After that Aunt Tamara took me to McDonald’s. It was my first time, but she told me to order for myself without hesitation. The picture of the quarter pounder looked good, so I ordered that and a Coke. When it arrived I was astounded by the thickness of the meat patty. I remember my first bite, the way the rich juices had run from the meat, coating my mouth with an unctuous flavor. America, I remember thinking. I love America!

“That young man back there, with his dog,” she said as she watched me eat, and I flinched, mouth full. “They were low value. Don’t ever feel inferior to low value scum like that. Walk with your head high. Command the situation.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You wouldn’t have been so brave without your mobile.”

“You don’t think so?” she said, and something about her fearless, confident smirk made me rethink my estimation of this woman. Perhaps I didn’t dislike her so much after all…

“But you’re right, in a way,” she said. “It does help to have resources to back you up. I’ll speak with Goran about getting one for you, too.”

“One what?”

“A mobile phone.”

“May I have some paper, an envelope and a stamp?” I asked Aunt Tamara later that night.

“Sending a letter? To whom?”

“My girlfriend.”

If she was surprised to hear I had one, she did not show it. She simply furnished the necessary implements, and I took them to my room.

Dear Maja,

I’ve been adopted by my aunt and uncle. You’d be surprised if I told you how rich they are. I have a room all to myself, bigger than Baba’s apartment. Aunt says she’ll buy me a mobile.

Aunt told me stuff about my parents. She said my dad’s name was Aca, and that he was a skinhead who fought with gypsies and smashed police cars. He wore a leather jacket and had tattoos and swastika all over. Is it wrong that I think he sounds cool? I wish I could have met him.

I miss you. I miss Baba. Belgrade is noisy. Even noisier than your house. I hate it.

Write back soon.

Love, Žarko

PS: I told Aunt you were my girlfriend. I hope that’s ok.

Dear Žarko,

I haven’t stopped crying since you left. Baba told me why you had to leave, but I’ll never forgive you for going away. There, I said it. Baba said I shouldn’t, but I did.

I love you so much. You’re my best friend. I know you had to go. I wish you didn’t. I hope your new family takes care of you. I hope they let you visit sometimes. I miss you so much I think I could die.

Your dad sounds funny. I told Tata you were getting a mobile and he ignored me. I’ve never seen a real mobile before. I’ve only seen them in movies.

My sisters keep spying on me writing this letter so I have to go. Bye!

Love, Maja

PS: I told everyone at school you are my boyfriend and that we’re getting married.

Like this, we communicated for the first year. Sometimes I’d call her house, but it was always difficult to hear with her siblings in the background, making fun of her for having a boyfriend.

The following year, when I was twelve, we got email addresses. I had internet at home so I could check my email whenever I liked, but Maya had to stop at the internet club. One of the older boys from school she knew worked there, and he let her check her email for free.

Thus we went from hearing from each other a few times a week to getting emails twice a day. It felt like a miracle being able to communicate with her so often, but the bigger miracle would come a bit later, with our discovery of instant messaging. Suddenly we could talk to each other in real-time, and even send funny little smileys and characters to one another. To me, there was nothing better than those minutes I spent each day, chatting with Maja. Nothing better in all the world.

As for my home life, I had no complaints. Aunt and Uncle were good people, both career driven, but not so preoccupied that they neglected me completely. They’d learned their lesson with my mom, and were far less strict with my upbringing. They gave me everything, clothes, money, bus passes, a phone; all they asked in return was that I maintained good grades. For me, this was easy. Without trying, I was among the top students in my class. If I had tried, I’m sure I could have even been first, though I never told them that.

Every holiday, Aunt and Uncle allowed me to take the bus by myself to visit Baba. I was old enough, they said, and I could be trusted to take responsibility for myself, though I think they always breathed heavy sighs of relief when I came home again.

Like this, I got to see Maja a few times a year, and watch her grow up. It always amazed me how much she changed with the passing of just a few short months, and she was similarly amazed by the changes she saw in me, very shy, making little comments about how tall I’d gotten, or how big my shoulders were, the sort of thing that makes a guy crazy to hear. Of course, I couldn’t exactly tell her how nicely her breasts were coming in. Each time I returned to see her in the next sized bra, I thought I’d lose my mind. Whenever we were together, it was all I could think about, until I came to believe it was probably a good thing we lived in different towns. If I had to see her every single day, there’s no way I’d have been able to control myself. Stanko would have killed me...

