Konstantin called his ex-wife with disgust, from whom he had divorced three months ago.
Behind her back, he never missed an opportunity to badmouth her. Oksana was aware. At least, she had heard about it from mutual acquaintances. However, she was not at all surprised.
“Oksana, how can he dare to speak of you like that? It’s time to put that upstart in his place,” her friend Olesya was indignant.
“I don’t care. Let him say what he wants.”
“But he claims you divorced because of you. Supposedly, you cheated on him.”
In response, Oksana just laughed loudly. Essentially, everything was the exact opposite. It was she who caught her husband cheating and immediately threw him out of their apartment.
True, their divorce took a long time since they have a minor daughter. Eventually, they were divorced.
The initial period was particularly hard. He paid meager alimony, as his salary left much to be desired. But he had more than enough pretensions.
Six months ago.
“You’ll be lost without me, you fool!”
“Get out!”
“How do you plan to support your daughter, you idiot?” laughed her husband in her face, while simultaneously packing his things.
“We won’t be lost. Get out of my apartment right now.”
“I’ll sue you for our daughter. I’ll prove that you can’t support her and that you’re a hysterical lunatic.”
“Don’t even dream of it.”
Konstantin deliberately tried to provoke her emotionally, but Oksana held strong. As soon as the door slammed, she let her emotions run free.
“I knew this would happen one day. I felt it,” she thought, drowning her sorrow with a glass of wine.
It was good that her daughter was with her mother that day.
Konstantin had been a university lecturer for a long time. Many men work as lecturers, and it would be fine. But Konstantin had a weakness for women.
Especially for young junior students.
As he loved to tell his friends:
“The wife ages over time, but junior students — never.”
And so it happened that Oksana caught him with a student in her own apartment. It was a disgusting spectacle.
All because her blood pressure suddenly dropped, and she asked to go home for lunch. Just imagine, he did not hesitate in front of his own daughter, who could also return from school at any moment.
Oksana realized that this was far from his first affair at work. But this time she caught him red-handed.
Konstantin didn’t even try to justify himself. But not because he thought it pointless in this situation, but because he didn’t care.
“You found out, so be it. It’s for the best. Once you graduate, I’ll marry you,” he told his student, who was madly in love with him.
“Really, Konstantin Pavlovich?”
“Really, Kristina. And yes, here I’m Kostya to you.”
Three months passed.
Konstantin decided to write his dissertation, but remembered that he left some important documents in his ex-wife’s apartment.
With great disgust, he dialed her number. It even felt like he was offered to eat a whole lemon.
“I’m listening,” Oksana replied indifferently.
“I need to pick up my documents.”
Konstantin didn’t even think it necessary to greet her out of basic decency.
“Didn’t you take everything?”
“Not everything. I’ll come by this evening at seven.”
However, what Oksana replied was something he didn’t expect to hear.
“I won’t be home then.”
“What do you mean? Where will you be?”
“That’s none of your business. You can pick them up tomorrow at noon.”
Oksana hung up the phone.
Konstantin was shocked by such an act. In marriage, she always danced to his tune and adapted. And now she dares to just hang up like that.
Then the ex-husband decided to show her his principles.
“Maybe she deliberately said she wouldn’t be home. Where else could she be? Surely not running around on dates at over forty. No one would look at that chicken without tears.”
With these thoughts, he went to his ex-wife’s house, but indeed, she was not home. He decided to call his daughter, who had refused to talk to him since the divorce. But he was on her blacklist.
He sat on a bench for about an hour and then saw a car pull up to the house. Out of it stepped his ex-wife with a luxurious bouquet of roses, looking dressed up, happy, and radiant.
However, that very smile faded from her face as soon as she saw her ex-husband.
“Why are you here?”
“I said I needed the documents.”
“And I told you I wouldn’t be home,” Oksana replied confidently.
“Who are the flowers from?”
For the first time in a long time, Konstantin took an interest in her life. No wonder, since he himself had never given her flowers after their wedding.
“That’s none of your business. Take your documents and get lost.”
They went up to the apartment.
Konstantin was amazed at how her living space had transformed. Oksana had done a designer renovation, purchased premium-class furniture, and was living like in a fairy tale.
“Where did you get the money for all this?”
“Did you take what you needed?” Oksana replied with a question.
“But still?”
“Get lost.”
But Konstantin was relentless. He was truly troubled by what was happening.
“You didn’t answer the question!”
“Am I obliged to?”
“Yes.”
“Why would that be?”
“Because I’m your husband.”
“Ex-husband.”
At that moment, Oksana threw him out the door and closed it right in front of his nose.
Yes, Konstantin definitely did not expect such a turn of events.
“She looks good, she’s furnished the apartment, and she came with flowers. Could she really have someone? It can’t be! We only divorced three months ago. And who would want her after forty years, especially with a child?”
But there had to be a logical explanation, and he decided to find out.
Besides, he didn’t just start thinking about it out of nowhere. It’s not to say that old feelings suddenly flared up. Over the years, he really started to doubt whether he ever loved Oksana at all.
But nothing came of it with Kristina either. Another affair that ended up with nothing serious. She wasn’t about to cook and do laundry for him. Not with her expensive manicure from the salon.
And he himself got tired of it worse than a bitter radish. That’s when he remembered his ex-wife. She seemed to have even improved her looks. Maybe something could come of it.
He decided to visit her again, but this time in full dress and with flowers. So to speak, trying to regain his former position.
“I never really gave her flowers. Now she’ll see me and melt. And about the flowers… Maybe there was a corporate event at work, and they gave them to her. Really, who else would want her but me?” Konstantin tried to convince himself on the way to his wife.
He knocked on the door, but they didn’t open it immediately. Then Oksana came out.
“Hello! This is for you,” Konstantin tried to hand them over.
“What’s this circus?” Oksana asked calmly, not even looking at the bouquet.
“I came to make up.”
From the side, Konstantin looked like a schoolboy who got a bad grade in math.
“Wake up, we divorced three months ago!”
“And what does that change?”
“A lot. For example, that I have a new life now and I don’t need you.”
A male voice was heard in the background:
“Dear, who is it?”
Then, in front of Konstantin, stood a completely unfamiliar man in a robe, who, judging by his appearance, was much stronger than him.
“Is this some kind of joke?”
“Not at all,” replied Oksana.
Then this very man intervened in the conversation.
“Will you leave on your own or do you need help?”
At that moment, Konstantin was at a loss and didn’t even know what to reply. He threw the flowers and ran down the stairs.
“And take your broom with you,” his ex-wife shouted after him.
He had never experienced such humiliation. Used to calling his wife a brainless hen and a bungler. Once Konstantin claimed that no one needed her but him.
But apparently, someone found a person in her. Too bad Konstantin realized it only now. And Oksana regretted something completely different—the years and effort spent on a person who never valued her.