“Tell me if you want to see/ A world outside your window/ A world outside your window isn’t free/ And tell me if you want to catch that feeling of redemption/ That feeling of redemption doesn’t do much for me.”

– Tanita Tikaram

As a teen, I spent many hours standing in long lines at the grocery store, squeezing in with everyone from the neighborhood and waiting around for hours to get basic necessities. The store shelves were mostly empty. Basic food items like sugar, flour or oil were rationed and distributed monthly based on a list. People would wake up early to secure a spot in line, only to find that the wait might be for nothing. Strangely enough, in many situations, they did not even know what they were waiting for, but once they saw a line, they would get in and wait. Supplies would arrive, but often they’d be gone by the time you reached the front. The saleswoman’s announcement that they were out of stock would disperse the crowd, leaving behind disappointment, frustration and, in many cases, a horrendous hate towards the regime. The next day, it would start all over again like one of those recurring nightmares.

Those who managed to buy something at the last minute often faced bitter remarks from those left empty-handed. “You’re always here—are you taking someone else’s rations too?” they would accuse. It was a difficult time, when even the simplest tasks became a struggle. Yet, the memories of those long lines remain vivid, a reminder of the challenges we faced and the resilience we showed in the face of them. For some reason, I always seemed to end up in line more often than my sister. She had a knack for slipping out of it—claiming she felt dizzy halfway through and heading home. Of course, she’d first make sure to tell one of the older women, who seemed to spend their lives holding spots in line, to save her place. Inevitably, mom would send me instead. 

Grandma often stepped in to save me, volunteering to wait in line for hours and returning with whatever she could get. At the time, I didn’t feel guilty about letting her go—I thought she actually enjoyed the process of waiting and chatting with people. But looking back now, I realize she did it for us, out of love and a desire to help. Grandma always saw my sister as fragile and brilliant, constantly studying, so she went out of her way to protect her and fulfill her every request. I wasn’t jealous, but I couldn’t help being mesmerized by my sister’s uncanny ability to always get what she wanted.

“Are you sure your teacher allows you to wear this uniform?” Grandma asked, her voice low and somehow amused as she pushed the pedal of the old Singer sewing machine. The needle darted up and down, shortening the hem and tightening the fit, while she carefully widened the armholes so the dress could drape over a thick belt.

“Yes, it’s fine. Lots of girls wear it like this. As long as I have it on, no one cares,” my sister replied, trying to sound nonchalant. Grandma didn’t press further. Maybe she didn’t want to upset her, or maybe she was living vicariously through these small acts of rebellion. Her own life had little room for such defiance. Grandpa wasn’t an easy man to live with—demanding and sharp-tongued, he always called her back home if she stayed out too long, complaining he was hungry or needed something.

Still, she made excuses to visit us whenever she could. She’d grab her purse, apply a quick swipe of lipstick, and head to the bus stop. The ride wasn’t long—just two stops—but for those fleeting minutes, staring out the window at the gray cityscape, she felt a rare sense of freedom. It clung to her until the moment she stepped back into her house, where everything—like the country itself—felt dark, confined, and unyielding. Grandpa wanted his food heated. She always left meals prepared for him, but he always found reasons for her to come back—like heating the food he could have easily heated himself. I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was a reflection of many men in the country: rigid, demanding, and unwilling to change, much like the system we lived under. For women, there were very few ways out. As a young man, I didn’t fully understand it—or even notice it—but the real tragedy was that most women didn’t either. In an environment as traditional and closed-off as ours, with only scraps of information trickling in from the West, we lived in a “this is just how it is” kind of world.

I’d see the girl at the bus station every morning. She walked while I took the bus for 30 minutes. In some ways, I thought she was privileged because she did not have to suffer on the crowded bus with the plebeians, but I didn’t know much about her beyond those passing moments. We walked on opposite sidewalks on our way to school. 

My high school had two distinct experiences: the indoor one controlled by the school and the outdoor one controlled by a group of kids who had no choice but to be there—yet chose how to make it their own. In a communist country, creativity was your currency. High school wasn’t just about stressful tests and memorizing facts we’d forget within days. It was about finding cracks in the rigid system and creating spaces where we could be ourselves more. 

I am making this sound more poetic than it really was. The truth is, high school life at the best high school in the country was a mix of rigid control and bursts of rebellion back in the 1980s. Inside the school walls, we had uniforms that looked like we attended a funeral every day, and a curriculum based on communist ideology, with teachers that supported it out of conviction or out of fear. The dictator’s portrait loomed over us in every classroom as a constant reminder of the system’s grip on our lives. 

