21 March 2001
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"I HOPE I GET to name you," Natalia said, holding her stomach. "I've been thinking of a name for days."
She scooted herself from the middle of her bed to the end and used the footboard to help herself stand up. Once she was up she wobbled to her shelf that held her small amount of belongings. She retrieved one of her pieces of paper and a sharpened pencil. Instead of sitting back on her bed she sat at her small table.
"Let's see," Natalia said. "We'll decide on a name now." She repeatedly tapped her pencil on her chin, thinking. "I've always loved the name Leo," she thought out loud, writing it down. "Toby." She wrote it down next.
Natalia wrote a down a few more names, but none of them felt right. She scratched a line through each and let out a frustrated sigh.
"Why is this so hard?" she exclaimed, putting her head in her hands. She stayed in that position for a minute, then ran her hands through her long, red hair.
"I'll cook something while I think," she said, slowly getting up. Natalia walked over to the small kitchenette and took out the lettuce, cheese, bread, and ham. "Just a simple sandwich for now."
She took two pieces of bread from the bag and placed them on the counter and put some lettuce on the chosen bottom piece. She then cut three pieces of ham and put it on, finishing it with cheese on top.
Natalia turned her back to the counter and leaned on it while she ate her sandwich, her mind still mentally scratching off names.
"We could maybe go exotic . . . maybe like . . . Tobias," she said, then shook her head. "No, I like simple names."
She finished her sandwich and picked up the little bit of trash she created and put it in the bin in the corner. She went to her shelf and grabbed her pointe shoes.
She admired the pale pink silk and felt a longing in her heart to put them on and dance. Natalia wasn't a big fan of much of what they did in training, but pointe ballet had touched her in a special way. Dancing brought a feeling nothing else could. If words didn't work, dancing did.
She turned them around in her hands and messed with the ribbon. The longing to put them on again only grew; her stomach was too big now, she'd loose balance.
Natalia placed her pointe shoes back on the shelf and sat down on her bed.
Finally, a name the instantly felt right came to her mind. "Pyotr," Natalia said, smiling at how the name made her feel. "Pyotr Romanov."
"Now that leaves a middle name." She looked at the wall and thought. "Cole . . . no. Benny . . . no, no." She sighed and closed her eyes.
"Pyotr Veniamin Romanov" she smiled, her eyes still closed. "Pyotr Veniamin Romanov . . . it rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?"
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EDITED/REWRITTEN
this is a shorter, filler chapter.
-Nat