“Natalie, weren’t you supposed to come back tomorrow?” Lena adjusted her flight attendant cap and leaned tiredly against the counter in the arrivals area.
I exhaled and set my suitcase on the floor. My legs ached after the long flight, and the roar of the engines still seemed to echo inside my head.
“You know how these things happen. The flight was rescheduled, the crew was changed, and here I am. I didn’t call Yuri because I wanted to surprise him. I can already imagine his face. He’s probably finishing another article for the magazine and has buried himself under a mountain of drafts again.”
Lena smiled and patted me on the shoulder.
“Lucky you. All right, go home to your editor and get some rest.”
We said goodbye, and I stepped outside the airport, breathing in the cool evening air. It was unusually quiet for that time of night. All I could think about was a hot shower and my own bed.
I called a taxi, and forty minutes later, I was standing outside our apartment building.
The lights were on in our windows, which meant Yuri was home.
I quietly unlocked the front door, trying not to make a sound. I wanted to tiptoe into the living room and wrap my arms around him from behind.
But the moment I crossed the threshold, I noticed the sharp scent of unfamiliar perfume.
I looked toward the shoe rack. Beside my house slippers stood a pair of elegant red high heels. A small leather handbag rested on the bench in the hallway.
It definitely wasn’t mine.
I walked farther down the corridor. Quiet laughter and the clinking of dishes came from the kitchen.
“Yuri, stop it,” said a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize. “You promised we wouldn’t talk about work tonight.”
I froze in the doorway.
A young woman with short hair was sitting at our kitchen table. She looked far too relaxed, far too comfortable in my home. Yuri sat opposite her, wearing his favorite old T-shirt.
“Natasha?” Yuri jumped up so suddenly that his chair crashed backward. “What are you doing here? You weren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow.”
“I arrived early,” I said, struggling to keep my voice calm. “Apparently, my timing is terrible.”
“This is Alla,” Yuri said quickly, stepping toward me. “She’s my deputy editor. We urgently needed to discuss the layout for the next issue, and the electricity went out at the office.”
“The electricity went out, so you decided to discuss a magazine layout in our kitchen at eleven o’clock at night?” I looked at Alla. “With her handbag in the hallway and her shoes by the door?”
Alla slipped past me, muttered something that sounded like an apology, and hurried down the corridor. A minute later, the front door slammed shut.
Yuri and I were alone.
He stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring at me.
Just an hour earlier, I had been desperate to see his face. Now I found it almost repulsive.
For years, I had believed that we loved each other and had no secrets. But the man standing in front of me now was simply trying to decide which lie to tell next.
“Natasha, don’t start,” he said, reaching for my hand.
I stepped away.
“Nothing happened. We were only working. You know how chaotic things are at the magazine right now. Everyone is under pressure before the issue goes to print.”
“Don’t lie to me, Yuri,” I said, feeling anger rise inside me. “I’m not an idiot. You brought her into our home.”
“This is my home,” he snapped. “I have every right to invite a colleague here. You’re always traveling. You disappear for weeks at a time. Do you think it’s easy for me to be alone?”
That accusation hurt even more than the betrayal itself.
He was blaming me for working. For flying around the world so that we could afford the life we had built together.
“Your home?” I slowly looked around the kitchen. “We created everything here together. I brought little things back from every country I visited because I wanted this place to feel warm and comfortable. And now you’re telling me it belongs only to you?”
“Legally, it does,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “I bought the apartment with my own money before we were married. Yes, we lived here together, but let’s not confuse sentiment with ownership.”
I stared at him, barely recognizing the man in front of me.
Where was the Yuri who used to meet me at the airport with flowers? Where was the man who had promised that we would always be together?
Instead, I saw a cold, calculating magazine editor who was accustomed to deleting unnecessary lines from manuscripts.
Now he had apparently decided to delete me.
“That’s enough,” I said as something inside me finally broke. “I’m not listening to another word. I’m disgusted to be in the same room with you. Get out. Right now.”
Yuri smirked.
That smirk was the most painful part of the entire evening.
“You don’t seem to understand. The apartment is mine. If someone is unhappy here, that person is free to leave. Go to your mother, stay with your friends, book a hotel. I’m not going anywhere.”
I fell silent.
My anger was replaced by an icy calm. At that moment, I understood that arguing was pointless. He had clung to those square meters as if they were his last chance to preserve his pride.
I stood in the kitchen and watched the kettle beginning to tremble on its base.
Yuri didn’t leave. He sat back down, picked up the cup Alla had been drinking from, and took a sip.
The gesture was so casual and so revolting that I nearly felt sick.
“Are you serious?” I asked. “You bring another woman here, yet I’m the one who has to leave?”