During class, girls wore uniforms the “proper” way, but as soon as the bell rang, they adjusted them—hiking them slightly up and cinching them with thick belts hidden in their backpacks. At the same time, they’d swipe on their favorite lipstick—pink, sparkly, and called Margareta Number 2. It was a prized possession, often out of stock at the nearby store. An entire generation of girls wore that same lipstick, paired with identical uniforms: navy blue dresses with white headbands and a cloth patch on their arms displaying the school name and our identification number—matricola. Unlike other numbers in history stamped permanently on people, ours could be removed. And we certainly did, with passion and hate once we stepped outside school grounds. Both the headbands and matricola patches disappeared into our bags. Walking along the elegant boulevard near our high school with those markings felt out of place. Worse still, they made us vulnerable—anyone could report us by calling the school and giving our number, accusing us of smoking or sneaking into forbidden places like The Spanish Salon, which turned into a bar after dark.

We learned to navigate this system carefully, bending its rules just enough to carve out moments of freedom for ourselves. Mundane acts became small adventures: sneaking off for cake at Hotel Bucharest or pizza at The Spanish Salon, slipping past security guards when they weren’t looking, or sharing cigarettes to feel rebellious—even if only for a fleeting moment.

Most students came from far away because admission to my high school was based solely on merit—it was the best in the country, a distinction we still take pride in today. Even now, decades later, we carry ourselves as if we’re still part of that elite group.

But back then, the truth was unavoidable: our school was deeply segregated by academic ability. Each classroom’s letter—from A to N—was a public declaration of where you stood in the hierarchy. It wasn’t just a high school; it was a reflection of a society that demanded conformity yet couldn’t fully suppress the individuality that thrived right there on its grounds. 

“What are you doing outside the classroom? Did you get kicked out?” I asked even though I knew the answer, hesitating at the door. I was late again, standing there debating whether to go in or not. The humiliation the teacher would put you through for being late sometimes just wasn’t worth it. In a country where everyone seemed to be late, it felt ridiculous. 

My friend was pacing up and down the hallway, his footsteps echoing against the polished floors  and the tall ceilings that amplified every sound on the high school’s grand corridors. The hallways were intimidating in their own right—long and wide, with high arched windows that let in streams of light during the day but felt cold and austere under the flickering fluorescent bulbs. Despite its utilitarian feel during communism, there was a lingering sense of history, of generations who had walked those same halls before us, including our own former king, carrying their own dreams and burdens in a country that now demanded conformity but left room for quiet acts of rebellion.

“Yes,” he replied with a shrug. “He said I needed to get a haircut.”

“Now?”

“I guess so. But I was waiting for you. Let’s just leave.”

The temptation was there. It made sense; I was already late anyway. We walked out, lighting our cigarettes as we stepped onto the cobblestone streets.

“Let’s go to Alice’s,” he said. “She’s home alone. I talked to her last night, and she’s not coming to school.”

We moved quickly, taking long strides on the uneven stones. I was aware of my awkward walk, so I held my cigarette in a way that felt like it balanced me out somehow. Smoking wasn’t just a habit; it was a social ritual, a small act of rebellion, much like the girls’ altered uniforms. With no access to information from outside the country, we didn’t know much about how harmful cigarettes were—or cared, really. After all, this was the same time Chernobyl had happened, and while we hadn’t been told much about the radioactive fallout drifting over Romania, we were already living with its invisible consequences.

Some of those kids would suffer later—from both the cigarettes and the radiation—but back then, living uninformed meant living in the moment. And in a system that controlled nearly every aspect of our lives, those moments of rebellion felt like freedom.

Alice was one of the rebellious girls. Her father had taught at the high school for a time, and when he passed away, he became something of a legend. Her mother worked long hours at the hospital, so Alice was one of us, the kids everybody called “key-around-the-neck” children, independent and resourceful, but never careless. That day, she had decided to skip school and stay home to listen to her vinyl records.

We could hear it as soon as we reached her apartment door: “A million lights are dancing and there you are, a shooting star.”

“Xanadu again,” Cristian said, shaking his head and pressing the doorbell even harder. 

Alice showed up in her slippers and a knitted red dress.

“You are dressed up, are you going out?”

“Ha, this is a dress my mom wore in the 1970s but I wear it indoors when I feel like I could go out, yet I choose not to,” she explained. Among the rebellious girls at our school, Alice stood out in a different way. Looking back now, I realize she was a feminist, though I didn’t have the words for it at the time. She read voraciously and cared deeply about things most of us didn’t even think about. We weren’t taught to care—caring meant having opinions, and opinions were dangerous. Instead, we were taught to judge those who were different in any way, as judgment kept us in line.

