The notary’s office was bright and impersonal, as if it had been built for one purpose—to bring stories to an end. Masha sat across from Alexey, slowly running her fingers along the edge of a folder filled with documents. He was smiling—wide and carefree—like this was the best day of his life.
“Well, that’s everything,” Alexey said, pushing the signed papers away. “We’re free now. Alright then—goodbye, Mashenka. Live happily.”
He walked out, leaving a faint trail of expensive cologne behind him. The door closed with a soft click.
Masha lifted her eyes slowly.
“You’ll find out…” she whispered. “Soon you’ll find out.”
On the table in front of her lay the folder of documents—and among them, one single sheet she had never shown Alexey.
The empty apartment greeted Masha with a hollow echo. Her footsteps sounded loud in the entryway, where his forgotten coat still hung. She yanked it off the hook, crushed the fabric in her hands, then flung it into the far corner.
The kitchen still smelled of the coffee they’d had that morning before going to the notary. Alexey’s cup stood half-finished—he was always in a hurry, even on the last day. Masha picked it up and poured the remainder down the sink with careful, deliberate precision.
In the bedroom she sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the nightstand. A tiny key on a chain opened a hidden drawer easily. Inside was a battered notebook with a black cover. Masha ran her palm across the pages, feeling the roughness of ink pressed into paper. The last entry had been written a week earlier:
“Went to the doctor again today. The remission is stable, but I won’t tell him. Better he leaves now than later, when…”
The phone rang, making her flinch. Olya flashed on the screen.
“How are you?” her friend asked, worry tight in her voice.
“I’m fine. We signed everything and went our separate ways.”
“And you… you didn’t tell him anything?”
“No.”
“Mash, but that’s—”
“He would’ve stayed out of pity,” Masha cut her off sharply. “I don’t need charity.”
Olya exhaled. Street noise crackled through the receiver—she was probably walking somewhere, nervously smoking, like she always did when she was anxious.
“But he could’ve supported you…”
“Supported me?” Masha gave a dry laugh. “Did you forget how he reacted when they found a tumor in his mother? ‘I hate hospitals. I can’t stand sick people.’”
Olya said nothing.
“Let him live with a clean conscience,” Masha said, closing the notebook. “Let him believe he was the one who left me.”
She put the diary back in the drawer but didn’t lock it. Let it sit in plain sight. Let it remind her.
In the kitchen, the faucet started dripping again—the same one Alexey had promised to fix a month ago. Masha clenched her fists.
“Soon you’ll find out, Alyosha. You’ll find out what it’s like to live with the truth.”
That evening, Alexey lounged on the terrace of a fashionable restaurant, basking in his freedom. A wineglass sparkled in the last light of the day. Across from him sat his new companion—Katya, a red-haired girl from a marketing agency—who flirted as she twirled a strand of hair.
“So,” she took a sip, leaving a lipstick mark on the rim, “tell me—how did you become so free and so happy?”
Alexey beamed. “Got divorced a month ago.”
“Oh!” Katya lifted her brows. “Painful process?”
“Not really.” He waved it off. “Everything was civilized. We just… stopped being interesting to each other.”
“Was she ugly?” Katya tilted her head playfully.
“No, Masha’s beautiful,” Alexey paused, thinking. “Just too cold. Like there’s an endless November inside her.”
He took a drink, replaying the last months of the marriage. Masha had grown distant, closed herself in the bathroom, stopped laughing at his jokes.
“Well, now you can finally enjoy spring,” Katya touched his hand.
Alexey was about to answer with something charming, but his gaze dropped to the street. Beyond the glass barrier of the terrace, on the sidewalk, stood Masha. She was speaking intensely with a tall man wearing glasses.
“What is it?” Katya turned.
“Nothing.” Alexey looked away too quickly. “I imagined it.”
But when he glanced back, Masha was gone. Only the stranger remained, digging through his pockets nervously as if searching for cigarettes.
“By the way,” Katya switched topics, “my birthday is on Saturday…”
Alexey nodded, murmured agreement, but his mind was far away. Why had Masha looked so agitated? Who was that man? And why, damn it, did the sight make him so irrationally angry?
He drained his wine.
“You know, I have to get up early tomorrow. Let’s go?”
Katya pouted, but agreed. As they walked out of the restaurant, Alexey kept glancing around. Masha had been here somewhere—and something was clearly happening to her that he didn’t know.
In the taxi he pulled out his phone and opened her social media page. Her last post was two weeks old—an ordinary photo with a cup of coffee. Yet something about it felt wrong. Too… ordinary. Almost deliberately ordinary.
“Everything okay?” Katya laid a hand on his knee.
“Yeah, of course,” Alexey said, locking the screen.
But it was a lie. For the first time in a month of “freedom,” he felt something was slipping out of place.
Rain hammered the windowsill as Alexey reread a strange message for the fifth time—something he’d found in Masha’s chat history by accident, after opening an old account on the computer she’d forgotten to log out of.
“The results are better, but treatment must continue. Don’t delay your appointment with the oncologist,” he whispered, his fingers going cold.
Outside, a car passed, headlights flashing across the wall and briefly lighting up their wedding photo. Masha in a white dress, laughing, champagne in hand. How long ago that felt.
