“Listen, are you even sane? I’m telling you in plain Russian — I’m busy tonight!”
Oksana went still at the stove, the wooden spoon frozen halfway over the pot. She didn’t turn around. She already knew — it was pointless.
“I only asked what time you’d be—”
“Don’t boss me around, got it? I’ll stay out after the office party! And don’t you start nagging — I’ll do whatever I want!” Timur was already in the entryway, shrugging into his blazer. That same dark-blue one she had picked out with him two years ago. Back then he used to smile, kiss the top of her head, call her “my smart girl.”
Now he didn’t even look her way.
“Tim, I’m not bossing you,” she finally turned, wiping her hands on her apron. “I just wanted to know—”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing — bossing me around! Every time it’s the same thing!” He yanked the zipper on his jacket with a sharp, angry tug. “I’m sick of it! You sit at home all day, and I actually have to work — see people, talk to colleagues!”
Oksana bit her lip. She’d been working from home for six months, ever since her department moved to remote. He knew that. But tonight it was just an excuse — one more stone he could throw.
“I’m not forbidding you to go,” she said softly. “I just thought… maybe we could have dinner together when you get back…”
Timur gave a short, contemptuous snort.
“Dinner. Romance, huh?” He snatched the keys off the little table. “I’m thirty-three, Oksana, and you’re turning me into a pensioner. Dinner together… God.”
The door slammed.
Oksana stayed standing in the middle of the kitchen, listening as a car started outside, as tires squealed on the wet asphalt. December darkness pressed against the windows, and the apartment suddenly felt too quiet — too empty.
She turned off the stove. The soup didn’t matter anymore.
At the office complex on the Presnenskaya Embankment, the company’s New Year celebration was already beginning. Timur parked, adjusted his tie in the rearview mirror. The face staring back looked tired, faint creases settling at the corners of his eyes. Thirty-three wasn’t old, of course… but sometimes he felt like fifty.
Especially at home. Especially when Oksana looked at him with those eyes — full of silent reproach and something like pity. He hated that pity. Hated how she tried to please him, those stupid candlelit dinners she arranged once a month. Hated how she would cut herself off mid-sentence the moment he raised his voice.
But it hadn’t always been like this.
About four years ago they’d met at a concert. She’d been standing nearby, singing along with the band, and her smile had been so… alive. Then came dates, trips out of town, plans. She dreamed of her own design studio; he dreamed of a management position. They dreamed together.
And then something broke — slowly, quietly. Or maybe he broke it himself. He didn’t want to dig into that right now.
“Tim!” A voice snapped him out of it. Vadim, a coworker, was waving at him from the entrance. “Come on, it’s already started!”
The banquet hall glittered with string lights and silver balloons. Tables sagged under platters of appetizers. The bar lured people in with rows of colorful bottles. Music pounded so hard he felt it in his chest. There had to be seventy people packed in — the whole sales department, accounting, even the director showed up with his wife.
“So, shall we begin?” Vadim shoved a shot of vodka into his hand.
Timur drank it. Then another. Warmth spread through him, blurring the edges of the evening fight, wiping away the picture of Oksana by the stove.
“The girls are something else this year,” Vadim nodded toward a table where the new hires from marketing were sitting. “Especially that redhead. Sofya, I think. She only started in October.”
Timur followed his gaze. Sofya really was striking — bright, laughing, in a tight emerald dress. Long legs, bare shoulders, a bold, teasing look in her eyes. The complete opposite of Oksana with her house jeans and permanently exhausted face.
“Will you introduce me?” he heard himself ask, as if the words belonged to someone else.
Vadim burst out laughing and slapped him on the shoulder.
An hour later, Timur was dancing.
Sofya was exactly what she seemed — daring, fun, a little tipsy. She laughed at his jokes, brushed his arm with her hand, leaned in close to say things into his ear over the roar of the music.
“You’re always so serious at work,” she said. “But here… you’re like a different person.”
