She snatched the bouquet from his hands. He did not resist. She studied the roses.
“Beautiful,” Katya said. “Must have cost a fortune. You always did love putting on a show.”
“Give it back.”
Slowly, she raised the bouquet like a sword and thrust it toward Denis’s face.
He remembered the last time Katya had whipped him across the face with a bouquet just like this one. The fear had never completely left him.
Denis squealed, jumped backward, and—
Alina was standing in line for hot cocoa when the stranger behind her suddenly laughed.
She turned and saw a young man with messy hair and an apologetic smile.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but there’s a ladybug sitting on your hood. In October. It must be some kind of glitch in the universe.”
Alina pulled down her hood and spotted the tiny bright-red insect.
“She probably missed the last flight south,” Alina said with a smile.
“Denis,” the man introduced himself. “May I buy you a cocoa in honor of meeting this little miracle?”
“Alina. And yes, you may.”
They stayed in the café until closing time.
They talked about everything and nothing. Their favorite books. Strange coincidences. The way fate sometimes arranged important meetings in the most ordinary places.
A week later, Denis called and invited her to an art exhibition.
Then came walks along the waterfront. Dinners together. Eventually, his keys found a permanent place in her handbag.
“Move in with me,” he said one evening. “I’m tired of taking you home every night.”
“Are you sure?” she asked gently.
“Absolutely.”
It took Alina two days to move her belongings into his apartment: boxes of books, her favorite mugs, photographs of her parents.
Denis cleared out half the wardrobe and two drawers in the dresser for her.
“That’s not much space,” she said, smiling.
“We’ll buy a bigger wardrobe,” he promised.
Their relationship seemed perfect.
Their friends envied them. Denis’s coworkers constantly asked when they were getting married.
One of them, Artyom, always stared at Alina a little too long whenever she came to company parties.
“Your friend is strange,” Alina once told Denis.
“Artyom? He’s just jealous,” Denis said dismissively. “Ignore him.”
A year later, Denis proposed.
Not on a rooftop. Not in a restaurant.
It happened one morning while Alina was making coffee. He dropped to one knee right there in the kitchen and took out a ring.
“Will you be my wife?”
Alina burst into tears of happiness.
She said yes through her tears and immediately called Katya, her mother, and everyone else she knew.
“I’m so happy for you,” her mother said over the phone. “Denis is a good young man.”
“He’s the best,” Alina replied.
Katya arrived that same evening with a bottle of champagne.
“Finally,” she said, hugging Alina. “I was starting to think he’d wait until retirement.”
“Katya, don’t start.”
“All right, all right. I’m quiet. Let’s celebrate.”
They chose May fourteenth.
Spring. Warm weather. Apple trees in bloom.
Alina imagined their wedding photographs beneath a shower of white petals.
“Have you found a dress?” Katya asked one month before the wedding.
“My final fitting is tomorrow.”
“I’m going to be your maid of honor. This is not open for discussion.”
“I wasn’t planning to discuss it.”
The dress was simple but elegant. No excessive glitter, no heavy lace.
Alina turned in front of the mirror and felt completely happy.
“Denis is going to collapse when he sees you,” Katya said.
“Hopefully not literally.”
“With him, you never know.”
The night before the wedding, Alina barely slept.
Not because she was nervous, but because she was excited.
She imagined them standing in the registry office, exchanging rings while everyone applauded.
In the morning, she woke before Denis.
She quietly slipped out of bed so she would not disturb him, put the kettle on, and looked out the window at the waking city.
Katya arrived at seven.
“Ready?” she asked from the doorway.
“More than ready.”
“Then let’s turn you into a bride.”
Alina stood in the bedroom while Katya fastened the buttons along the back of the dress.
There were dozens of them—tiny, pearl-colored buttons.
Katya worked slowly but carefully.
“Why are there so many?” she grumbled. “Who designed this torture device?”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s beautiful and completely impractical.”
A strange noise came from the kitchen.
First, there was a crash.
Then Denis’s voice, loud and strained.
“What was that?” Katya asked.
“I don’t know. Wait here.”