“Natasha, watch your language,” he said, wincing as if I had said something offensive. “I’ve already explained it to you. This is my apartment. If you don’t like what happens here, the door is right there. Your suitcase is already packed. You don’t even have to waste time getting ready.”
He was right about one thing.
My suitcase was still standing in the hallway.
At that moment, my entire world seemed to fit inside one plastic box on wheels.
I went into the bedroom. The same cloyingly sweet perfume lingered there, catching in my throat.
I opened the wardrobe and began throwing clothes onto the bed.
Jeans, sweaters, my uniform.
I didn’t choose carefully or fold anything. I simply grabbed whatever I could and tossed it into the suitcase.
Then I noticed our wedding photograph in its frame.
We were standing beside the sea, looking happy, hopeful, and foolish.
I picked up the frame and placed it face down on the dresser.
Yuri appeared in the doorway and leaned against the frame.
“And where are you going to go? Lena’s place? She’ll throw you out after three days. Her apartment is already packed with her husband, two children, and that endless renovation.”
“That’s none of your business,” I replied. “The only thing that matters is that I won’t be here with you.”
“We’ll see,” he said with a shrug. “You’ll come running back tomorrow to apologize once you realize that renting an apartment in Moscow isn’t the same as floating through the clouds.”
I zipped the suitcase shut.
At that moment, I felt a strange emptiness. It wasn’t even pain anymore. It was a clear understanding that this man no longer had anything to do with me.
All those years I had spent trying to create the perfect home, baking pies between flights and choosing the best ties for him, suddenly disappeared.
I walked into the hallway. A wet footprint from Alla’s shoe remained on the mat.
I put on my jacket, grabbed the suitcase, and went to the door.
Yuri didn’t even come to see me leave. He was sitting in the living room, and I could hear the tapping of his laptop keys.
Work came first, as always.
Outside, the air was damp. Streetlights reflected in the puddles, scattering yellow patches across the pavement.
I started walking toward the bus stop, even though I knew the buses had already stopped running.
I simply wanted to get as far away from that building as possible.
I took out my phone.
I could call Lena.
No. Yuri was right about one thing: she had two children, a husband, and a never-ending renovation. Burdening her in the middle of the night would be selfish.
I opened an app and began searching for nearby hotels. The prices were painful, but I no longer cared.
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
It was Lena.
“Natasha, how are you? Did the surprise work?” she asked cheerfully.
“It certainly made someone disappear,” I replied, lowering myself onto a bench as the cold seeped through my jacket.
“What happened?”
“Yuri wasn’t alone. His deputy editor was there. Apparently, they were discussing a magazine layout.”
Silence filled the line.
“That bastard,” Lena finally breathed. “Where are you now?”
“Outside. He said the apartment belonged to him and threw me out. Well, technically, I left because I couldn’t stand being there. I’m looking for a hotel.”
“What hotel?” Lena almost shouted. “I’m staying at my mother’s place right now. She went to the countryside for a week, so her apartment near Sokol is empty. I have the keys in my bag. I’ll call a taxi and meet you by the metro station. Do you understand?”
A lump rose in my throat.
For the first time that evening, I wanted to cry—not because of Yuri, but because I realized I wasn’t alone.
“I understand,” I whispered. “Thank you, Lena.”
“Don’t thank me. Get those suitcase wheels moving. I’ll meet you in twenty minutes.”
I stood and picked up my suitcase.
It no longer felt so unbearably heavy.
The city continued living around me. Cars rushed past, and someone laughed in a nearby courtyard.
Life hadn’t stopped simply because one magazine editor had turned out to be a coward and a cheater.
By the time I reached Sokol, Lena was already waiting outside the metro station.
She hugged me without saying anything, then pressed a set of keys and a bag of groceries into my hands.
“There’s cheese and sausage in the refrigerator,” she said, looking closely into my eyes. “We’ll talk in the morning. And don’t you dare think any of this is your fault. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” I said with a nod.
“And block him, for heaven’s sake. At least for tonight. You need sleep.”
I went upstairs to the apartment.
I didn’t unpack. I simply took off my shoes, lay down on the sofa fully dressed, and closed my eyes.
Tomorrow would be a new day.
I still had my job, my friends, and myself.
An apartment was only walls.
I woke when bright sunlight flooded through the window.
For a moment, I forgot where I was and reached toward the familiar bedside table. My hand touched a cold wall instead.
Then everything returned at once: Lena’s empty apartment, the suitcase beside the door, and Yuri’s face twisted with anger.
There were fifteen missed calls from him and dozens of messages.
At first, he had been furious. Then he demanded that I return some documents he claimed I had taken by mistake. By dawn, he had started begging for sympathy.
“Natasha, you have to understand that it was a mistake. I was confused.”
I deleted the conversation without reading the rest.
Confused.