His phone buzzed in his pocket—Katya. Alexey ignored the call.
He opened a search engine and began typing the symptoms he’d noticed in Masha over the last months: sudden weight loss, pallor, those endless “migraines” she used as an excuse to lock herself away.
“Damn it!” Alexey slammed his fist onto the desk, sending the mouse clattering to the floor.
In the kitchen, the kettle started to boil. He got up to turn it off, then froze in the middle of the room.
“What if it isn’t cancer?” he whispered. “What if she was… pregnant?”
The thought hit like electricity. He grabbed his phone and called Olya—Masha’s closest friend.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice answered cautiously.
“Olya, it’s Alexey. Tell me the truth—was Masha seriously ill?”
The silence stretched on—far too long.
“Olya?”
“You’re the one who said you hate sick people,” Olya finally replied. “So she gave you a gift.”
Click. Dial tone.
Alexey lowered himself into a chair. Outside, the rain intensified, slapping against the glass like tears.
He opened the browser again, found the number of the clinic where he and Masha had done a checkup the year before. His fingers trembled as he dialed.
“Health Clinic, how can I help you?” a pleasant woman answered.
“Hello. I need the test results for my wife, Maria Shestakova—”
“I’m sorry, but we cannot disclose—”
“I’m her husband!” Alexey shouted, immediately regretting it.
A pause. Papers rustled on the other end.
“You’ll need to provide your passport and marriage certificate in person…”
Alexey hung up.
He went to the window and pressed his hot forehead to the cold glass. Somewhere out there, in that rain, Masha was walking—his “cold” Masha, who had turned out to be braver than him. She’d let him go so she wouldn’t have to see fear in his eyes.
His phone rang again—Katya.
“Alyosha, where are you? We agreed—”
“Leave me alone!” he snapped, then forced himself to soften. “Sorry. Not now.”
He turned his phone off. In the silence, he could hear the hallway clock ticking—the one Masha had given him for their anniversary.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would figure everything out. But right now he needed to stand here beneath this endless rain and try to remember when exactly he’d become such a monster.
Dawn found Alexey at the door of Masha’s apartment. He hadn’t slept. He’d smoked on the balcony all night, replaying broken fragments of memory. Now he stood in front of the familiar door with a bag in his hand—inside was a bottle of her favorite pomegranate juice and the exact medications he’d hunted down online.
The door opened unexpectedly fast. Masha stood there in an oversized sweater, pale, dark circles under her eyes. When she saw him, she didn’t look surprised—almost as if she’d been waiting.
“So,” she rasped. “Did you dig up enough?”
Alexey lifted the bag without a word.
“Why?” she didn’t take it. “Pity? Guilt?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Ha.” Masha turned sharply and walked inside, leaving the door open.
He followed and shut it behind him. Everything was familiar—the scent of lavender, the worn mat in the entryway, the crack in the mirror they’d never bothered to fix.
“You knew how I feel about illness,” she said, standing by the window with her back to him. “Remember how you yelled at your mother when she asked you to take her to the hospital?”
“That was different…”
“Was it?” Masha spun around. “And when I fainted in the метро last year—what did you say? ‘Stop putting on a show, you’re embarrassing me.’”
Alexey swallowed. A hard knot formed in his throat.
“I… I would have—”
“You would have endured it out of duty. And then you would’ve started to hate me,” her voice trembled. “I’ve seen how you look at disabled people. How you flinch in hospitals.”
He stepped closer, wanting to pull her into his arms. She jerked away.
“Mash, I—”
“The doctors gave me two years of remission,” she suddenly said, forcing a crooked smile. “That’s the whole secret. I didn’t want to become your burden.”
The kettle hissed in the kitchen. Masha moved to turn it off, but suddenly grabbed the doorframe. Alexey caught her a second before she fell.
“That’s it—no more playing the hero!” he snapped, lifting her into his arms the way he had on their wedding day. “You’re going to get treated. And I’m staying.”
“Idiot…” she weakly tapped his shoulder, but didn’t fight him.
He carried her to the couch, covered her with a blanket. When he returned with tea, Masha was already crying—quietly, without sound.
“I’m not pitying you,” Alexey sat beside her. “I’m scared. Scared of losing you.”
She looked up at him through wet lashes.
“Too late, Alyosh.”
“Nothing is too late,” he said, taking her hand. “We start over.”
Outside, birds began to sing. The first ray of sun fell across their interlaced fingers.
Rain lashed the windshield, turning the night city into a blurred smear of light. Alexey gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles went white. On the passenger seat lay the hospital discharge summary—the diagnosis he couldn’t accept.
Katya shifted restlessly beside him, chewing her lip.
“Are you even listening to me? I’m telling you—she’s just manipulating you!”
“Shut up!” He slammed the brakes at a red light. “You don’t understand anything.”
The car lurched. Katya yelped, clutching the door handle.
“Have you lost it? She kicked you out herself, and now that you have a new life—”
The light turned green. Alexey hit the gas hard without looking at her.
“Get out.”
“What?”
“I said get out. Now.”
