The first time Evie saw Nikolai cry was through an old video tape his mother had shown her the third time he had brought her home. On the screen, little Nikolai was chasing ducks running down a slope, ducks hoping they would escape that terror of a child. Laughing and screaming to his new friends to come back, Nikolai hadn’t heard his father’s warnings. The next thing Evie saw on the screen was a crying little boy with red cheeks and knees. Cries which could have alerted the neighbouring village.

The second time Evie saw him cry, she cried with him. In front of a church, a coffin had gathered family members and friends for a last goodbye. To a mother, a sister, a grandmother. Nikolai's grandmother had been the only one in his big family to support him and his choices, despite her own beliefs. The only one to stand up against his parents the day he came out. The only one to tell him how much she loved him and how proud of him she was of the young man he had become.

The third time, though, Evie had been the only one responsible for his tears. Nikolai had called her in a panic, telling her he needed to see her right now. Because he had no one else to go to. Because he didn’t trust anyone else as much as he trusted her. Nikolai had shared all of his troubles with her on a worn-out couch she hadn’t the means to change, but a couch that felt like home to him. He had asked her if his parents weren’t right after all, that he had to be broken, that his supposed bisexuality was only a phase, that he would have to choose, but in the end they knew he was gay and couldn’t accept it. That all he had ever brought them was shame.

On that couch, Evie had told him everything he needed to hear. How proud of him she was for being so strong. How what his parents might say about him had no importance anymore because she knew him better than them. A boy who loved the colour pink, preferred badminton over football, cried during horror movies because they scared him too much, but he couldn't stop watching them. A boy who had been so pressured by the thought of disappointing his parents that he had been ready to change his whole self, even though this had put him into uncomfortable situations more than once. She was so proud of him, loved him, and no matter what people thought about him, she would always be by his side.