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According to Him
Chapter One
Someone must be crazy to move to Anadyr, a Russian town in the north-east of the country. Winter was all the residents knew with the exception of a couple of weeks during summer when the temperature hit fifteen degrees. Children would run in their rarely worm t-shirts while teenage girls spend the day tanning, hoping to get rid of their pale skin. There was no big town in the proximity, yet Anadyr was well industrialized and its habitants didn’t have reasons to complain about their lives. Nobody was missing a job; various shops were thriving and promising youth filled schools. Unfortunately, as the years went by, a lot of young adults were leaving Anadyr, wanting to live somewhere you didn’t have to wear snow boots until the middle of April.
Anadyr had one of the highest snowfall records in inhabited areas. On the west side, the town was surrounded by beautiful forests, most of the time covered in snow. The tall trees around the cozy town gave the community a growing tree industry and made huge profits of its natural resources. On the other side there was a port where boats came and went every day, exporting raw materials and brining in manufactured goods.
There was not much to attract tourist but being hours away from a popular ski resort there were some nights were both hotels were booked. Anadyr was maybe well known for the weather but people believed that it would soon be famous for the town where Dmitry Fiodorov grew up and where his fiancée, Madeline White now lived. Dmitry Fiodorov was an athlete, now training for the Winter Olympics. He was smart, talented and a wonderful man. He was the man I met when I moved to Russia and whom I was going to marry in a couple of months.
The cold weather of this exiled Russian town never bothered me. Born in a little town of Northern Ontario, I was used to the wind and snow. I used to spend my evenings playing hockey with my four brothers until it became too dark to spot the puck. My mom would always make us hot chocolate and watch us warm up near the fire. She often repeated that it was her favourite time of the day since that was the only moment we didn’t fight. All five of us loved each other but we did fight on a regular basis.
Our parents, both only children, didn’t know if that was normal and consulted with many friends, worried. Everyone had the same reaction; they would chuckle and inform our parents that with five kids with a difference of less than six years, teasing and bickering was completely normal. Many people ask me how it was growing up in such a masculine environment. I won’t lie, sometimes it was hard.
Even though, during my childhood, I cried so many nights for an older sister, I’m most likely to remember all the times my slightly older brother, Collin got in trouble for scarring a guy because he broke my heart. I know I won’t forget when Patrick, the second oldest was supposed to baby sit me one night and ended up teaching me how to fight or the many times my oldest brother, Jonathan spoiled me just because I was his only sister. But most importantly, I can't imagine having a closer bond with any older sister than the one I have with my twin brother, Xavier.
Xavier had always been my best friends and I could trust him with my life. Unfortunately, we can’t read each other’s mind like we see in movies but we are often capable of guessing each other’s mood. He always finds out first when I’m sad as well as I can pick up when something is bothering him. We may be very similar in our likes and dislikes but our looks and personalities are opposites. People would think that I’d be the shy one giving the fact that I am the only girl with brothers the same age or older, yet it turned out that Xavier was more quiet. He had hazel eyes and red hair while my blond hair bordered with brown and I was lucky to inherit my paternal grandfather’s blue eyes.
Collin was older then Xavier and I by less than two years, which is one of the reasons I'm still close to him. As a teenager, he had a vendetta against any boy I’d date and send a message to every boy that if they ever did something that would hurt me, they’d regret it. I acted as if I hated it but I was secretly thankful that he was so worried about me. Collin was much more similar to me than my own twin. Not only were we both outgoing and spoke our mind, but our traits were alike even if he had lighter hair so people assumed he was my double, not Xavier.
Patrick and I had a complex relationship. Out of all of us, we’d be the ones fighting the most. He was a bit more than three years older but rarely showed that around me. He always felt like he needed to tease me as soon as he could, whenever it was a bad grade or a bad play on the ice. But out of the four of them, he was the most concerned about my well being. He came to get me when it was too dark and he’d offer me his sweater if he noticed I was cold. I only realized years after that I shouldn’t have taken his teasing as badly as I did. When I grew up I understood that he was only treating me like one of his friends, which back then I should have been thankful given that all my childhood I was striving to fit in with my sibling. Patrick’s looks are similar to Xavier’s. My mom praised that both of them look like her father, redhead and hazel eyes.
As far as I can remember, Jonathan had always been the perfect older brother. He was five and half years older than me. By the time I was growing into a phase, he was growing out of it. Because of that, he was always the one who had to give up a toy if I wanted to play with it or help me whenever I needed someone. When I was a baby did create tensions but my mother was able to explain to him that he was someone I looked up to and took pride with his older brother role. He often told Patrick when he was being too mean, and sacrificed to pick me first when we did teams. Like Collin and I, he was a blond but had brown eyes.
All of my brothers loved hockey as much as I did. When I think about the countless times that we lied to our mom, telling her we did all of our homework just to go outside and shoot the puck back and forth, I know I had the best childhood. All four boys were in a hockey teams in their own age group. I wanted to play beside my brother but my mom refused to put me in a team. She was afraid that being around boys so much, I’d one day be afraid to wear a skirt. I cried for about a week until she found something feminine: figure skating. I yelled, I cursed and I cried that the only thing I wanted was to play hockey. Jonathan talked to me and suggested that I should try out something new and that I was always welcomed to play with them at night. I am still grateful that he pushed me into pursuing the sport that eventually got me to move to Russia and be a contender for an Olympic Gold medal.
