Mass

Aleksander Igorevich Shapovalov—Sasha to those who loved him most in the world and Alek to everyone else, including himself—stared at the radiographic scans presented to him by his doctor in the intimate corner examination room and tried to think of what he'd tell his mother.

"There's a good chance it's nothing," Dr. Ngost said. "But you'll have to get a biopsy."

"A biopsy," Alek said.

"Yes. We'll take a small piece of the mass and examine it. Then we'll know more."

"But I don't feel sick," Alek said. "I just came because of this cough. I don't feel sick."

"There's a chance that you aren't. There's a chance it's just a mass that we can take out. It happens sometimes. The body is full of odd turns."

"Full of odd turns," Alek repeated—a nonsense phrase, too casual. Full of odd turns, like a clock or some other machine, routes and paths inside him swerving this way and that, and then suddenly an aberration, a deviation, a mass swelling up from below.

Dr. Ngost put a hand on Alek's arm, and Alek turned his head toward him slowly, away from the scan that showed his insides, ghostly white on a black backdrop.

"One step at a time," he said warmly. "Biopsy. Then we know."

Alek almost repeated the doctor's words again but stopped himself by biting the very tip of his tongue. He nodded firmly a couple of times, then climbed from the bench. He pulled up his jeans beneath the crinkling paper gown. The room was cool as a small cave. Dr. Ngost watched him dress, and when they shook hands, Dr. Ngost held on just a little longer: "Don't worry. It's going to be okay," he said.

________

On the bus, Alek considered calling his brothers. Grigori was a first-year surgical resident at Mass Gen, and Igor was starting at Columbia medical school. They would know how to explain it to their mother best, how to articulate the parameters of the thing in a way that wouldn't scare her. It seemed foolish not to call them. The bus turned onto the more corporate corner of Capitol Square. All that chrome and glass against the slategray winter sky. Alek had a seat to himself, which felt like a minor miracle. Downtown was emptying before it began to fill again. Luminescent snowdrifts covered bike racks and lampposts.

He had pulled up the text chain with Grigori—they hadn't texted in months, since he'd first arrived in the Midwest, to say that he'd made it. He'd sent a couple pics of the apartment he'd found. It had come furnished and felt lived in. He'd sent both Grigori and Igor pictures of the tub and the room with its decent but kind of soft mattress. And they'd texted back cool and nice and faggot style :).

When they were younger, Grigori's favorite pastime was to pull hairs from Alek's body. Igor held him while he twisted and tried to get loose. Then Grigori plucked out his eyelashes one at a time, fine white hairs invisible the moment they left his body. Alek remembered the little shooting stars of pain with each hair. He remembered Igor's sweaty hands holding him down. He remembered the damp odor of their panting filling the closet.

As they grew older, the punishments evolved. Soon, it wasn't enough to pull the hairs out of Alek's body. They had to burn him, too. By then, both Igor and Grigori were smoking in the alleyway behind their apartment building after and before school, when their parents weren't watching, sending up white trails. Alek caught them one day and ran to tell their parents, his body thrumming with the pleasure of finally having a secret on them, some measure of power. But as he turned to run, he didn't see their bodies growing taut with pursuit. They caught him before he even reached the end of the alley...