Oleg slammed the refrigerator door so hard that the contents of the shelves inside trembled. One of the magnets decorating its surface fell to the floor with a dull thud.
Lena stood opposite him, pale, with tightly clenched fists.
“Well, do you feel better now?” she exhaled sharply, tilting her chin up.
“You’re just driving me crazy,” Oleg’s voice broke, although he tried his best to speak quietly. “What kind of life is this? No joy, no prospects.”
“So it’s my fault again?” Lena laughed, but her laughter sounded bitter. “Of course, everything is not as in your dreams.”
Oleg wanted to reply, but just waved his hand dismissively. He opened a bottle of mineral water, took a swig directly from the bottle, and set it on the table.
“Oleg, don’t be silent,” Lena’s voice trembled. “Tell me straight, what’s the matter?”
“What’s there to say?” he snarled. “You wouldn’t understand anyway. I’m just tired of all this. To hell with it!”
They silently stared at each other for a few seconds. Finally, Lena took a deep breath and went into the bathroom. Oleg slumped on the couch. From behind the door came the sound of water; Lena probably turned on the tap to drown out her tears. But Oleg realized that he no longer cared.
Oleg and Lena had been married for three years. They lived in Lena’s apartment, which she had inherited from her parents. Her parents had retired and moved to a country house, transferring their city property to their daughter. The apartment was spacious but simply decorated, and the furniture was almost from Soviet times.
At first, Oleg was satisfied: the apartment was almost in the city center, close to work, in a decent area. But after six months, the everyday life began to irritate him. Lena found comfort in her family fortress with its familiar brown wallpaper and grandmother’s sideboard. Oleg, however, found it all too mundane.
“Lena, explain to me,” he would start the same conversation over and over. “Don’t you want to change this terrible yellow linoleum? Or wallpaper? Make everything modern, stylish?”
“Oleg, we don’t have extra money for a major renovation,” she would answer softly. “Of course, I’d like to change everything, but let’s wait for the bonus or save up.”
“Wait?! That’s your whole life—waiting, enduring.”
Oleg often remembered how he met Lena. She was a modest student, but her blue eyes and kind smile captivated him. He told his friends, “I see in her a flower bud—just wait until it blooms, and everyone will be amazed.” Now, he felt disappointed: “She didn’t bloom; she withered at the root,” he thought, watching Lena dusting her mother’s fragile vases, feeding a stray kitten sour cream, or adjusting the frames of childhood photos on the walls.
But Lena didn’t feel like a “grey mouse”; she simply lived as she thought was right. She was pleased by small things—a new napkin, a quiet evening with a book, a cup of tea with mint, the warm light of a desk lamp. Oleg saw stagnation in this.
However, despite constant complaints, he didn’t want a divorce—at the back of his mind, he was held back by the thought that otherwise, he would have to move out of the comfortable apartment to his parents’ house, with whom he always had strained relations. Moreover, his mother, Tamara Ilyinichna, tended to side with her daughter-in-law in any argument.
“Son, you are wrong,” she would often repeat. “Lena is a wonderful girl, smart. You live in her apartment… just be happy.”
“Mom, how would you know?” Oleg would grumble. “What do you even understand in life? Stuck, like Lena, in your stone age.”
Tamara Ilyinichna sighed: her son had long drifted away. His father, Igor Sergeyevich, knowing Oleg’s character, would only say:
“Let him figure it out himself, Tamara, don’t interfere.”
And yet, Oleg came home and grew increasingly angry: “Lena is like a shadow, a grey mouse, and she tied me to this apartment,” he would tell himself. In another scandal, he shouted:
“I once saw a beautiful flower in you! What now? I live with a frozen bud…”
Then Lena cried for the first time in many months.
And so, on that hot day—the very one where it all started—they seriously talked about divorce for the first time. Oleg stood by the window, watching the neighbors in the opposite building lay out things on the balcony.
“Lena, I’m tired,” he said quietly, continuing to look through the glass.
“You’re tired… of what?” she tried to speak evenly.
“Of this life, of our endless quarrels. You’re locked in your pots and napkins. Do you think I want to aimlessly waste years?”
Lena was silent for a minute, then took a trash bag and went to the corridor. Oleg heard the door slam. He hoped she would return in a couple of minutes, possibly to explain. But Lena was gone for half an hour, returning more composed.
