Marina stood at the ironing board, pressing the seam on a velvet dress. Her slender fingers guided the iron along the stitch line with practiced precision, leaving not a single wrinkle behind. The order had to be delivered in the morning, and the clock had already passed midnight.
From the room came the sound of keyboard tapping — steady, lazy, with long pauses. Andrey was “working.” For two years, that sound had replaced everything for him: a salary, participation in household chores, and basic human respect for the woman who was carrying their shared life on her shoulders.
“Andrey, could you at least wash the dishes?” Marina asked quietly, peeking into the room. “I’ll be sewing until three, and I have to get up at seven.”
“Marin, not now,” he said without even turning his head. “I’ve finally got an idea going. If I get distracted now, I’ll lose the whole thread.”
“The idea has been going for two years, Andrey. And the dishes have been sitting there since lunch.”
“You don’t understand what a creative process is. It’s not cutting fabric. It’s different.”
Marina bit her lip and returned to the ironing board.
“Different.”
She heard that word every day. Her work was not “different.” Her work was what fed them, paid the rent, bought Andrey his ridiculously expensive coffee and the endless notebooks he filled with notes that never became a completed manuscript.
She loved him. Once — passionately. Then — patiently. Now — out of habit. But she still believed it was temporary. That he would finish writing. That someone would notice him. That everything would fall into place.
Faith is a strange thing: it can live for years on absolutely nothing.
In the morning, as she was getting ready for the factory, Marina placed a plate of breakfast in front of Andrey.
“Thanks,” he muttered, not looking up from his phone.
“I’ll be late today. I have a fitting at seven in the evening. A private order. A wedding dress.”
“Mm-hmm. Listen, I need three thousand. My subscription to the literary platform is ending.”
“Three thousand? Andrey, we have to pay rent in a week.”
“It’s an investment in the future. Editors read texts there and give feedback. It’s important for me.”
Marina placed the money on the table and left without a word. On the landing, she stopped, leaned against the railing, and simply breathed for a few seconds. Then she straightened up and walked downstairs.
Hope is a heavy burden, but she was still carrying it.
At the factory, the day passed as usual: rolls of fabric, the hum of machines, endless stitching. During her lunch break, Svetlana called.
“Marinka, how are you? Still alive?”
“Alive. Just tired.”
“Sewing until night again?”
“Until three. A wedding dress, a serious order. The bride is picky, but she pays well.”
“And your… genius? Does he help with anything at all?”
“Svet, don’t start.”
“I’m not starting. I’m continuing. I’ve been continuing for two years. You’re working for two, while he sits at home pretending to be Dostoevsky. And Dostoevsky, by the way, actually wrote something.”
“He is writing,” Marina lowered her voice and moved toward the window. “It’s just a long process.”
“Marin, cooking borscht is a long process. What Andrey is doing is professional laziness at someone else’s expense. At your expense.”
“He’ll find himself. I believe in him.”
“You believe in him more than he believes in himself. And that’s not a compliment, my friend. That’s a diagnosis.”
Marina hung up and returned to her machine. Svetlana spoke harshly, but somewhere deep inside Marina knew she was being honest. But admitting that meant admitting that two years of her life had gone into nothing. And she did not yet have the strength for that.
That evening, she came home at half past eight. The fitting had dragged on — the bride changed her mind about the sleeve length three times. Marina stepped over the threshold, put her bag down in the hallway, and froze.
There was a bouquet on the kitchen table. Cheap chrysanthemums from the kiosk near the metro, but still flowers. Beside them was a note:
“Sorry about this morning. You’re the best. A.”
Marina picked up the note and read it twice.
She smiled.
It was for moments like this that she endured everything — for glimpses of the Andrey she had once fallen in love with. The one who could be warm and attentive. Less and less often, in tiny crumbs, but he was still somewhere there, behind the wall of indifference.
She put the flowers in a jar — they had no vase — and went to cook dinner. Andrey was sitting in the room.
“Thank you for the flowers,” she said, peeking in.
“No problem. You know, someone from a publishing house wrote to me today. They asked me to send the first three chapters.”
“Really?” Marina lit up. “That’s wonderful! Which publishing house?”
“A small one, but promising. There’s an editor there… Victoria, I think. She said my style was interesting.”
“See? I told you everything would work out.”
Andrey nodded and returned to the screen.
Marina went back to the kitchen with a light heart.
At that moment, she still did not know that the name “Victoria” would become a sound that made her jaw clench.
Author: Vika Trel © 4394chd
Three weeks passed.
Andrey changed. He started leaving the house more often, buying new shirts — with Marina’s money, of course — and shaving every day. Marina noticed all of it and was happy. Finally, he had come back to life. Finally, energy had appeared in him.
She failed to notice only one thing: he had stopped showing her what he had written. Before, even if rarely, he would read her excerpts and ask for her opinion. Now, the laptop closed as soon as she entered the room.
On Saturday morning, Andrey sat across from her at the kitchen table. His face was serious, his gaze directed somewhere past her.
“Marina, we need to talk.”
“What happened?”
“I’m leaving. Leaving you.”
She put her cup down on the table. Slowly, carefully, as if afraid of spilling not tea, but herself.
“Where are you going?”
“To Victoria. We… We’ve been together for a month. She understands me. She sees in me what you never saw.”
“What didn’t I see in you, Andrey? For two years, all I did was see a future in you that didn’t exist.”
“Exactly. You saw the future. She sees the present. My talent. My potential. She knows how the literary world works.”
“And I know how the washing machine works, right? And the stove? And the sewing machine that has been feeding you for two years?”
“Don’t reduce everything to money.”
