I was kicked out of the house at fifteen. Not with a suitcase and shouting like in the movies. Just one day my mother looked at me as if I were a stranger and said, “Ilyusha, it’s better this way. You don’t belong here.” I stood in our cramped kitchen, which smelled of borscht, her cigarettes, and something sour, like longing. The floor seemed to collapse beneath my feet, but I kept staring at her hands — thin, with bitten nails, fiddling with the edge of her apron. She wasn’t crying. Only her eyes were empty, like a turned-off TV.
Before that, I was a normal kid. We lived in a two-room apartment on the outskirts, where the wallpaper peeled, and the stairwell always smelled of cat urine. I dragged home A’s from school, fixed sockets when my mother asked, washed dishes while she smoked on the balcony. I hoped to hear at least once, “Well done, Ilyukha.” But that was before Yuri. Mom’s new husband crashed into our lives like a tank. Tall, with a heavy gaze and a voice that made you want to curl up into a ball. He didn’t hit me. Didn’t yell. Just looked right through me as if I were nothing. And my mother… she stopped being the one who sang lullabies to me. Her laughter disappeared, as if someone erased it with an eraser.
When Anya was born — their daughter — I became a shadow. She was their “real” child: pink booties, smiles, photos on the fridge. And I was the extra one. In the evenings, I ran to the stairwell, sat on the cold step, and listened to the elevator hum. That’s where I could breathe. At home, the air compressed like a spring ready to snap. I knew: soon it would explode.
And it did.
“Where’s the money from my wallet?” Yuri stood in the doorway, holding his worn-out wallet like evidence. Five thousand rubles — a small sum, but to him it was like a million. I swore I didn’t take it. He squinted: “Don’t lie, kid.” Mother was silent, fiddling with the same damn apron. Then quietly, almost in a whisper: “Ilya, admit it. We don’t want to call the police.” I looked at her and didn’t recognize her. Where was the woman who stroked my head when I was sick? I stayed silent. Grabbed a couple of T-shirts, notebooks, an old player with a cracked screen, stuffed them into my backpack. And left. The door slammed behind me like a gunshot.
The orphanage greeted me with the creak of metal beds, the smell of bleach, and the cold of concrete walls. Nobody pretended to be family there. Older boys tested you: pushed you in the hallway or hid your shoes. Once someone put a dead mouse in my bed. I didn’t scream or complain. Just threw it in the trash and remembered: here survive those who are faster and smarter. I became like that. Learned to keep my mouth shut, to guess who was lying and who would snitch. But inside, it still ached, as if someone forgot to turn off the pain.
The orphanage had a computer room — old computers that roared like tractors and constantly froze. I saw code for the first time — lines where every word had meaning. It was like poetry, only better: it worked. I spent nights there until the caretakers chased us to sleep. The IT teacher, Uncle Sasha, noticed. He was bald, always smelled of coffee, and had tired eyes. One day he threw me a book — a worn-out C++ textbook. “Here, read. Maybe you’ll get out of here.” I read. Wrote my first programs: a calculator, then a simple game where a square ran across the screen. Every time the code ran without errors, something warm lit up inside my chest. As if someone finally said: “You can.”
At the orphanage, I befriended Vitka — a skinny kid with perpetually messy bangs. He was the type who laughed at everything, even himself. Once he stole a bun from the cafeteria and shared it with me. We sat on the windowsill, chewing and chatting about how we’d run away and become rock stars. Vitka dreamed of a guitar; I dreamed of a normal life. He didn’t live to graduate — got involved with a bad crowd, then landed in a juvenile detention center. But I remembered that bun. It was like a promise that I wasn’t alone.
I finished school with a medal. Not for praise — just wanted to prove to myself I wasn’t garbage thrown out. Got into a technical university in a nearby city. The dorm smelled of fried potatoes, cheap cologne, and someone’s socks. I lived on scholarships and part-time jobs: unloading boxes at a supermarket, washing floors in a café. At night, I coded websites for pennies. The first order — a page for a car service — brought me five thousand rubles. I bought new sneakers and pizza. For the first time in years, I smiled so hard my cheek muscles cramped. This was my money. Honest.