“You know,” she said, leaning against the wall, “maybe you really need to be alone. Move out.”
“No way,” Oleg sharply replied, as if stung. “I’m not leaving my home.”
“Oleg, this isn’t your home. This is my parents’ apartment,” Lena bitterly smiled. “Let’s be honest: we’re not making it. It’s time to admit it.”
He found no reply, so he retreated to the room and sat down at his laptop. But the thought nagged at him: “Where will I go? To my parents… our relationship is already strained.” The argument hung in the air, and in the following days, it repeated: they argued over trivialities, but at the core of each conflict was the same thing—indifference to a wife he considered a “grey mouse,” mixed with the fear of being without a roof over his head.
It reached a limit: Oleg finally got angry and filed for divorce himself. “I decide, not her,” he stubbornly muttered. “After all, I have parents, I have somewhere to go.” He packed his things and moved to Tamara Ilyinichna and Igor Sergeyevich’s, though without much enthusiasm. Lena agreed to the divorce calmly.
Applications at the registry office—and soon they were officially no longer husband and wife.
Three years passed. Oleg lived with his parents all this time. At first, he thought, “I’ll rest a couple of months and return to normal life: rent an apartment, find a new girlfriend who will share my ideals.” But he got stuck, as if in a swamp. With work, there was only enough money for modest pleasures. And the prospects somehow did not materialize. His parents grumbled that their son was over thirty and still sitting on their neck.
And then, one cold spring evening, Oleg was returning after meeting a friend. He walked past a small cozy cafe where the lamps brightly lit up the window display. Oleg decided to go in to warm up. But, approaching, he suddenly froze: Lena was standing at the entrance. The same Lena he had left three years ago in her apartment. But this was a different woman: confident posture, neat hairstyle, strict but elegant clothes, and a calm gaze. In her hands were car keys, judging by the brand, not cheap.
“Wow…” Oleg thought and didn’t even notice how he approached her.
“Lena?” he called out.
She turned around, recognizing him not at once, but then she smiled. Oleg noticed that the smile was not the one before—timid and embarrassed, but truly calm and confident in herself.
“Hi, Oleg,” she said. “Glad to see you! How are you?”
“Fine…” he adjusted his scarf, feeling somewhat disconcerted. “I see, you’re doing well.”
“Let’s say, I now live as I’ve always dreamed,” Lena replied without a hint of pretense.
“Is that so…” Oleg swallowed, trying to swallow the lump in his throat along with growing envy. “Ah… well done. Are you still working there?”
“No, I changed fields. I opened my own floristry studio. I was afraid at first, but…” here she smiled. “I found someone who supported me.”
“Who is that?” the words slipped from his lips.
Before Lena could answer, a tall man in a coat emerged from the cafe doors. He approached Lena and put his arm around her shoulders:
“Darling, a table just freed up, shall we?”
Lena turned to Oleg, introduced the man:
“This is Vadim, meet him. Vadim, this is Oleg,” she smiled at the man, touched by his care. “Anyway, Oleg, I was glad to see you. I… hope you’re doing well too.”
Oleg nodded, feeling an internal storm brewing. Looking at Vadim, he suddenly realized: Lena was completely different, not the “grey mouse” he considered her. She had bloomed, like the flower he once described, but not with him, with someone else.
“Lena…” he wanted to say something like “forgive me,” but all words stuck in his throat. “I’m happy for you, really.”
“Thank you, Oleg,” she replied quietly, but confidently. “Take care of yourself.”
Vadim smiled at Oleg, nodded slightly, and they disappeared behind the glass door of the cafe. Oleg felt the cold wind literally pierce him through. He closed his eyes for a moment and remembered: “I live with a frozen bud…” he had once rudely thrown at Lena. And now the bud had bloomed, and he himself remained outside, both literally and figuratively.
Through the large windows of the cafe, it was visible how Lena and Vadim were talking about something, laughing. He watched their gestures, sincere smiles, and caught himself thinking that his evening was already ruined. And not just the evening—the feeling of emptiness in his soul was growing. Once, he could have been for Lena a source of confidence, encourage her to changes, support her aspirations. But he chose quite differently.
Oleg, lowering his head, walked away from the cafe. If he could see himself now, he would understand that he had turned green—with envy, with annoyance, and perhaps, with the painful feeling of a missed opportunity.