Alina stepped into the hallway.
The dress was still partly unfastened, and she held it closed with one hand.
Voices came from the kitchen, but she could not make out the words.
Then the door opened.
Denis appeared.
He was not wearing his jacket. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone. His face was red, as though he had just run several miles.
“Alina,” he said. “We need to talk.”
“Now? We’re going to be late.”
“It’s important.”
She followed him into the kitchen.
His mother, Galina Petrovna, was sitting at the table.
Alina rarely saw her, and they had never been close.
The woman stared out the window in silence.
“Has something happened?” Alina asked.
Denis paced around the kitchen.
He opened and closed the refrigerator. Moved the chairs. His hands were trembling.
“I can’t do it,” he finally forced out.
“Can’t do what?”
“Get married. Today. Ever.”
Alina felt the floor tilt beneath her.
She grabbed the edge of the table.
“Denis, is this some kind of joke?”
“No. I’m serious. I’m not ready. I rushed into proposing. I feel like I’m suffocating under all of this. The wedding, the guests, the responsibility. It’s too much.”
“An hour and a half before the ceremony?” Alina’s voice cracked.
“I tried to convince myself. I really did. I didn’t sleep all night. But I can’t do it. I physically cannot make myself go there.”
Galina Petrovna turned toward them.
“Alinochka,” she said softly, “I understand how this looks. But if Denis isn’t ready, then he isn’t ready. Better to discover that now than after a divorce.”
“Are you serious?” Alina asked, staring at her.
“Completely. He is my son. I know when he is capable of something and when he is not. Right now, he is not.”
Denis continued pacing.
“This isn’t about you, Alina. You’re wonderful. Truly. But I… I got scared. Do you understand? I panicked.”
“What exactly frightened you?”
“Everything! The fact that it would be forever. That I would have to wake up every day with that knowledge. That my freedom would be over.”
“You’ve lived with me for a year. Where was that freedom then?”
“That was different! We were only living together. Marriage is a legal document. It makes everything official. It’s… a trap.”
“You could have told me yesterday,” she said at last.
“I couldn’t. I hoped I would wake up this morning and feel differently. I thought I would suddenly be ready. But nothing changed.”
Galina Petrovna stood.
“Alina, I understand that the wedding has been canceled because of Denis. So I will cover all the expenses—the banquet, the venue, the photographer. Everything. And I’ll transfer some extra money to you as compensation for the emotional inconvenience.”
“Emotional inconvenience?” Alina gave a bitter laugh. “Is that what you’re calling this?”
“I’m calling it what it is. You’re young and beautiful. You’ll find someone else. Apparently, you and my son simply weren’t meant to be.”
Katya appeared in the doorway.
She had heard everything.
“What did I just walk into?” she asked quietly.
“The wedding is canceled,” Denis said.
“Are you joking?”
“Katya, stay out of it,” he said with a grimace. “This is between Alina and me.”
“Between you and Alina? She is standing here in a wedding dress. The guests are already on their way. The venue is ready. And suddenly you’re ‘not ready’?”
“I said stay out of it!”
Katya slowly walked toward the table.
She picked up the bouquet lying there—the bouquet Alina was supposed to carry into the registry office.
White roses tied with a satin ribbon.
“You know, Denis,” Katya said calmly, “my grandfather always used to say that a coward dies a thousand deaths, but a brave man dies only once.”
“What?”
Katya swung the bouquet like a saber and struck him across the face with all her strength.
The rose stems were stiff and covered in thorns.
They tore into his skin, leaving deep scratches across his cheeks and forehead.
Denis howled and staggered backward.
Blood ran from his nose. His lip split open.
“What are you doing?” Galina Petrovna screamed.
Katya turned to her.
“And you keep quiet,” she said in an icy voice. “You raised a spineless coward, and now you’re defending him.”
Galina Petrovna stepped forward, but Katya caught her by the wrist and escorted her out of the kitchen.
The woman resisted, shouting about hooliganism and calling security, but Katya was stronger.
Alina stood in the middle of the kitchen in her partly unfastened wedding dress.
