I stop by the glass doors and see my reflection. I look exactly like I used to: neat hair, soft blouse, the smile that never meant anything. The woman who survived on “yes” and coffee refills.
My stomach twists. The silence inside me feels heavier now, emptier.
I press my hand to it—flat, still.
There’s nothing here.
Not them. Not him. Not… us.
The lights flicker overhead. The screen on my phone glows white, then dies. My cubicle fades at the edges. The world feels like paper burning slowly, curling inward.
The sound in the room flattens; no phones, no voices, no clicking pens. Just silence thick enough to choke on.
I blink hard. The lights smear. My reflection wavers in the glass like it’s breathing without me.
Were they real? Anton, with his hands that steadied and destroyed in the same breath. Lev’s grin, Dima’s steady calm, Boris’s quiet watching. Did I dream them?
A sound catches in my throat—half laugh, half sob. I press my palm harder against my stomach, like I can hold something there, but it’s empty. Hollow.
The ache starts small, then grows, spreading up through my ribs until it’s everywhere. My heart feels too big for my chest, beating against bone frantically.
If it was a dream, why does it hurt like loss? If it was real, why am I here?
My knees give. I grab the edge of the desk, breath sharp, uneven. The air tastes wrong—stale, recycled, fake. My vision blurs again, and the hum of the lights turns into something else—beeping, steady, too close to my ear.
Tears slip down without permission. I don’t even bother to wipe them.
“Anton,” I whisper, though I don’t know if I’m calling him back or letting him go.
No answer. Just that awful quiet.
Then, a sound—soft, low, impossible. A heartbeat. Two. One fading. One holding on.
I close my eyes, but it doesn’t stop the ache.
Maybe I’m still there. Maybe I never left.
The world folds in on itself—desk, lights, silence—all burning at the edges until nothing’s left but the pulse under my hand and the echo of his voice, low and steady in the dark:
“Stay with me, malyshka.”
39
Anton
The first thing I remember is the taste of iron in my mouth. The second is her name.
They tell me it’s been thirty-six hours since the freight yard. Two bullets out. Shoulder torn open. Missed the heart by less than an inch. Lucky, they said.
But what I see isn’t the freight yard. It’s her. Mary.
The sound of the gunshot still lives somewhere in my ribs. She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t scream. She just lifted the weapon with both hands and pulled the trigger like she’d been born knowing how.
Timofey’s body hit the ground before the echo died. Her face didn’t change.
That image won’t leave me—the shock in her eyes, the tremor in her fingers, the way she looked at me afterward, like she was the one who’d been shot. There was fear, yes. But underneath it—something else. Something that looked a hell of a lot like defiance.
She saved my life. And ruined the part of hers that was still clean.