“Maybe I am,” he replied. “It’s just that no one notices.”
It sounded stupid, drunkenly dramatic, but Sofya nodded like she understood.
“I know that feeling,” she said, finishing her champagne. “When people at home expect one thing from you, but you’re dreaming of something completely different.”
He didn’t ask what she meant. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that beside her he didn’t feel the suffocating weight that had been crushing him these last months every time he stepped into his own apartment.
At midnight they set off fireworks — not real, of course, since it wasn’t the thirty-first yet, but the organizers decided to put on a show. Everyone spilled outside onto a huge terrace and watched bursts of light bloom over the Moskva River. Timur stood next to Sofya, and when the sky flared again, she took his hand.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he didn’t pull away.
“Listen,” she turned to him, her eyes sparkling in the reflections, “there’s a hotel nearby. A friend of mine works there. Maybe we grab another bottle of champagne… keep the party going?”
His heart stuttered. He knew exactly what she meant. He knew he was standing on the edge — that he should say “no,” call a cab, go home. To Oksana. To the soup on the stove and the silent accusation in her gaze.
“Let’s do it,” he heard himself say. “Why not.”
They walked through night-time Moscow. December, surprisingly, wasn’t biting; the wind had died down, and the snow that fell days earlier had already started to melt. Sofya laughed, told some story about corporate parties from past years, and Timur listened with only half an ear.
One thought kept circling in his head: What am I doing?
But he didn’t want to stop. He wanted to keep moving forward, wherever the road led, without thinking about consequences, without weighing and analyzing. For the first time in a long time — he just wanted to live.
The hotel was small and cozy, tucked into a side street not far from the embankment. Sofya whispered something to the receptionist — they really did seem to know each other — and a minute later they were riding the elevator up to the fourth floor.
A room. The door shut behind them.
Timur stood in the middle of it, staring at the wide bed, the window filled with city lights, the floor lamp in the corner.
“Well? Why are you standing there?” Sofya tossed her purse onto an armchair and kicked off her heels. “Put some music on. Get the glasses!”
He went to the minibar and took out champagne. His hands were shaking — not from excitement, but from the tight, gnawing tension he couldn’t shake. Sofya wrapped her arms around him from behind, pressed herself against him.
“Relax,” she whispered. “We’re just having fun.”
Just having fun, his mind echoed. And yet, in that moment, Oksana’s face flashed before him — the way she’d stood by the stove, wiped her hands on her apron, asked softly about dinner.
Timur spun around and kissed Sofya — rough, demanding, as if he could smother the image, erase it from his head. She kissed him back and pulled him toward the bed…
Morning.
His head was splitting, his mouth coated with the taste of last night’s alcohol and bitter disappointment in himself. Timur opened his eyes and for a few seconds couldn’t understand where he was. A white ceiling. чужие curtains. The smell of unfamiliar sheets…
Sofya slept beside him, turned toward the window. Her red hair was spilled across the pillow. Last night she had felt like freedom made flesh. Today she was just a stranger in a bed that wasn’t his.
Carefully, Timur got up and gathered his scattered clothes. His phone read 7:43 and showed fifteen missed calls from Oksana. The last message came at three in the morning: “Where are you? I’m worried.”
No hysterics. No accusations. Just I’m worried. And those two words made him feel so filthy, so sick, he wanted the floor to swallow him whole.
“You leaving?” Sofya’s sleepy voice made him turn.
“Yeah, I… have to go to work,” he lied. It was Saturday.
She propped herself on an elbow and looked at him — without last night’s sparkle, almost indifferent.
“Got it. Well… it was nice.”
“Yeah.” He pulled on his boots, refusing to look at her. “Listen… let’s keep this between us, okay?”
Sofya smirked.
“I’m not a blabbermouth. Don’t worry. Besides, I’ve got a fiancé, for what it’s worth.”
He froze.
“Fiancé?”