Anadyr had one of the highest snowfall records in inhabited areas. On the west side, the town was surrounded by beautiful forests, most of the time covered in snow. The tall trees around the cozy town gave the community a growing tree industry and made huge profits of its natural resources. On the other side there was a port where boats came and went every day, exporting raw materials and brining in manufactured goods.
There was not much to attract tourist but being hours away from a popular ski resort there were some nights were both hotels were booked. Anadyr was maybe well known for the weather but people believed that it would soon be famous for the town where Dmitry Fiodorov grew up and where his fiancée, Madeline White now lived. Dmitry Fiodorov was an athlete, now training for the Winter Olympics. He was smart, talented and a wonderful man. He was the man I met when I moved to Russia and whom I was going to marry in a couple of months.
The cold weather of this exiled Russian town never bothered me. Born in a little town of Northern Ontario, I was used to the wind and snow. I used to spend my evenings playing hockey with my four brothers until it became too dark to spot the puck. My mom would always make us hot chocolate and watch us warm up near the fire. She often repeated that it was her favourite time of the day since that was the only moment we didn’t fight. All five of us loved each other but we did fight on a regular basis.
Our parents, both only children, didn’t know if that was normal and consulted with many friends, worried. Everyone had the same reaction; they would chuckle and inform our parents that with five kids with a difference of less than six years, teasing and bickering was completely normal. Many people ask me how it was growing up in such a masculine environment. I won’t lie, sometimes it was hard.
Even though, during my childhood, I cried so many nights for an older sister, I’m most likely to remember all the times my slightly older brother, Collin got in trouble for scarring a guy because he broke my heart. I know I won’t forget when Patrick, the second oldest was supposed to baby sit me one night and ended up teaching me how to fight or the many times my oldest brother, Jonathan spoiled me just because I was his only sister. But most importantly, I can't imagine having a closer bond with any older sister than the one I have with my twin brother, Xavier.
Xavier had always been my best friends and I could trust him with my life. Unfortunately, we can’t read each other’s mind like we see in movies but we are often capable of guessing each other’s mood. He always finds out first when I’m sad as well as I can pick up when something is bothering him. We may be very similar in our likes and dislikes but our looks and personalities are opposites. People would think that I’d be the shy one giving the fact that I am the only girl with brothers the same age or older, yet it turned out that Xavier was more quiet. He had hazel eyes and red hair while my blond hair bordered with brown and I was lucky to inherit my paternal grandfather’s blue eyes.
Collin was older then Xavier and I by less than two years, which is one of the reasons I'm still close to him. As a teenager, he had a vendetta against any boy I’d date and send a message to every boy that if they ever did something that would hurt me, they’d regret it. I acted as if I hated it but I was secretly thankful that he was so worried about me. Collin was much more similar to me than my own twin. Not only were we both outgoing and spoke our mind, but our traits were alike even if he had lighter hair so people assumed he was my double, not Xavier.
Patrick and I had a complex relationship. Out of all of us, we’d be the ones fighting the most. He was a bit more than three years older but rarely showed that around me. He always felt like he needed to tease me as soon as he could, whenever it was a bad grade or a bad play on the ice. But out of the four of them, he was the most concerned about my well being. He came to get me when it was too dark and he’d offer me his sweater if he noticed I was cold. I only realized years after that I shouldn’t have taken his teasing as badly as I did. When I grew up I understood that he was only treating me like one of his friends, which back then I should have been thankful given that all my childhood I was striving to fit in with my sibling. Patrick’s looks are similar to Xavier’s. My mom praised that both of them look like her father, redhead and hazel eyes.
As far as I can remember, Jonathan had always been the perfect older brother. He was five and half years older than me. By the time I was growing into a phase, he was growing out of it. Because of that, he was always the one who had to give up a toy if I wanted to play with it or help me whenever I needed someone. When I was a baby did create tensions but my mother was able to explain to him that he was someone I looked up to and took pride with his older brother role. He often told Patrick when he was being too mean, and sacrificed to pick me first when we did teams. Like Collin and I, he was a blond but had brown eyes.
All of my brothers loved hockey as much as I did. When I think about the countless times that we lied to our mom, telling her we did all of our homework just to go outside and shoot the puck back and forth, I know I had the best childhood. All four boys were in a hockey teams in their own age group. I wanted to play beside my brother but my mom refused to put me in a team. She was afraid that being around boys so much, I’d one day be afraid to wear a skirt. I cried for about a week until she found something feminine: figure skating. I yelled, I cursed and I cried that the only thing I wanted was to play hockey. Jonathan talked to me and suggested that I should try out something new and that I was always welcomed to play with them at night. I am still grateful that he pushed me into pursuing the sport that eventually got me to move to Russia and be a contender for an Olympic Gold medal.
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