As dad has been planning to for the longest time, he's taking me and Sabrina to Lake Kavash for "an awesome day of fishing and basking in the gorgeous late spring sun", even though he knows that "fishing" and "me" are things that you just don't mix, because the obvious end result is a lot of rage and frustration; which I already am feeling.

He's just trying to prove that I inherited at least one of his chromosomes, because, otherwise, I'd be pretty much mom's clone. I inherited about everything from her: eyes, hair, skin, build, intelligence, passions, tastes, among a long list of etceteras.

Dad is a great lover of outdoors activities; that includes gardening, fixing the roofs, tinkering with scraps of metal and wood, visiting the local scrapyard, bird-watching, sight-seeing, hiking, biking... and his damn fishing, the main reason why he's building (more like trying to) a pond in our backyard. He basically loves everything I could live without.

At least his passion becomes an uncanny amount of patience as he explains me for the hundredth time how to bait my hook. Sabrina looks at him as he demonstrates the whole process, her serious-test-face almost making me chuckle.

"Like this?" It always gets me when Sabs is so serious that she forgets to conceal her accent.

"Yes, perfect!" He smiles wide, but then he looks at me and his sunny expression falters, even though I'm pretty sure I'm doing okay. "Well done, Layla." He says, but I can tell he doesn't mean it.

So Sabrina casts her line, and I follow her lead.

"I'd rather be home reading a book."

"Come on, Layla." She replies, easy smile as always, without looking at me. "I love reading as much as you do, but you can't deny that it's a gorgeous day for fishing."

"Yes, but..." But my thoughts are cut short, because Sabrina caught something and her rod is going crazy. Dad rushes to her, for some reason he didn't cast his line yet, and helps her reel in, explaining how to do it properly. The fish puts up a fair fight, but both of them finally manage to pull out of the water an amazing largemouth bass. Meanwhile, my own line is most likely dead, as if I used wood for bait.

"Oh my God, look at the size of that!" Dad's amazement is real, but I fail to share his enthusiasm. I'm quite jealous, even though I don't care about fishing. But Sabrina is beaming, her face flushed with both the effort and emotion. Dad shows her how to get her fish off the hook. "I thought you told us this is your first time fishing."

"It is; it is!" She told us on the way here that this is her first time, but right now it's hard to believe. "Most of the year the climate is too cold to go out, so we never do that with Dedushka..." That's Russian for "grandpa", her only living relative. And like pretty much every other time she mentions him, her smile falls all the way to the floor and roots there. No matter how comfortable she feels living with us, she still misses her Dedushka and her land a lot.

And I'm here, feeling butt-hurt because I don't get a nibble. I feel some sort of shame that turns to anger as it washes over me. I can't be jealous for a damn fish when she has left her whole life thousands of miles away. I decide not to be a kid, and make this girl my priority. I'm not her grandpa, but I still want to see her smile again.

I leave my rod there. It won't go anywhere anyway. I walk up to her and plant a quick kiss in her cheek, surprising her enough to un-root her sadness.

"Well done, zhenshchina."

She looks at me with her pretty blue eyes, and a smile tugs on the corners of her mouth. All of a sudden, she pulls me into a tight hug. I hug her back, and I can see my father giving me an approving smile. Sabrina doesn't let go.

"Thank you, Layla."