As the years passed and our long distance relationship grew more complicated, I learned I was the jealous type. Maja was so pretty, so smart, so funny and sweet, it didn’t surprise me at all to hear from Dragan that half the boys in school were in love with her. In the summer of my sixteenth year, I recall it hit me particularly hard. I’d just left from another visit where I had to watch boys and even grown men ogle her everywhere we went, and it drove me crazy that I couldn’t be around to punch everyone that looked at her the wrong way.

One day in July, we had a fight about it. I was feeling particularly jealous of the boy who worked at the internet club, the one who let her use the computer every day for free. I felt sure he liked her, and from the way she talked about him, I thought she wasn’t discouraging him properly.

Maddened by jealousy and frustration, that day I called him one too many bad names and upset Maja. She defended him, and it made me even angrier. I accused her of liking the attention and called her a slut. She logged off.

Immediately I regretted my words. I knew I’d gone too far, but I wrote her an email anyway, apologizing and begging her to forgive me. But though I waited for her on messenger that night and the next day, though I refreshed my email thirty times an hour, she never wrote back.

A day went by. Two days. I checked my email constantly, pulled up messenger every chance I could get, but she never came online. I was anxious, plagued by guilt. Then the third day passed. By that time I was furious.

How could she do this to me? My apology wasn’t enough for her? Then I’d take it back! I didn’t need her, anyway. Let her have her internet club boyfriend! We were through! I told her all this in an email, but the next day I wrote her another, sobbing and apologizing, begging her to take me back. Still no answer.

I don’t know what happened to me in those next few weeks of radio silence. I guess I lost my mind. Maja was my whole world. Without her, there seemed to be nothing in this life worth living for.

I was depressed. I started leaving the house first thing in the morning and staying out all day, sometimes meeting acquaintances from school and smoking the cigarettes they offered me, sometimes just wandering the streets. Recalling how easily I’d bought wine for Baba when I was only eleven, I started asking around different kiosks, seeing if they’d sell me beer. More than a few of them were willing to supply me.

I remember I smuggled full bottles of it home in my backpack. I smuggled the empty bottles out the same way. My aunt and uncle never suspected a thing.

Alcohol made me forget. The parties, too, that I wandered into later, as my depression deepened. The noise of them drove thoughts of Maja from my mind, so I could forget my heartache for a few hours.

At a club by the Danube I met a guy my age named Boris who gave me some heroin. “First time’s free,” he said with a sly grin. “Come see me when you want more. I’m always around.”

I recall one night in particular, I went on a complete bender. I drank so much I forgot my name, then I met up with Boris for a while and forgot everything else. For a while, I think I was trying to get home. I almost remember walking, or trying to walk while something or someone pulled my clothes and scraped my skin.

It was dawn when I finally came to outside a gypsy encampment. I was battered. My ribs hurt, the side of my face was cut and swollen, my jacket was torn. With a surge of panic, I started groping my pockets. My mobile was missing, my wallet, too.

That’s when I realized they were watching me. The gypsies. There must have been thirty of them, a whole family from ages zero to one hundred, all of them silent. Waiting to see what I’d do.

Terrified, without a word I turned and ran. I ran and ran, maybe five miles before I reached the high rise. My head was throbbing, my eyes were running with tears. I’d never felt so ashamed of myself. When I imagined answering Aunt and Uncle’s questions, admitting to them where I’d been all night and what I’d done, I could have died from shame.

I remember on the elevator ride up, wondering if they’d be done with me after this. Maybe they’d call the social worker and send me back to Baba. But not even Baba would take me in, I thought, chest aching. Not like this…

Inside the apartment was silent. I entertained a brief hope that I could possibly shower and dispose of my clothes, thereby eliminating the evidence, forgetting for the moment that I’d still have to answer for my stolen phone and wallet.

Then, the phone rang.

“Alo?”

My heart sunk to hear Aunt Tamara answer it on the second ring. She was home.

“Maja? How are you? Truly? Oh, Bože. I’m sorry to hear that. Žarko? No, he’s not here. In fact Goran’s out looking for him now. He was gone all night, and—”

Aunt Tamara screamed as I leaped over the table to snatch the phone desperately from her hands.

“Maja?!”

“Žarko, what on earth?” she cried from the other end of the line.

“Maja…” I collapsed to the floor, hand over my eyes, sobbing tears of relief as I croaked into the receiver. “I’m sorry, Maja. Žao mi je. I’m so sorry…”