“You do realize we’re going to have to live like roommates now?” Lena threw the words over her shoulder without even looking at Igor. He stood by the window, fidgeting with a pack of cigarettes even though he’d quit a year ago. The cigarettes were old and crumpled, like they’d been saved “for a rainy […]
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— What’s that? — I stopped halfway to the station, listening carefully. Crying came from the left — quiet but persistent. The February wind tickled my neck and flapped the edge of my coat. I turned toward the railway, where against the white snow, a dark abandoned switchman’s hut stood out. A bundle lay […]
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Anya flinched as if she’d been struck across the face. The blow was invisible, but that didn’t make it any less real—it hit straight in her chest, squeezing her heart into a tiny, frozen lump. The thick white envelope she’d been holding just a second earlier was no longer hers. It was in his […]
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Lena was standing at the stove, stirring the soup on autopilot, when the doorbell rang. Way too early for Andrey. Which meant it was her again. “Lenochka, I’m just popping in for a minute!” her mother-in-law called cheerfully from the entryway. A minute usually translated to three hours. Minimum. Lena swallowed, turned off the burner, […]
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Sveta came home from work exhausted. The day had been rough—reports, meetings, deadlines slipping. She worked as a procurement manager at a small company, and before New Year’s it was always chaos: everyone wanted to close contracts before the holidays. She kicked off her shoes in the entryway and went into the kitchen, hoping […]
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“You’re living off my money, so you’d better keep quiet!” Egor snapped, throwing his wife an irritated look. “What?! What did you just say?” Sofia couldn’t believe what she’d heard. Those words—blurted out in the middle of a fight—stunned her. “Exactly what you heard,” Egor answered with a frown. He realized he’d gone too […]
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The bonus blindsided me. Right before lunch my boss called me into his office and handed me an envelope, smiling like a man who’d just done a good deed. I didn’t even understand at first what it was for—maybe for the annual plan we’d beaten by twenty percent, maybe simply because it was that […]
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November twilight fell over the city early, and Elena, on her way home from work, kept catching herself thinking that the day had barely had time to begin. The bus crawled through traffic, and outside the window a fine drizzle blurred the streetlights into dull smudges. Elena sat by the window, running through her […]
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Yulia stared out the bus window, watching the first snow lightly dust the sidewalks. December had only just begun, and with it came that agonizing feeling—the upcoming visit to her mother-in-law. The last three get-togethers had ended the same way: barbed remarks about her hairstyle, her dress, how Yulia cooked, how she spoke, how […]
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Oksana stood by the panoramic window of her living room and looked down at the city spread out below. Thirty-five years old, a successful career at an IT company, her own three-room apartment in a new building. She had earned it all herself, without anyone’s help. The road hadn’t been easy. After university she […]
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