Katya froze, staring at his profile lit by neon signs. In Alexey’s eyes was a new resolve she’d never seen before.
The car stopped sharply at the curb. The door opened with a heavy thud.
“You’ll regret this,” Katya hissed, jumping into the rain. “She’ll chew you up alive!”
Alexey didn’t answer. He was already dialing Olya’s number when Katya slammed the door.
“Olya, it’s me again. Where is Masha right now?”
A sigh came through the line.
“Central Hospital. She has… she has a relapse.”
The city lights became colored streaks beyond the wet glass. Alexey made a violent U-turn at the intersection, ignoring the angry horn behind him.
“When?”
“Last night. But she forbade me to tell you… Alexey, she doesn’t want you to—”
He tossed the phone onto the seat. The hospital. Of course. The one place he’d never been—every time she needed him.
The admissions area hit him with bright light and the sharp smell of antiseptic. The nurse on duty looked up.
“Who are you here for?”
“Maria Shestakova. Oncology ward.”
The nurse checked something on the computer.
“Third floor. But visiting hours are over.”
Alexey was already walking toward the elevator. His footsteps echoed down the empty corridor. Behind one of these doors Masha was lying—the same Masha who had chosen to let him go just to avoid seeing fear in his eyes.
The elevator rose slowly. Alexey stared at his reflection in the mirrored wall—drawn face, bloodshot eyes. What a blind idiot he’d been all these months.
Her room door was slightly open. Through the crack he saw her—small under a white blanket, a pale face on a pale pillow. She was staring out the window where rain traced strange patterns on the glass.
Alexey inhaled deeply and went in.
The quiet hum of machines was the only sound. Masha lay with her eyes closed, but Alexey knew she wasn’t sleeping. Her fingers moved faintly along the blanket edge—just as they always did when she tried to hide her anxiety.
He stepped to her bedside and placed a bag of oranges on the nightstand—her favorite.
“So you came,” she murmured weakly, yet that familiar irony was still there—the same irony that had driven him crazy ten years ago.
“I came.” Alexey sank into the chair beside her.
She opened her eyes. Eyes he used to compare to the sea were dull now, with yellowish veins near the pupils.
“So what are you now—my hero? Brought your repentance?”
“No.” He reached for her hand, but she pulled it under the blanket.
“Then why?”
Alexey looked at the window. The rain had stopped, and the first sunlight was breaking through the clouds.
“Do you remember how we met?”
Masha frowned. “You came to a hospital to reminisce?”
“You fell off your bike right in front of me. You were cursing that stupid curb, knees bleeding, jeans torn…”
“And?”
“And nothing.” His voice softened. “I just fell in love right then. With your anger, your stubbornness. With the way you limped home dragging that ridiculous bike.”
A nurse came in, checked the IV, threw Alexey a curious glance, and left.
“Alyosh…” Masha closed her eyes. “Don’t.”
“I have to,” he said. “Because I forgot. I forgot why I loved you.”
Masha turned sharply toward him.
“You loved me healthy. And now I’m—”
“And now you’re just as stubborn and furious,” he suddenly smiled. “Only with scraped knees again.”
Masha bit her lip. A tear slid down her cheek.
“Idiot…”
Alexey carefully took her hand. This time she didn’t pull away.
“The doctors say—”
“I know what the doctors say,” she interrupted. “But I won’t—”
“Fight?”
“No.” Her voice tightened. “I won’t forgive you.”
Alexey nodded. He squeezed her fingers—so thin and cold.
“Alright. Then I’ll ask for forgiveness every day. Until you get sick of it.”
“You’ll get sick of it fast,” she managed a faint smile.
“Want to bet?”
Outside, a bird began to sing. Somewhere in the corridor a phone rang. Life kept moving.
Alexey pressed her hand to his lips. He didn’t know how much time they had left. But for the first time in months, he felt it—he was finally home.
Epilogue
One year later
Snow drifted beyond the hospital window, slowly covering the city in white. Alexey unwrapped foil around homemade pies he’d baked himself using Masha’s grandmother’s recipe.
“Burned them again,” Masha snorted, breaking off a piece.
“But I burned them with love,” he grinned, wiping crumbs from her chin.
She’d grown even thinner. Chemo was brutal—nausea, weakness, sleepless nights. But there was fire in her eyes again, the same fire that had made Alexey fall for her at first sight.
A knock sounded. A doctor entered with a folder of test results.
“Well then, Shestakova—ready for good news?”
Alexey instinctively tightened his hold on her hand.
“The tumor has shrunk by seventy percent. We’re one step away from remission.”
Silence. Then Masha laughed softly.
“Well, great. Guess you’ll have to tolerate me for another fifty years, Alyosh.”
Alexey didn’t try to stop the tears. He rested his forehead against her shoulder, breathing in the familiar mix of medicine and her perfume.
“I’m the one who’s going to be tolerating you,” he muttered.
“Because I… what?”
“Because you still swear when you drink my coffee.”
Outside, church bells began to ring. Somewhere in the city, new lives were unfolding—arguments, breakups, words left unsaid. But here, in this worn room with faded wallpaper, two stubborn people proved once again that even the bitterest truth can be survived.
Together.