She opened the door wider and let us in. “I desperately want some cafe frappe,” Cristian said as he kissed her on the cheek. “Want to make us some?”

“Cigarettes out of the room,” she said firmly, grabbing his cigarette before he could protest. “I don’t want the place stinking when my mom comes home. Let’s smoke in the kitchen.”

“Prison style?” Cristian teased.

She smiled knowingly. “Sure, prison style.”

Prison style meant closing all the doors and windows until the room filled with so much smoke we could barely see each other. We followed her into the small kitchen and sat around the table covered in glossy vinyl that stuck to your arms if you leaned on it too long. Alice pulled out a jar of Nescafé and sugar from the cupboard and set them down in front of us.

“Here you are, boys. Make your own,” she said with a grin.

“C’mon,” Cristian whined, “you always get it all foamy and delicious.”

“I know,” she replied as she grabbed her mug, “and I’ll make mine that way. You can put in the work for yours.”

Cafe frappe and cigarettes—they were adult things to do at the time, and, of course, teenagers always want to do adult things. But for us, it wasn’t just about pretending to be grown-ups. It was, once again, finding a way we could feel free, even if only for a little while. 

“I have a new Bravo,” Alice said, pulling the magazine off the shelf with her left hand while balancing the cigarette in her right. We both reached for it at the same time, eager to get a look. Bravo magazines, along with our cherished tapes of Western music, were everything to us. They were more than just entertainment—they were a window into a world we could only dream of.

“I love how it smells,” Alice said, pulling the cigarette to her lips as she held the glossy pages in her other hand. “Have you noticed how people coming from Western Europe smell?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “When they open their luggage, there’s that distinct scent. At first, I thought it was perfume, but now I think it’s their laundry detergent. Remember that kid from elementary school who moved to Germany? We went to his grandparents’ house when he came back to visit this summer.”

Alice smirked and smacked the back of my head lightly. “It’s the smell of freedom, dummy,” she said, laughing.

In that smoky kitchen, with our foamy coffee and intense conversations, we created a world where the cigarette haze, while both suffocated and intoxicated us, blurred our sorrows and shielded us from the weight of everything waiting for us outside of those walls.

“We have to air out this kitchen soon. I want to give it a few hours before my mom comes back,” Alice said, staring at the smoke-filled room.

“Your mom doesn’t know you smoke?” I asked, surprised.

“No, dummy, of course she doesn’t,” Alice rolled her eyes. “Although she did find a pack of cigarettes in my bag once. I lied and said it belonged to that girl whose mother works at the school, and she didn’t want to get caught.”

“And she bought it?” Cristian asked, skeptical.

“I think she did, but only because she couldn’t deal with something else like finding out I smoke. My brother hates smoking, so she never had to deal with that before me.” Alice paused and took another sip from her cafe frappe. “Remember when the history teacher said the other day that I’m always his challenge, and I replied that I’m everybody’s challenge? True, right?”

We both laughed, but secretly, Cristian and I were in love with her. Alice had an older brother and seemed far more advanced than the rest of us. She hung out with his friends—guys we couldn’t compete with—and yet, we clung to moments like these: impromptu visits, her sharp words, and the wisdom she seemed to pull from nowhere. Maybe it came from the books she devoured, or maybe it was borrowed from her brother or even our literature teacher, who adored her. She always raised her hand in that class but stayed silent in most of the others. I often wondered if she wrote anything; reading so much and thinking so deeply usually led to putting pen to paper. But aside from the essays we were forced to write for school, I never saw her writing nor heard of her doing so.

I, on the other hand, wrote every day. I did not write with the discipline of a journal since I didn’t want to leave anything behind in my room for my parents to find—but mostly fiction. My stories had roots in current events, though they were disguised so well that no one could trace them back to me. Writing was my way of processing a world that didn’t make sense and also, I realized years later, my own form of therapy.

“I have to go back. I can’t miss my math class,” I said, standing up and moving towards the door.

“Your math teacher is a legend. I would go to that class too if I were you. I can’t stand my math teacher. Only boys get to go to the Olympiad. Girls are cut from the start. I couldn’t even take the first test to see if I qualify. When I asked him about it, he didn’t even respond—just turned his head away.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about that. Your guy’s a misogynist.”

“And a hardcore communist,” Alice added.

I stayed quiet. Conversations like this made me uneasy. There were always whistleblowers in every class—both among teachers and students—and I had no idea who they might be. Plenty of kids with parents in high-ranking positions had ties to the Communist Party. Any kid who got to travel abroad definitely had parents who were party members. That’s why I couldn’t go anywhere. If you were a teenager in a communist country during the 1980s, you’d understand how the lack of access to information shaped an entire generation. Glimpses of Western culture—smuggled magazines, bootlegged music, and whispered stories—were lifelines that helped us imagine something beyond the gray walls of our reality. 

