When Lena saw the amount on her phone screen, her heart froze for a split second—then started beating so happily she almost wanted to shout. A bonus. A quarterly bonus for smashing her target. It meant she could finally afford her first real vacation in three years. Not those miserable five days wedged between holidays when you do nothing but sleep, but a full two weeks. Turkey. The sea. A hotel with breakfast. No client calls, no reports, no meetings at eight in the morning.
She sat in her tiny rented apartment on the edge of town—furniture bought on sale, an ancient renovation that had seen better decades—and smiled at her laptop. The trip was already reserved; all she had to do was click Confirm. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
I’ll call Mom first, Lena decided. I’ll share the joy.
“Hi, Mom! I’ve got amazing news!” She couldn’t hide the excitement in her voice.
“Hello, Lenochka,” her mother answered, sounding worn out. “What is it?”
“I got my bonus! A big one! And I decided… I bought a package to Turkey. I fly next week. Can you imagine? The sea, the sun…”
A silence settled on the line—so heavy that Lena felt her happiness slowly drain away, replaced by her usual, familiar anxiety.
“You bought a trip,” her mother repeated evenly. “To Turkey.”
“Yes, Mom. I’ve wanted this for so long…”
“And do you know your sister has problems?” her mother cut her off.
Lena closed her eyes. Of course. Of course she knew. Vika had never lived without “problems.” As a child it was failing grades and skipping school, as a teenager it was questionable friends, and now—at twenty-six—it was loans. A lot of loans.
“I know,” Lena said carefully.
“You know,” her mother’s voice rose, and Lena instinctively shrank, like a little girl again being scolded for her sister’s behavior. “You know and you’re doing nothing! Collectors are calling, Lena! Every day! They’ve already called your father’s job twice, they’re driving me crazy. I can’t sleep, my blood pressure spikes—and you… you’re going to Turkey?”
“Mom, but those are Vika’s debts—”
“She’s your sister!” her mother was nearly shouting now. “Your own sister! She needs help, and you’re only thinking about yourself!”
Lena stood up and paced to the window and back. Outside, October rain drizzled—gray and bleak, just like her life had been for the last three years. Work, home, work, home. Renting instead of owning, because she could never save enough for a mortgage down payment. Three years without a vacation.
“How much does she need?” Lena asked, exhausted—and surprised at herself. She hadn’t planned to ask. She hadn’t planned to give in.
“Two hundred thousand,” her mother replied quickly. “Maybe a little less. She has to close three loans or they’ll take her to court.”
Two hundred thousand. She would have to pull from the account where she’d been collecting money for a down payment.
“Mom… that’s all my money.”
“Lena,” her mother’s voice turned hard, with that steel tone Lena had known since childhood and never managed to resist. “I’m not asking—I’m stating the obvious. You’re the oldest. You’ve always been the smart, responsible one. Vika… she’s different. She doesn’t know how to live, she needs help. Do you want your mother to collapse from stress? Do you want your father to lose his job because of these calls? Help your sister pay it off first, and then you can go off and entertain yourself!”
“But, Mom—”
“No ‘buts’! Come tomorrow by lunch and bring the money. Stop thinking only about yourself. Family helps family.”
Her mother hung up without waiting for an answer. She never waited. She simply declared what was “right,” and everyone obeyed. That’s how it had always been.
Lena sank onto the couch and stared at her laptop. The cursor was still blinking above Confirm payment. Turkey. The sea. Two weeks when she could just be herself—not the “responsible daughter,” not the “older sister,” not the sales manager whose plan always had to be exceeded.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Vika: “Len, Mom said you’ll help! Thank you sooo much! I knew you wouldn’t abandon me! ❤️”
Lena gave a bitter half-smile. Vika hadn’t even called. She hadn’t asked, explained, apologized—she’d simply accepted it as a given that her older sister would fix everything again, pay for everything again.
They had always been different. Lena studied hard, started working early, learned to rely only on herself. Vika drifted, changed hobbies every month and jobs every quarter.
“Not my thing,” she’d say each time, then move back home to their parents, who fed her, dressed her, and demanded nothing in return.
“She’s younger,” their mother always said. “She needs more time.”
“She has to look good to marry well,” their mother justified when Vika took out a new loan for an expensive fur coat.
“The girl needs a break—fly off with friends,” she explained when Vika opened another credit card.
And now—two hundred thousand in debt, collectors, and “Lena must help because she’s the oldest.”
Lena remembered how, two years earlier, she herself had asked her parents for a loan. Fifty thousand—she needed to pay urgently for courses that could lead to a promotion. Her mother had said then: “We can’t. We set money aside for Vika’s wedding training. You’re an adult—you’ll earn it yourself.”
So Lena earned it. Took out a loan, studied, got promoted. As always. And Vika never got married—wedding training didn’t help.
Lena shut the laptop and lay on the couch staring at the ceiling. Tomorrow she was supposed to drive to her parents’, hand over the money, listen to Vika’s gratitude and her mother’s lecture about how important family is. The day after tomorrow she was supposed to fly to Turkey—but instead she’d go to work like always. Gray office. Sales targets. Reports. Meetings.
Three more years until she could maybe save up for a vacation again. Maybe longer.
Her phone buzzed again. Vika sent a photo—posing in a new dress, taking a mirror selfie. “What do you think? I got it on installments, but I won’t even start paying for three months! ”
Lena stared at the photo and felt something growing inside her. Not anger—she’d learned to swallow anger years ago. Not even hurt—hurt had become dull and familiar, like an old ache. Something else.
Exhaustion.
A deep, all-consuming exhaustion that made her want to lie down and never get up again.
How long could she keep doing this?
The question rang so loudly in her head that Lena flinched.
