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    This Russian Love Story
    This Russian Love Story
    This Russian Love Story
    Ebook87 pages1 hour

    This Russian Love Story

    By Kyler Doss

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    About this ebook

    A shy boy fears that he won't make a friend, but then he does - unless the other boy is only acting. The street theater game the kids are playing swallows up everything on Alki Avenue, from what is real to what is not. Oz can only hope that the boy he likes is for real - or else love tells the biggest lie of all.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKyler Doss
    Release dateJan 14, 2020
    ISBN9781938181078
    This Russian Love Story
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    Author

    Kyler Doss

    Kyler Doss has got a pocketful of chocolate milk receipts from the bus depots he has gone through. His note on the reverse side of one of the receipts: Arizona rules. A graduate of the University of Arizona, Kyler writes fiction that is set in a lot of places - the coming-of-age stories boys in love would recognize on any map you can google or unfold.

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      Book preview

      This Russian Love Story - Kyler Doss

      1

      Any nice kids

      I WAS never allowed to have friends because I might get hurt. My parents can explain it to you better than I can, but it's got something to do with how people may seem nice at first but a boy like me can't trust them. When I came to West Seattle, I don't think my aunt and uncle knew what the rules were because they even asked me, did I meet any nice kids over at the beach, which was across the street. I almost told them I wasn't allowed to, and then I just said not yet but I was looking forward to it.

      Anyway, you can probably guess that this is the story of meeting someone on the beach. Of course, when you first meet them, you don't know who they are, or maybe I should say that you don't know if they will mean something to you later on down the line. Like if you will fall in love with them or not.

      So, I guess you realize I am going to tell you that I did fall in love with one of them. It was this boy named Alex. This would be a simple love story if things didn't get so weird right after I met him. What happened was, him and some people were playing a game of street theater. Without trying to explain the rules, I will take you back to the night all of this got started.

      The sun was going down. I wanted to get over to the beach and meet somebody, but I didn't know how to do it. It was pretty much my aunt and uncle's idea for me to get out there. They said that a boy who lives across the street from an amusement park needs to take advantage of it.

      Luna Park would have its grand opening in a few days. If I could meet someone tonight, then I could ask him to go with me. You see, I was already holding two tickets. So the plan was great, at least on paper.

      You could see lots of people over there from our balcony. They were on the avenue and around the beach. Yeah, it looked like fun. If only it wasn't so difficult for me to talk to them. But I did get myself out the front door, and I told myself to walk the 60 or so feet.

      That was the distance from my aunt and uncle's place to the entrance of Luna Park. All you had to do was cross this street where the big white stripes mark your way and also stop the cars for you. The world just opens up when you've got a plan. My plan, which wasn't very well thought out, was to meet a total stranger.

      I wanted to believe we would go to the grand opening, me and the stranger, and he would start to like me - me being Oz Phillips, 16. If he was waiting for me tonight on the other side of this avenue, I knew I would like him a whole lot.

      I checked my shirt pocket, where my fingers brushed the tickets for the park, a playland with a ride that would swing you out over the water. We could even ride it together.

      The entrance to the park was red and white. It would be here when I was ready. But for now I had to be someone I was not, the stranger who could find another stranger. I walked past the park, heading west on the avenue until I could drop down to the beach itself.

      It was kind of like fishing when you think about it, only I was not going there with a tackle box. I was going there with these tickets of cherry red and off-white. Yeah, I really wanted to find this kid. You know, I never met anybody like him before. But the idea of him was so real to me.

      In the time of waiting for him to come, you could watch the sun go down over the mountains. Or at least that's what someone would think you were doing. If I met him, the truth is that it would all be up to him. He would have to talk first because I couldn't see myself talking to him even if I was a million miles from home.

      As for home, which was Tennessee, my parents were doing U.S. Air Force things this summer, so I jumped at the chance to visit West Seattle and the all-new Luna Park. The park was exactly like the old one, which went by the same name and was also built over the water at this place called the Duwamish Head.

      What started there as a 10-foot seawall became lower and lower. When it ran out, I crossed the sand to the water. So basically I would stand there and wait. The setting sun was already over an uneven horizon. I concentrated like I was watching a movie, but I was not that interested in the end of this day.

      Tide's going out, someone said.

      I looked over my right shoulder at a boy who really could be 16. It was kind of unbelievable because that was him. I don't know what else to tell you. There was enough light blowing in from the west for me to say yeah, this was the guy. It was like we were filming a movie and he showed up right on time.

      The lack of a smile added something to his words, something that told me I was already lost in who he was. He almost made me believe the tide goes out at sundown because it has important things to do way out there somewhere. But I didn't care about any of that.

      It's never coming back, he said, like he was just stating a fact.

      I really believed he was the one I was waiting for, the stranger who could never remain a stranger in Luna Park. But the extra ticket I had on me was his only if I could find a way to give it to him. Otherwise it would stay in my pocket, especially if he wouldn't smile.

      Do you know the name, he said, of the tall peak? He pointed from a place three or four steps up the slope.

      Over long water, a range of blue mountains carved an artificial horizon, which is what it was because I came from a land of hills.

      No, I said, and looked at him again.

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