“Yep. Been together six months. Good guy — a bit boring, though.” She yawned, stretched. “But you know… sometimes you want something different. A little shake-up.”
A shake-up. So for her it was just entertainment, a way to break up the dull routine. And for him?.. Timur didn’t know. He only knew he needed to get out of there as fast as possible.
At home it was quiet. Oksana sat at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee, wearing an old robe, her hair twisted into a messy bun. She lifted her eyes to him — red, swollen. She hadn’t slept all night.
“Where were you?” Her voice was soft, without aggression. Just a question.
“Stayed late at the party,” Timur went to the sink, poured a glass of water, drank it in one gulp. “Then we went to Vadim’s. His birthday’s coming up — we celebrated early.”
The lie came easily, practiced. But looking at Oksana was unbearable.
“Vadim’s birthday is in March,” she said. “You told me.”
Timur went still, the glass frozen in his hand. Caught — stupidly, on a small detail.
“I don’t remember who’s birthday is when,” he tried to wriggle out. “Oksana, I’m exhausted. I want to sleep.”
He moved to leave the kitchen, but she stood up and blocked his way.
“Tell me the truth.”
“What truth?” His voice rose, slipping into his usual defense — aggression. “What have you invented in your head now?”
“I haven’t invented anything,” her voice trembled, but she didn’t step back. “I just want to know — were you with someone?”
The silence stretched.
He could’ve lied again, spun some story about Vadim, a flat tire, a dead phone. But something inside him suddenly went tired. Tired of lying, twisting, pretending.
“And if I was?” he looked her straight in the eyes. “What changes?”
Oksana went pale. There it was — confirmation of her fear, the nightmare made real. She stood gripping the back of a chair, and he could see her fingers trembling.
“So it’s… true,” she whispered. “God, Tim…”
“Don’t start,” he turned away. “Don’t make a scene.”
“A scene?!” Her voice broke. “You cheated on me, and I’m not supposed to make a scene?!”
“It’s your fault!” he snapped, and all the poison he’d been collecting spilled out. “You’re always whining, always controlling where I am, who I’m with, what time I’ll be home! You’ve turned me into a cornered animal! Being at home feels like a cage — just waiting for you to come at me with another silent accusation!”
“I never…” tears streamed down her cheeks. “I just wanted us to be together, for you to—”
“Exactly — you wanted. And what I want never matters to you!” He stepped toward her; she instinctively stepped back. “I’m thirty-three, Oksana. I’m not dead yet! But with you I feel like an old man whose only future is staring at the TV every night!”
“Leave,” she said suddenly, very quietly.
“What?”
“Leave.” She wiped her tears with her palm. “Right now. Pack your things and go.”
Timur blinked, thrown off. He’d expected shouting, hysteria, smashed dishes — not this cold calm.
“You’re serious—”
“Leave,” she repeated, and there was steel in her voice now. “I won’t live with a man who betrayed me — and then blames me for it. Leave. Now.”
He stood there a moment, staring at her. Then he turned and went to the bedroom to pack.
The bag felt heavier than he expected. Or maybe it was the weight on his conscience — who knew. Timur stuffed shirts, jeans, phone chargers into it. His hands worked on autopilot while one thought spun in his head: How did I get here?
Oksana stood in the doorway watching. She didn’t help. She didn’t interfere. She just looked at him. And that look made everything worse.
“Take your documents,” she said evenly. “And leave the keys on the table.”
“Oksana, maybe we don’t have to do this like—” He turned, trying to catch her eyes. “Let’s calm down. Let’s talk like adults.”
“Talk about what?” She leaned against the doorframe. “You already said everything. I trapped you in a cage, I control you, I whine. And you just wanted to live — to ‘shake things up.’ With some girl in a hotel. Did I get it right?”
The sarcasm cut like glass. Timur had never heard her speak that way — hard, detached, almost like a stranger.