She looked at Denis, who was holding one hand over his nose.
Blood dripped onto his white shirt.
“I should have done that,” Alina said quietly.
Katya returned, brushing off her hands.
“I beat you to it.” She gave a hysterical laugh. “Sorry. I couldn’t control myself.”
“You’re both insane!” Denis hissed. “I’m going to call… I’m going to…”
“What are you going to call?” Katya asked. “An ambulance? Go ahead. Tell them the bride whipped you with her bouquet. It’ll make a great story.”
Denis grabbed his jacket and ran out of the apartment.
Galina Petrovna was already waiting for him in the hallway.
“Alinka,” Katya said, walking over to her. “Sit down.”
“I need to call the restaurant. The guests. Everyone.”
“I’ll call them. You sit down.”
Alina lowered herself into a chair.
The dress wrinkled beneath her, but she no longer cared.
Alina called the guests herself.
She lied to every one of them.
She said Denis had fallen seriously ill—acute food poisoning, an emergency hospitalization.
People sympathized. They wished him a quick recovery. They promised they would come later, once he was well.
Katya sat silently beside her.
She poured tea that Alina never drank. She brought a blanket when Alina began to shake.
“Call your mother,” Katya said.
“I can’t.”
“Then I’ll call her.”
“No. I’ll do it myself. Later.”
Her mother eventually learned the truth.
She came over, hugged her daughter, and said nothing.
She simply stayed beside her.
“He always seemed a little… slippery to me,” her mother admitted to Katya in the kitchen after Alina had fallen asleep.
“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Katya asked.
“Would either of you have listened? People in love never do.”
For six months, Alina slowly put herself back together.
She went to work. Smiled at her colleagues. Pretended everything was fine.
In the evenings, she sat alone in the empty apartment.
Denis had collected his belongings while she was away.
He had not even returned the keys.
Katya came over every weekend.
She dragged Alina to the cinema, exhibitions, and ridiculous pottery workshops.
“Why do I need to make pots?” Alina asked.
“Because it’s therapy. You knead the clay and release your anger.”
“I’m not angry.”
“You are. You’re just hiding it.”
The pots came out crooked and ugly.
Alina laughed at them.
Then she cried.
Then she laughed again.
One day, after another trip to the cinema, they stopped at a café.
A man approached their table.
“Excuse me,” he said. “You left your umbrella on the chair.”
Alina turned.
There really was an umbrella lying on the seat beside her.
“Thank you.” She picked it up. “But it isn’t mine.”
“Then keep it. It suits you.”
“An umbrella suits me?”
“The color. Turquoise. It matches your eyes.”
Katya giggled into her cup.
“Maxim,” the man introduced himself. “May I sit down?”
“Alina. You may.”
He took a seat and ordered coffee.
He told them he lived in the building next door. He loved the neighborhood because of its old courtyards and quiet streets.
He had seen Alina before, in the corner shop.
“Have you been following me?” she asked.
“I remember beautiful women. That isn’t a crime.”
“Depends on the scale of the operation.”
He laughed.
It was a good laugh—deep and sincere.
Katya finished her tea and stood.
“I need to go,” she announced. “Alinka, I’ll see you later.”
“Katya!”
“What? I have things to do. Important things. Very, very important.”
She left, winking as she walked away.
Maxim and Alina talked until the café closed.
Then they spent another hour talking outside.
Afterward, he walked her to her building.
“May I call you?” he asked.
“I haven’t given you my number.”
“Will you?”
She did.
Maxim did not ask about her past.
He did not force his way into her private pain.
He simply called, invited her on walks, and told her funny stories.
“Do you know I once had a wedding that never happened?” she asked him a month later.
“I heard.”
“From whom?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re here now.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“What bothers me is that someone was stupid enough to let you go.”
Alina felt something that resembled hope.
Maxim proposed a year later.
Not on a rooftop. Not in a restaurant. Not anywhere particularly special.
They were standing on a bridge, looking down at the river, when he simply said:
“Marry me.”
“Why are you making it sound so simple?”
“Why complicate it? I love you. You love me. It’s the logical next step.”