“You don’t have to leave with him, Cristian,” Alice said.

Cristian looked up, grinning. “I certainly won’t. I haven’t finished reading this Bravo. Math can wait.”

“This is a good one,” Alice added. “It had the Bon Jovi poster in it—it’s now on my wall. You should have seen how mad my mom was when she came back from work one night and saw all the posters.”

“They knew about the magazines, though, right?” Cristian asked.

“Of course they did. One of their friends who emigrated is the guy who sends them. They were furious because I had to make holes in the walls to put them up. She told me to remove them, but then the popcorn wall paint started coming off. Dhe can’t afford to repaint the entire room, so she told me to put the posters back to cover the damage. Ha!”

The Bravo magazine, one of the most beloved treasures from the West, lay between us, vibrant and full of life. I left with quick steps down the gray stairs, not really wanting to leave but knowing that flipping through a magazine wouldn’t transport me to the world it came from, a world I often dreamed about. It was a place where boys had all kinds of sneakers, the real ones with three stripes, not the knock-offs with two made in Romanian factories, and where girls had endless lipstick options, far darker than Margareta 2. I  believed that when surrounded by so much color and choice, you didn’t need a glossy pink lipstick to brighten your life.

I was late for math class, but the teacher didn’t seem to care. He didn’t even notice when I came in. He was too absorbed in a problem he’d come up with the night before while drinking at home with another math teacher. Their conversations probably veered into topics that could have landed them in communist prison, all while listening to Free Europe and brainstorming math problems. We, the students, only got to see the math problems, minus the backstory behind them.

I enjoyed trying to solve those problems though. The first person to finish would get to go up to the blackboard and write out their solution. If they were wrong, the second person would give it a shot. Most of the time, it only took one or two tries to crack it. My class was full of what they called “the Olympians”—kids who lived and breathed math and physics competitions. The rest of us had long since stopped trying to keep up but still enjoyed the challenge for what it was.

Then there were the kids aiming for medical school—or at least hoping to get in. They spent their time buried in anatomy and chemistry books, and the math teacher usually left them alone. He seemed convinced I was heading to medical school somehow, so he never asked me anything in class. I just sat there quietly, working on the problems for fun and trying not to let my excitement show when I solved one. The thrill of cracking a tough math problem was real. It made you feel like you could do anything. The reality of “doing anything” in a dictatorship was different. From where I look now, it seems like a fairytale. I refuse to call it a nightmare because we made our own fairytale inside a nightmare of a situation. 

Take the high school we were attending—a school with sky-high expectations, dull uniforms, and rigid rules. Yet, there was one thing they couldn’t fully control, no matter how hard they tried: recess. The student body was essentially divided into two groups. On one side there were the high achievers, the ones who thrived under pressure and excelled academically. On the other, there were those who either had the misfortune of scoring lower on the entrance exams or were pushed by their parents to enroll in the top school in the country, despite not being a natural fit. However, what made this group particularly intriguing was that many of them had more interests and talents than the high achievers. Some would often sneak away to the backyard during recess, where they’d pull out guitars and play softly, their music blending with the conversation. Others were skilled artists, always doodling in their notebooks or sketching on scraps of paper. These creative pursuits gave them a distinct edge, making them stand out in ways that grades alone couldn’t capture. Despite the academic pressures, these kids were able to create a vibrant undercurrent that ran beneath the surface of our strict school environment.

The backyard was a shared space, but it felt like a secret world during recess. The soccer field wasn’t just for soccer—it was where kids gathered to play guitar, smoke cigarettes, and steal kisses when teachers weren’t looking. When the bell rang, most of them scattered back to class, though a few lingered longer, risking getting caught by the principal. Her infamous raids were enough to send shivers down everyone’s spine—she’d call parents without hesitation if she caught anyone skipping class.

Sofia leaned against the fence, watching as a group passed a cigarette around near the goalpost. We had met at a few parties, but our social circles didn’t really overlap. I was aware that she had feelings for me, though she expressed them in an odd, arrogant way. It was clear she knew her place in our high school’s complex social hierarchy—she was part of the elite, and she reveled in that status. What people didn’t know was that I had a knack for self-sabotage. I was bipolar, though I didn’t fully understand it at the time. All I knew was that my moods swung wildly—one moment, I’d be on top of the world, charming and confident, and the next, I’d feel like I was sinking into quicksand, desperate to push everyone away. It was a cycle I couldn’t seem to break. I’d get close to a girl, let her in just enough to feel something real, and then, like clockwork, I’d find a reason to end it. Sometimes it was because she annoyed me; other times, it was because I convinced myself she didn’t really care about me.