“That’s not what I meant…”
“Then what did you mean?” She stepped into the room. “That I’m a bad wife? That I don’t give you freedom? Tim, I kept quiet for six months when you started coming home late. I kept quiet when you stopped talking to me. When you chose your friends on weekends instead of me. I thought — he’ll get through it, he’s tired, it’s work. But it turns out you just stopped loving me.”
The words stopped loving me hung in the air.
Timur wanted to argue, to say no, it wasn’t like that, he was just confused. But the words stuck in his throat.
“I didn’t…” he began — and stopped.
Because it was true. He had stopped loving her. When exactly — he couldn’t say. Maybe a year ago, when she suggested having a baby and he found a thousand reasons to postpone it. Maybe earlier — when he stopped noticing how hard she tried: cooking his favorite meals, ironing his shirts, trying to be near him. He simply stopped seeing her. And then he started getting irritated by every little thing.
“Then don’t,” Oksana said, turning away. “Just finish packing.”
He zipped the bag and picked it up. Walked past her into the hall and placed the keys on the little table by the mirror. The same mirror where, four years ago on moving day, they’d taken photos — happy, in love, holding champagne glasses.
“I’ll call,” he said at the door. “We still have to sort things out… paperwork, the apartment…”
“You’ll call,” she nodded. “In a week. Not before.”
He stepped onto the stairwell. The door closed behind him — not with a bang, but quietly, almost politely.
For some reason, that was scarier than any slam.
Vadim let him crash in his two-room place near Polyanka. For the first three days Timur merely existed — went to work, came back, drank beer in front of the TV, slept on a folding cot in the living room. He didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to feel.
On the fourth day Sofya approached him in the smoking area.
“Hi,” she smiled tightly. “How are you?”
“Fine,” he lied.
“Listen, I’ve been thinking… maybe we could talk sometime? Go somewhere?”
Timur looked at her — bright, polished, in a new dress with flawless nails. He remembered the hotel night, the morning after, her casual line about her fiancé. And suddenly he understood: he didn’t want this. Not at all.
“No, Sof. Thanks, but no.”
She shrugged.
“Whatever,” and walked away, her heels clicking along the linoleum.
That evening he called Oksana. Long rings — then her voice, cautious and guarded:
“Yes?”
“It’s me,” Timur said, and fell silent, not knowing how to go on.
“I’m listening.”
“I… wanted to say…” He swallowed. “I’m sorry. For everything. I was a complete bastard.”
A pause. Then a quiet laugh — not happy, bitter.
“You know, Tim, thank you for the apology. Really. But it doesn’t change anything.”
“I understand,” he squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m not asking to rewind everything. I just wanted you to know — I realize what I’ve done. And I truly regret it.”
“I regret it too,” she said. “I regret that we ended like this. I regret that we couldn’t keep what we had. But maybe… maybe it had to happen. So we’d both understand — it’s over.”
“Maybe,” he agreed.
They talked a little longer — about the apartment, belongings, doing the divorce calmly, without scandals. Oksana sounded composed, even politely distant, like she was speaking to someone she barely knew, not to a man she’d lived with for years.
When the call ended, Timur set the phone down on the table and sat with his face in his hands. He didn’t cry — the tears had run out the day before. He just sat there, grasping the size of the wreckage he’d made with his own hands.
The apartment, the job, the friends — all of it remained. But the person who believed in him, loved him, waited for him — was gone. And there was no way to bring her back.
Two months passed.
February came hard and vicious, all frost and raw wind. Timur rented a room near Prospekt Vernadskogo and finalized the divorce — fast, no demands from either side. Oksana collected her things in a single day while he wasn’t home. She left only a note on the table: “Be happy.”
He wasn’t happy. But now at least he knew the price of his choices. And he understood something else too: sometimes the freedom you chase so desperately turns out to be nothing but emptiness — cold, rootless, endless.
And somewhere across the city, Oksana was starting a new life — without him, without reproaches, without the hope that things could still be fixed.
Everyone ended up exactly where their road was leading.