Vanya

It was late evening. The city was slowly sinking into blue twilight, and the occasional streetlights snatched the empty sidewalks from the darkness. The three of us were walking: my parents and I. At times like these, I always involuntarily switched into "good daughter" mode—quiet, obedient, walking next to my mother, discussing mundane trivialities. My two worlds—home and street—usually never intersected, and I did everything I could to keep it that way.

We were peacefully turning into the courtyard when the silence of the empty street was literally cut by a sharp, hoarse voice right behind me:

• Listen... why don't we say hello?

At that moment, everything inside me went cold. My heart did a somersault and sank into my heels. I instantly recognized that voice. It was Vanya. My old buddy, whose reputation in the neighborhood was, to put it mildly, peculiar. A true local "gangster": his perpetual black jacket, hood over his eyes, a brazen gait, and a habit of speaking first and thinking later. To me, he was a real soul, a trusted friend, but to my parents, he seemed like a living nightmare from a crime report.

My parents' reaction was immediate. Dad suddenly tensed up and practically shielded Mom and me, his fists instinctively clenching. Mom gasped in fear, clutching his sleeve, her eyes wide.

I slowly turned around. Vanya stood under the dim light of the streetlamp. His hands in his pockets, he looked at us with his usual insolent grin. But as soon as his gaze met my horrified face and then shifted to my tense parents, he understood everything. His eyebrows shot up, and he instantly tried to change his tone to "decent," which sounded even stranger when he did it.

"Oh... hello!" Vanya tried his best to sound polite. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. I... was mistaken."

He winked at me conspiratorially, turned, and strode quickly into the darkness of the courtyards, whistling a tune. A ringing silence fell. We continued on, but the atmosphere was hopelessly ruined.