But then, as soon as I let her go, the regret would creep in. I’d start missing her—her laugh, the way she looked at me like I mattered—and suddenly, I’d want her back. It wasn’t fair to anyone, least of all me, but it was how my mind worked. With Sofia, though, things were different. She wasn’t like the others—she didn’t chase after me or try to win me over. She acted like she didn’t care whether I liked her or not. And maybe that’s why she got under my skin. She was too much work, sure, but there was something about her confidence—her arrogance even—that made it hard to look away. Still, I ignored her most of the time. It felt safer that way.

“Hey, how was math class?” Cristian and Alice arrived walking side by side with a relaxed attitude that made me envious that I took off that morning.

“No homework, that is a plus.” 

Cristian and Alice walked ahead, their voices fading as they entered the building. The hallway of this historic building stretched before me, wide and imposing, with high ceilings that seemed to amplify every sound—the echo of footsteps, the creak of old wooden doors, or the occasional burst of laughter from a classroom. The walls were painted a pale cream, but years of wear had left them scuffed and marked, a testament to the generations of students who had passed through. 

The stairs leading to the upper floors were steep and worn smooth in the middle from countless feet over the decades. The iron railings were intricate, their dark paint chipped in places, revealing an older layer beneath. As you walked, you could hear fragments of conversations—students discussing homework or the drama of teen life—blending into a low hum that filled the air. The windows along the stairwell were tall and arched, letting in streams of pale light that illuminated floating specks of dust.

At the top of the stairs, another hallway stretched out, lined with heavy wooden doors. Some doors were open, revealing rows of desks and chalkboards covered in neat equations or hurried scribbles. Others were firmly shut, muffling the voices inside. The faint scent of chalk lingered in the air, mixing with the faint mustiness of old books and polished wood.

Cristian and Alice disappeared into one of the classrooms near the end of the hall without a second glance back. I went to my classroom. As the teacher stepped inside, a sudden hush fell over the room. The chatter and laughter ceased, replaced by an expectant silence. Students straightened in their seats, their eyes turning toward the front of the room as everyone waited for the lesson to begin and some, of course, to end.

“Hey, ask Sofia if she has her lipstick with her.” The girl behind Cristian tapped his shoulder as the teacher was packing her stuff and getting ready to leave. 

Cristian turned to Sofia. “Do you have your lipstick?”

Sofia sat with her head down, giggling softly. When she finally looked up, her lips shimmered with that unmistakable pink sparkle.

“Shut up,” she said, her tone sharp but playful. “Why do you care? I don’t.”

Cristian turned to the girl behind him, rolling his eyes. “Don’t drag me into this. Ask her yourself. Do you girls seriously share one lipstick? Gross.”

It wasn’t unheard of for girls to share lipstick back then and it happens now too, but Sofia wasn’t one of them. The coveted Margareta 2 lipstick was hers alone—a pink, glittery shade that had become legendary among teenage girls. With stores offering little variety in general, whether it was food or cosmetics, Margareta 2 was a rare gem. It would appear briefly after the delivery truck arrived, only to vanish as the saleswoman set some aside for her friends and relatives. The rest went to the lucky girls who waited by the store near the high school, hoping to snag one before they were gone.

Sofia had hers, of course. The girl pestering her didn’t. Her lips carried a faint natural pink hue that I thought looked better than any lipstick, but what did I know?

“Sofia,” the girl snapped, blocking the narrow aisle between our seats. “You said you didn’t have it, and now you are wearing it!”

Sofia smirked and shrugged. “I don’t like sharing my lipstick. They’re probably getting another delivery tomorrow—go get one for yourself.”

The girl slumped back into her seat, burying her face in her hands as her hair fell forward to hide her tears. Sofia didn’t linger; she slipped past and darted into the backyard. The “caste system” at our school functioned smoothly most of the time, even during recess. Some advisory teachers subtly, or sometimes not so subtly, discouraged students from the top-performing classes from mingling with those in the lower-ranked ones. It wasn’t an official rule—no one could outright forbid anyone from walking wherever they wanted during recess—but the message was clear. Hanging out at the soccer field, especially with the kids who smoked or lounged there, was frowned upon.

You’d often see girls strolling toward the soccer field, only to stop short and turn back before stepping onto the grass. They’d walk back and forth along the edge, as if testing some invisible boundary. It was like they wanted to cross over but couldn’t quite bring themselves to do it, caught between curiosity and the unspoken judgment that came with venturing into that space.