“Are you really going to translate it for her again? Seriously, Andrey?”
Vera’s voice sliced through the kitchen like the cold November wind that only knew one direction — straight into your face.
“Don’t start,” Andrey muttered, already typing. “She asked. She needs it.”
“She always needs something!” Vera leaned on the table. “What about what we need?”
“She’s my sister,” he snapped. “Try to understand that just once.”
And in that moment Vera knew: the conversation was already slipping back into the same dark place where she was always the extra.
The smell of cheap tea, wet stairwell concrete and thawed November air pressed against her chest as if the whole morning were arguing with her too.
Later, on the bus to work, two women discussed rising utility bills. Their words crawled under her skin.
We barely make it through the month… and he keeps sending her money…
Someone had scrawled “idiot” on the fogged-up window. With a crown.
Vera wiped it away.
That evening, Alina appeared without warning — like always.
“Andryushaaa! Where is he?” Loud heels, loud voice, loud presence.
From the kitchen, Vera could hear everything.
“Mom is suffocating me! I can’t live there!” Alina whined.
“And I need money for meds. Two thousand. You’ll help, right? You always do.”
“Of course,” Andrey said softly — the tone Vera hadn’t heard directed at her in years.
Inside, something brittle cracked.
Weeks dragged by — routine, exhaustion, silence. Until one day Vera said quietly:
“We need to talk. About your sister. And the money.”
His face tightened.
“I’m not abandoning her.”
“I’m not asking you to. But we can’t keep living like this.”
“Family helps family,” he said sharply.
“And who are we to you?” she whispered.
He spilled his tea on the table. “Stop dramatizing!”
The conversation ended as it always ended: his period, her emptiness.
Then came the phone call.
“Congratulations, Vera Mikhailovna. You’re the heir.”
A real apartment. In the city center.
Andrey twirled her in their tiny kitchen, laughing like the man she once loved.
But a shadow passed through her mind:
And what about Alina?
She soon found out.
Alina arrived at the new place, walking through the rooms with assessing eyes.
When Vera mentioned “this will be the future children’s room,” Alina’s expression shifted — cold, calculating.
Later that night, back in their old apartment, Alina dropped her “proposal”:
“You don’t even live there. Let me stay in that apartment. Just for a while. You’ll manage here. You always do.”
Andrey didn’t argue. He didn’t even look torn.
Vera felt the ground tilt.
A fight exploded.
A week of cutting silence followed.
Then, over breakfast, Andrey said:
“Maybe… Alina could pay us a little to live there. Not for free. Just options.”
“You want to give her my apartment,” Vera said calmly.
He paled. “No one’s giving anything—”
“I’m filing for divorce,” she said.
“What are you talking about?!”
“I’m waking up.”
Three days. Boxes. Cold silence.
She packed her life without tears.
“Vera… maybe rethink?” he asked weakly.
“Think about what? That I spent four years as an add-on to your little family? No, Andrey. Thank you. Now I understand everything.”
She left.
November’s cold air bit her cheeks, but it felt alive.
In her new apartment — half-renovated, smelling of paint and freedom — she finally exhaled.
A week later she adopted a ridiculous orange cat with huge ears.
Named him Grant — after the grant she’d given herself: start living again.
Andrey called.
Alina texted.
She didn’t answer.
She sat by the window, the cat warm on her lap, and the city glowing below.
For the first time in years, there was quiet.
She had left — and finally returned to herself.