How long could she stay convenient, correct, responsible? How long could she sacrifice her plans, her money, her life so her mother wouldn’t worry and Vika could keep floating in her rosy world where everything “somehow” worked itself out?
She sat up and opened the laptop again. The cursor still blinked: Confirm payment.
Lena remembered her face in the mirror that morning. Thirty-two, but she looked forty. Gray strands at her temples she’d stopped dyeing. Lines around her eyes—not from laughter, but from constant tension. When was the last time she laughed purely from joy?
When was the last time she did anything for herself?
Her hand moved almost on its own. Click. Confirm.
She watched the screen flash: Payment successful. Her heart pounded as if she’d committed a crime.
Maybe she had. A crime against the family rules she’d lived by her whole life. Rule one: Lena must be responsible. Rule two: Lena must help. Rule three: Lena has no right to think about herself when the family is in trouble.
Her phone buzzed again. A message from her mother: “Tomorrow by lunch. Don’t forget the money.”
Lena stared at it for a long time, then slowly typed: “Mom, I can’t come tomorrow. And I won’t bring the money. I’m leaving for vacation.”
She hit send before she could change her mind.
The reply came instantly: “What??! Are you out of your mind?”
Then her phone lit up with call after call. Lena set it face down on the table and switched to silent mode. Her hands shook. Inside, everything tightened into a knot of fear, guilt—and something else that felt suspiciously like relief.
She stood, went to the closet, and pulled out an old suitcase. She began packing on autopilot: a swimsuit she’d never worn, summer dresses she’d bought on sale “for someday,” sunglasses.
The phone kept vibrating on the table. Lena imagined what was happening in her parents’ apartment right now: her mother in hysterics, her father sitting in his chair in silence—he never got involved in “women’s matters.” Vika crying, wailing that she’d be thrown in jail for debt, that her sister had betrayed her.
Betrayed.
Lena stopped with a folded towel in her hands. Strangely, the word didn’t hurt. Before, it would have sliced straight through her, forcing her to grab the phone, apologize, promise to bring the money. But now it sounded… empty. Like it didn’t belong to her.
She hadn’t betrayed them.
She had been betraying herself her whole life.
Every time she put other people’s wishes above her own. Every time she canceled her plans because her sister had a new “emergency.” Every time she swallowed her mother’s accusations for daring to think about herself.
Lena finished packing, zipped the suitcase. It was already past midnight. The phone finally went quiet—either her parents were exhausted from calling, or they’d decided she’d “come to her senses” in the morning.
She lay in bed and stared into the dark. In a week, she would fly away. Two weeks later, she would return. The money wouldn’t disappear while she was gone—it would still be sitting in her account. But it wouldn’t be all of it anymore. Some of it would be spent on her—on her life, on her right to be happy.
And maybe she would tell her mother, “I’m your daughter too. Not just Vika. I deserve support, not only demands.”
Maybe.
She was shaking with fear. But she’d been afraid her whole life—afraid of disappointing someone, failing someone, not fitting the role of the “good daughter” and the “good sister.”
Morning began with messages. Her mother sent long paragraphs about betrayal and selfishness, about raising her wrong. Vika sent a voice note sobbing that Lena was “killing her own sister.” Even her father—who usually stayed silent—wrote curtly: “Lena, you’re doing the wrong thing.”
Lena read them while sipping coffee. Once, every word would have hit her like a punch and made her feel like the worst person alive. Now the words slid past her without hooking in, without opening those familiar bleeding wounds of guilt.
On the way to work she turned the sound back on. Her mother called for the third time.
“Do you understand what you’re doing? Your sister will go to jail! My heart nearly gave out because of you!”
“Mom,” Lena heard her own voice—calm, firm, not even sounding like her. “Vika won’t go to jail. She’s twenty-six; she can get a job and pay her loans herself. You won’t die because I’m unreachable for two weeks. And I… I’m going on vacation. My first in three years.”
“You’re an egoist!” her mother screamed. “I will never forgive you!”
“Maybe,” Lena felt a lump rise in her throat, but she held it back. “But I won’t forgive myself if I give up my life again.”
A week later, on the plane, Lena sat by the window and watched clouds drift beneath the wing. Her phone lay switched off in her bag. Two weeks without calls, without accusations, without demands. Two weeks when she could be just Lena—not a sister, not a daughter, not a sales manager.
Just Lena.
Was she scared? Yes. Did she feel guilty? A little. But beneath the fear and guilt was something new—fragile, unfamiliar.
Freedom.
The right to choose. The right to say “no,” not because she didn’t love her family, but because she loved herself enough not to disappear inside their expectations.
A flight attendant brought water. Lena took a sip—and suddenly smiled. For the first time in months, she smiled for no reason at all. Because she was free. Because for the first time in thirty-two years, she had chosen herself.
Everything else… everything else could wait fourteen days.
And even if they never forgave her—even if her mother sulked for months and Vika held on to this “betrayal” for years—it would still be worth it. Because Lena finally understood something simple: you can’t help others if you dissolve into their problems. You can’t be a family’s support if you have no ground under your own feet.
The plane climbed higher, leaving the clouds far below—white, weightless. Lena leaned back and closed her eyes. Fourteen days ahead. Fourteen days to remember who she was. To rest. To understand that a life where you’re last on your own priority list isn’t life at all—it’s slow extinction.
And then… then she would come back. Maybe the conversation with her family would be hard. Maybe she’d have to rebuild relationships, learn to say “no” without drowning in guilt. Maybe things with her mother and sister would never be the same.
But they shouldn’t be the same. Because the “old” way was quietly killing her.
Through the window, the sea appeared—endless, blue, blazing in sunlight. Lena watched it and smiled. She had done it. For the first time in her life, she had chosen herself.
And the sky didn’t fall.