A senior editor at a major magazine, a man who had always taken pride in his logic and ability to emphasize the right details, had somehow lost his sense of direction in his own bedroom.
I found an old coffee pot in the kitchen.
While the coffee brewed, I stood by the window watching people hurry along the street.
None of them knew that my life had burned to ashes the night before.
Strangely, though, I didn’t feel like a victim.
I felt more like someone who had been carrying an impossibly heavy backpack for years and had finally dropped it.
The doorbell rang.
I flinched.
Had Yuri found me?
But when I looked through the peephole, I saw Lena. She was carrying a huge paper bag filled with warm croissants.
“Well,” she said, walking into the kitchen as if she owned the place, “you look exhausted, but your eyes are still alive. That’s a good sign.”
“I’m all right, Lena. Honestly.”
I took a sip of scalding coffee.
“It’s amazing how quickly everything can change. Yesterday, I was thinking about buying a new dinner set for our living room. Today, I’m grateful that I have a toothbrush in my suitcase.”
“That’s the adrenaline talking,” Lena said, sitting across from me. “Tomorrow may be harder. But you’re a flight attendant, Natasha. We’re used to turbulence. The important thing is not to let him drag you back into that swamp. Has he called?”
“Fifteen times. He sent messages too. He says he got confused.”
Lena snorted.
“Yes, of course. Confused by the magazine layout. Listen, I asked around through some contacts. Alla isn’t merely his deputy. She wants the editor-in-chief position, and it seems she decided that Yuri’s sofa was the first step up the career ladder. Your husband is just a convenient stepping stone.”
I remained calm.
In the past, I would probably have demanded details, compared myself to Alla, and searched for flaws in my appearance.
Now I didn’t care.
What difference did it make who she was when Yuri had willingly let her into our private world?
“They can have each other,” I said quietly. “I need to collect the rest of my things. My equipment, clothes, documents, and the books I bought.”
“Don’t go alone,” Lena said firmly. “I’ll come with you. Or we can take a couple of guys from the ground crew. I know some people. Let Yuri see them standing behind you.”
“No. I’ll go by myself. I want to look him in the eyes one last time.”
I returned to the apartment two days later.
I deliberately chose the time when Yuri was normally at lunch, but his car was parked outside the building.
Apparently, he had taken the day off.
Or perhaps he was hiding.
I opened the door with my key.
The hallway was perfectly clean. The red shoes were gone, but so were most of my belongings.
The television was playing in the living room.
Yuri came out to meet me.
He looked terrible. His face was gray, and his shirt was wrinkled and stale.
“You came back,” he said, hope creeping into his voice. “I knew you would calm down. Let’s talk like adults. I’ve thought about everything. Alla resigned. I ended it.”
“I came for my things, Yuri.”
I walked past him into the bedroom.
Several boxes stood in the corner.
He had already packed everything himself. Perhaps he wanted to speed up my departure, or perhaps he had been afraid I might stay longer than necessary.
“Are you serious?” he asked, following me closely. “You’re going to destroy five years of marriage over one stupid mistake? Natasha, remember how happy we were together.”
“We were happy as long as I trusted you,” I said, opening the boxes to inspect their contents. “Now I see a stranger standing in front of me. Do you know what disgusted me most? It wasn’t even that you brought her here. It was the way you started counting square meters and reminding me who owned what. You showed me your real face, Yuri. I don’t like it.”
I ordered movers through an app.
While we waited for them, Yuri stood by the window, smoking one cigarette after another.
He tried to talk about our trips together and reminded me that I had once promised to stay with him in sorrow and in happiness.
“You seem to have forgotten the happiness part,” I interrupted him. “The happiness in this apartment ended when you decided that my work and my flights gave you permission to betray me.”
When the movers carried out the final box, I took the apartment keys from my pocket.
They felt heavy and cold in my palm.
I placed them on the hallway dresser.
“Goodbye. Don’t call me again.”
I stepped out of the building and felt the fresh wind strike my face.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a notification containing my flight schedule for the following week.
Beijing, Paris, then Beijing again.
The entire world was open to me.
I climbed into a taxi and looked at my reflection in the rearview mirror.
A different woman looked back at me—a woman who had just shed her old skin.
Was I afraid?
Of course I was.
But it was the same fear you feel just before takeoff, when the airplane races down the runway and there is no longer any way to turn back.
There is only one direction left.
Up.
An hour later, I was sitting in a café with Lena, looking through advertisements for small studio apartments near Rechnoy Vokzal.
“This one overlooks a park,” Lena said, scrolling through the listings. “You’ll be able to go for walks and breathe fresh air. As for your Yuri, one day he’ll understand that he didn’t merely lose his wife. He lost the only honest direction he ever had.”
I smiled.
I knew I would survive.
I still had the sky, the clouds, and a new blank page on which I could finally write my own rules.