At university, I found friends. Lyokha, an anime fan, always lugged his laptop and showed me how to make animations in JavaScript. Katya, a red-haired girl with a loud laugh, taught me to cook scrambled eggs without burning them. They were the first to see me not as a shadow, but as a person. But I still kept my distance. Afraid that if I let them in too close, they’d disappear too.
By thirty, I had my own company. Small but mine. An office downtown, glass doors, a coffee machine buzzing like my old computers at the orphanage. A team of ten who believed in me. I believed in them. We made websites, apps, even launched a startup — a service for online courses. Sometimes I looked at my office and thought: “I did this myself.” But somewhere inside still sat that kid from the stairwell, waiting to be called home.
One day, I was invited to an interview. A journalist with bright nails and a notebook asked, “Ilya, how did you get to this life?” I told everything. About my mother who chose Yuri. About Yuri who saw me as a threat. About the orphanage where I learned to survive. About nights at the computer, when code was the only thing that didn’t betray me. The article came out titled “From Orphan to CEO.” I read it and thought: “Orphan? Maybe.”
A week later, an envelope appeared in the office. Plain, crumpled, with shaky handwriting. “To Ilya. From Mom.” Inside — a few lines:
“I’m proud of you. Forgive me. Yuri is sick. Anya is unemployed. We’re struggling. Want to talk. To see you. Not for money. Your mother.”
I looked at the paper and felt nothing in my chest. No anger, no pain. Only cold, as if someone turned off the light inside. I sat in my office, twirling a pen, looking at the city outside the window. Thinking: why? Why did she write? What changed? But something nudged me to go. Maybe to put a period. Maybe to hear why.
The apartment was the same. Peeling door, smell of dampness, dim light in the hallway. Mother opened the door in an old robe, with red eyes. She had aged: gray hair, wrinkled face, shaking hands. Yuri lay in the room, connected to an oxygen mask. His breathing wheezed like background music — heavy, oppressive. Anya sat nearby, grown up but somehow stooped. Holding a tablet pressed to her chest like a last hope. She looked at me, and I saw guilt in her eyes. Or maybe it seemed.
We sat at the table. Mother spoke without stopping: about Yuri, whom doctors gave six months to live, about Anya drowning in debts after a failed business, about how they lacked money for medicine. She fiddled with the edge of the tablecloth, like that day. I listened, looking at the worn patterns on the table. Remembered how we baked pancakes when I was seven. How she laughed when I smeared batter on my cheek. Where was that woman?
Then she fell silent. Looked me in the eyes and said:
“Ilya, we were wrong. I was wrong. I thought Yuri would give us stability. Thought Anya was our chance to start over. And you… you were like a reminder of my mistakes. Forgive me.”
I looked at her. The same eyes that sang lullabies to me. But now they held fear. Fear that I would leave. Suddenly Anya spoke up:
“I tried to protect you, Ilya. But I was small. I couldn’t…”
Her voice broke. Yuri turned to the wall, and I heard him cough into the mask. Something inside me cracked. Not pain, not anger. Something else. As if I stood at the edge and could step back. But I said:
“I don’t hold a grudge. But you’re not my family. You’re my past life. I came to say goodbye.”
Mother cried. Anya lowered her eyes. Yuri was silent. I stood, went into the hallway. The elevator descended slowly, like in slow motion. I stood in it, like in a sarcophagus, and for the first time in years felt I was breathing freely. Not painfully. Just — a full stop.
Now I have my own life. I don’t waste it on those who threw me overboard. Sometimes I donate money to an orphan fund. Not for karma. Just once, I came to a shelter with laptops for a local computer program. There was a kid — about fourteen, skinny, with a stubborn look. He was tapping the keys like I once did, and I saw the same fire in his eyes. I gave him my old programming book — the one from Uncle Sasha. He looked at me as if I gave him a ticket to another life.
Recently, another letter came. Again from Elena. She wrote she wants to see her grandchildren. But I have no children. And maybe never will. I didn’t answer.
Forgiveness is not when you open the door back. It’s when you close it forever. And move on, light as if you dropped an old backpack from your shoulders.