“And what if I say no?”
“Then I’ll ask again tomorrow. And the day after that. And next week. Until you say yes.”
She said yes that same evening.
Katya screamed so loudly into the phone that Alina had to pull it away from her ear.
“Finally, a normal man!” her friend shouted. “I approve of him!”
“Thank you for your permission.”
“You’re always welcome!”
They scheduled the wedding for September.
Alina chose a different dress, nothing like the first one.
It was cream-colored, with bare shoulders and no endless row of buttons down the back.
“A zipper,” she told Katya during the fitting. “No buttons.”
“A wise decision.”
The wedding day was bright and sunny.
Alina woke early, but she felt no anxiety.
Maxim had spent the night at a friend’s place.
“Tradition,” he had explained.
Katya arrived at eight.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Absolutely.”
“No panic?”
“None.”
They reached the registry office half an hour before the ceremony.
The guests were already gathering near the entrance.
Alina’s mother stood to one side, wiping tears from her eyes.
Maxim was waiting on the steps.
He wore a dark-blue suit with a boutonnière pinned to the lapel.
When he saw Alina, his face broke into a wide smile.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
“So are you.”
They had just started climbing the steps when someone called Alina’s name.
She turned and froze.
Denis stood near the fence.
He was holding an enormous bouquet of red roses.
A scar from the bouquet strike two years earlier was still visible on his face.
It was thin, but noticeable.
“Alina,” he said. “Wait.”
Maxim tensed and stepped forward.
“Who is that?” he asked quietly.
“My ex.”
“That ex?”
“Yes.”
Denis approached.
He looked worn and disheveled.
“I need to talk to you,” he told Alina.
“Here? Now?”
“Yes. It’s important.”
Maxim stepped toward him.
“Listen, friend,” he said calmly. “I don’t know what you want, but your timing is terrible.”
“I’m not talking to you,” Denis snapped.
“You are now. Because in ten minutes, she is going to become my wife.”
Denis looked at him with contempt.
“And what? You think you’re better than me?”
“I don’t think so. I know so.”
Denis tightened his grip on the bouquet.
“Alina, listen to me. I regretted that morning for two years. I went to therapy. I worked through my fears. I realized I had been an idiot. A complete idiot. I want everything back.”
“Back?” Alina gave a dry laugh. “What exactly do you want back?”
“Us. You. Our life.”
“Denis, we didn’t have a life. We lived together for a year and almost got married once.”
“But I’ve changed. I really have. Ask anyone.”
“I don’t need to ask. I’m not interested.”
Denis went pale.
“You’re seriously going to marry him? This… nobody?”
Maxim chuckled.
“‘Nobody’ is harsh. I thought I was at least somebody.”
“Shut up!” Denis barked. “You stole my woman.”
“Stole her? You abandoned her in a wedding dress an hour and a half before the ceremony. That wasn’t theft. It was a rescue operation.”
The guests began turning toward them.
Alina’s mother covered her mouth with one hand.
Someone pulled out a phone, clearly intending to record the confrontation.
“Alina,” Denis said, stepping toward her. “Please. Give me one more chance.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t love you anymore. I don’t respect you. And I don’t want to see you.”
“You can’t do this to me. I’ve suffered so much because of you.”
“Because of me?” Alina laughed. “You were the one who ran away. You made the choice. You said things that can never be forgotten.”
“I was scared.”
“Everyone gets scared sometimes. Not everyone destroys another person’s life because of it.”
Denis began trembling.
His face turned red. The bouquet crumpled in his hands.
“He’ll leave you!” he shouted. “Just like everyone else. Because you’re worthless!”
Maxim stepped toward him, but Alina stopped him.
“Don’t,” she said. “He isn’t worth your nerves.”
At that moment, Katya appeared behind Alina.
She slowly walked toward Denis.
He immediately backed away.
“You,” he breathed.
“Me.” Katya smiled. “Missed me?”
She snatched the bouquet from his hands.
He did not resist.
She studied the roses.
“Beautiful,” Katya said. “Must have cost a fortune. You always did love putting on a show.”
