was suspended, but his body was not. His leg hit the concrete, and though he could feel the sting of a grazed knee, Asher didn't feel anything else. The initial pain of injury was achingly familiar to Asher, and it reunited with him like a hammer on impact. Like he and pain were made for each other, and would always find a way to collide again.

He twisted his leg around, to inspect the damage.

No bones were sticking out of his skin at odd angles, and he could still stand. Asher got to his feet, and looked at his fingers as if he had discovered the cure for cancer with those hands. He felt invincible, superhuman. All hyperboles, of course. For a clueless bystander, or even his clueless friends, Asher had just fallen; no problem.

But the importance of those few moments were not defined by how he had fallen, but by how he had gotten back up. Most falls that made him bleed also made him break — but not this one. Asher felt stronger, despite having fallen onto stone a minute before. He felt bulletproof, made of titanium instead of glass.

"Oh, man, sorry!" one friend apologised. He hit another boy's shoulder, "Look what you did to Asher."

"Me?" the other hit back, laughing. "You're the one who pushed him."

Asher waved away the apologies of his friends, and flipped off the friends who laughed. The two brothers tumbled into their mother's car, and his two other friends separated to walk home in opposite directions. Asher pulled a key from his bag, unlocked the chain that wrapped around the wheel of his bike and sped home feeling better than he had — well, in forever.

Vasily had a speech prepared for the moment when Asher came home. It would start with the reasons why America should be in their future, and end with, "It's your choice, Asher."

He was hoping that he could appeal to the kinder side of his son's heart – which was bruised from all the times he let the world in, only to have more pain sent his way.

The speech died on his tongue when Asher ran into the living room, with dirt-speckled, grazed knees and a smile as wide as the horizon.

"When do we start packing?" the teenager asked.

"W-what?" Vasily was stunned. "You changed your mind?"

"Yeah," Asher dropped his school bag in front of the TV — Vasily would tell him to take it up to his room later, when he wasn't so preoccupied — and shrugged, "I think we can handle it, right, Papa?"

A frozen stare was his only reply, so Asher continued, "I might see a celebrity there. And the schools aren't so good, but they're leading in medical research — after China. It'll be an adventure."

The announcement had been two days ago, and Asher had visited his mother's grave twice in less than a week. Usually, it was once every two months, after a new broken bone, or when he was going through a dark period in his life.

What else could Vasily think, other than that the thought of moving to America was a dark period for Asher?

"Yes, I suppose so," Vasily smiled. "An adventure."

Science homework in hand, Asher went to his room — walking past his mother's doctorates and Mensa membership certificate framed proudly on the wall. Vasily was puzzled; what had changed his mind in two days?

The repugnant bass line of a punk pop song — Vasily did not share his son's taste in music — throbbed from Asher's room, and Vasily knew he wouldn't hear a peep from Asher (nor would Asher hear a peep from his father) until he went there and dragged him out when dinner was done.

For an hour, Vasily was on his laptop, ordering some parts that the repair shop he worked at was low on, and for an extra half an hour, checked the accounts for the business.

On the dot of six o'clock, he packed away the coffee table and started cutting up flanks of lamb and pork. Asher — like the perfect child most parents wished for, except for one glaring imperfection — had sliced his workload in half, and had gone two chapters ahead in the science textbook his class was using.

He smelt the tangy scent of Ekaterina's favourite dish, solyanka, at six-thirty. An aching in his stomach and salivary glands told Asher that he needed to eat. He left his pen and neon yellow highlighter scattered on his bed, while shutting his science textbook. There would be time for homework after dinner.

Father and son made aimless chatter in between mouthfuls of the meaty soup, like they usually did — when they weren't arguing. After doing the dishes, and showering — Asher felt the sting of his knees under hot water and laughed at his battle scars — he wondered if he would be ahead of or behind the American school students. Then he realised he could determine that for himself, by studying his butt off.

Determined to be extra-smart when he arrived, leaving his homework thoroughly forgotten, Asher powered on his laptop and input, "American history," into the search bar.

Just wait till he got to America.

They would all know of Asher Delrov — the boy who was stronger than the weight of the world.

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