“Give it back.”
Slowly, she raised the bouquet like a sword and thrust it toward Denis’s face.
He remembered the last time Katya had whipped him with a bouquet.
The fear had never left him.
Denis squealed and jumped backward.
He tripped over the curb and fell onto the grass.
The guests burst out laughing.
Alina laughed too.
She had not intended to, but she could not help herself.
Maxim put an arm around her shoulders.
“A classic,” he said. “A coward afraid of flowers.”
Denis scrambled to his feet.
His suit was covered in grass.
His face showed a mixture of humiliation and fury.
“All of you!” he shouted. “You’ll all pay for this!”
“For what?” Katya asked. “Laughing? That isn’t illegal.”
“I…”
“You what? You’re going to call your mother? Complain that the mean ladies hurt your feelings?”
Denis clenched his fists.
He looked at the laughing guests.
At Alina, who was no longer paying attention to him.
At Maxim, who stood beside her calmly and confidently.
Then he ran.
He did not walk away.
He actually ran—fast, hunched over, his elbows pressed to his sides.
Like a child being chased by a bee.
“Well,” Katya said. “That’s the end of that story.”
“I hope so,” Alina replied.
“Shall we go?” Maxim asked. “Everyone’s waiting for us.”
They climbed the steps of the registry office.
The guests followed.
The ceremony passed quickly.
Alina barely heard the registrar’s words.
She only looked at Maxim.
At his calm face.
At the confident way he slid the ring onto her finger.
“Do you agree to take this man as your husband?”
“Yes.”
He kissed her before the registrar could finish saying, “You may kiss the bride.”
The guests applauded.
Katya cried in the front row.
Alina’s mother cried beside her.
After the ceremony, they went outside.
The photographer began arranging the guests.
“Stand here. Groom, move closer. Bride, a little to the left.”
Alina glanced toward the fence.
Denis was standing beyond it, at a considerable distance.
He was watching them.
Maxim followed her gaze.
“Do you want me to make him leave?”
“No. Let him watch.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. It will be good for him to see that I’m happy.”
Maxim held her closer.
“Are you really happy?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. Because there’s no turning back. I’m not him. I don’t run away.”
“I know.”
Denis stood beside a tree and watched them pose for photographs.
He watched them laugh.
He watched Katya fix Alina’s hair.
He watched the guests hug the newlyweds.
No one had invited him.
No one paid attention to him.
He was only a shadow at the edge of someone else’s celebration.
Half an hour later, everyone climbed into their cars.
Denis remained behind alone.
He took out his phone.
For a moment, he seemed about to call someone.
Then he looked at the screen and slipped it back into his pocket.
There was no one to call.
Alina looked through the car window.
She saw his small, hunched figure by the fence.
Then she turned away.
“Is that it?” Maxim asked.
“That’s it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. He no longer exists.”
The car began to move.
The city flowed past the windows—familiar streets, intersections, shop signs.
“You know,” Alina said, “I used to be so angry with him. Every day, I thought about that morning. About the way he stood in the kitchen talking nonsense about freedom and traps.”
“And now?”
“Now I feel nothing. Emptiness. He’s just… nobody.”
“That’s the best revenge,” Maxim said, taking her hand. “Indifference.”
“It isn’t revenge. It’s simply the truth.”
“That works too.”
The wedding reception was loud and joyful.
Friends gave speeches.
Alina’s mother cried with happiness.
Katya danced three slow dances with one of the guests and repeatedly insisted that she “wasn’t agreeing to anything.”
At the end of the evening, after the guests had gone, Alina and Maxim sat together at an empty table.
“Tired?” he asked.
“A little.”
“Do you regret anything?”
“No. Nothing.”
He kissed her.
“Neither do I.”
They stepped outside.
The September evening was warm.
Streetlights were beginning to glow across the city.
“Home?” Maxim asked.
“Home.”
They walked along the street hand in hand.
Behind them was the banquet hall.
Behind them were years of pain and doubt.
Behind them was a man who had once believed he was important.
Alina smiled.
The future looked bright.