“To money?” Marina slowly stood up. “I’m reducing it to money? You sat for two years without earning a single kopeck. You asked me for subscriptions, notebooks, coffee, your ‘creative meetings.’ You didn’t pay the rent once. Not once, Andrey. Not a single time.”
“You knew what you were getting into. From the very beginning, I told you I needed time.”
“Time? Two years isn’t time. It’s a sentence. For me, not for you.”
Andrey got up and shoved his hands into his pockets. Marina knew that gesture of his by heart — hands in pockets, chin slightly raised. That was how he always looked when he was about to say something nasty.
“You need to move out.”
“Me? Move out?” Marina repeated, unable to believe her ears. “From the apartment I pay for?”
“The apartment is in my name. I signed the rental agreement.”
“With my money! Every month — my money!”
“Those are details. Legally, my name is on the agreement. Victoria is moving in next week. You’d better pack your things.”
That was when Marina realized that the hope she had carried for two years had not merely fallen — it had crumbled into fine dust.
Standing before her was not a confused creator, not a boy searching for himself. Standing before her was a calculating, cold man who had used her as a servant and was now throwing her away because he had found a more convenient option.
“You’re scum, Andrey,” she said evenly. “Do you know that?”
“Call me whatever you want. You have a week.”
“I don’t need a week. I’ll pack today.”
She turned and went into the room.
She packed quickly, practically, without tears. The sewing machine — into its cover. The fabrics — into large bags. Clothes — into a suitcase. Andrey watched from the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe.
“You can leave the machine for now,” he said. “It’s heavy.”
“The machine is my life. Unlike you, it feeds me.”
Marina dragged the suitcase into the hallway. She opened the front door and ran straight into Galina Sergeyevna, who was standing on the threshold with a plastic container in her hands.
“Oh, daughter-in-law, are you going somewhere?” the mother-in-law sang, looking over the suitcase and bags. “Finally. I brought Andryusha some cutlets. Homemade.”
“Galina Sergeyevna,” Marina stopped, “did you know?”
“That you were leaving? Of course I knew. Andryusha told me about Victoria two weeks ago. A wonderful girl, educated, from a good family. Not like…”
“Not like what? Finish the sentence.”
“Well, dear,” Galina Sergeyevna pursed her lips, “you’re a good girl, but everything has its place. Andryusha is a creative person. He needs a muse, not… a servant.”
Marina put the suitcase on the floor. Slowly, she straightened up and looked the woman directly in the eyes.
“Two years, Galina Sergeyevna. For two years, your ‘creative person’ did not earn a single kopeck. Not one. He was fed, clothed, had his laundry done by the servant. Me. And you know what? Your Andryusha hasn’t written anything in two years. Not one finished novella. Not one story accepted for publication. Not a single line anyone would pay even one ruble for.”
“How dare you…”
“I dare. Because I earned the right to dare. With every ruble I put into your son. And now step aside — my suitcase is heavy.”
Galina Sergeyevna recoiled, pressing the container of cutlets to her chest as if Marina intended to take those away too. Marina dragged the suitcase past her, went down one flight of stairs, and turned around.
“And the cutlets, Galina Sergeyevna, you’ll have to keep bringing him until old age. Because Victoria will eventually understand too that your son is just a parasite with pretty words.”
📖 Recommended reading: “I thought you needed help, I sent you money, and you were feeding another man!” Pavel waited for his mother’s answer.
Svetlana opened the door, saw Marina with the suitcase, bags, and sewing machine in its cover — and silently stepped aside. No “I told you so,” no sympathetic sighs. She simply helped carry the things inside and put the kettle on.
“Tell me,” Svetlana said, sitting across from her.
“He left. For an editor from a publishing house. Her name is Victoria. He demanded that I move out.”
“From the apartment you were paying for?”
“The agreement is in his name. He clung to that.”
“What a bastard.”
“Svet, don’t. That’s not what I need right now. I need to think about what comes next.”
“Next, you live here as long as you need. The room is free. Matter closed.”
“Thank you.”
For three days, Marina came back to herself.
She did not cry — she couldn’t. Anger stood in her throat like a tight lump, not allowing either tears or weakness to break through. On the fourth day, she went to work — and received a second blow.
“Marina Vadimovna,” the shift supervisor called her into the office, “I don’t know how to say this gently. The workshop is closing. Layoffs. Your entire department has to sign the papers.”
“When?”
“In two weeks. There will be compensation, but not much.”
She left the office and called Svetlana.
“I’ve been laid off.”
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not in the mood for jokes. The workshop is closing.”
“Come home. We’ll think.”
That evening, they sat in Svetlana’s kitchen. On the table was a laptop with open tabs: job listings, rental spaces, tax calculators.
“Marinka, listen to me carefully,” Svetlana said, closing all the tabs at once. “You don’t need another factory. You need your own workshop.”
“Svet, with what money?”
“With your hands. You sew so well that people stand in line for your private orders. Remember that wedding dress? The bride told all her friends about it. Three people called you afterward.”
“Private orders in the evenings are one thing. A business is something else.”
“What’s the difference? You have a sewing machine. Your hands are golden. You only need a place.”
“A place costs money, Svet. Money I don’t have.”
“What if you combine it? Find housing where you can both live and work. Two rooms — one for you, the other for a workshop.”
Marina was silent. Then she slowly nodded.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s enough sewing by other people’s patterns.”
“There! That’s what I wanted to hear!”
For the next three days, Marina combed through listings. One-room apartments, rooms in communal flats, corners with “quiet neighbors” flashed across the screen — nothing suitable. On the fourth day, a strange offer appeared: two rooms in a three-room apartment, inexpensive, the owner did not live there.
Marina dialed the number.
“Hello, good afternoon. I’m calling about the listing — the two rooms.”
“Yes, good afternoon. Dmitry speaking. The apartment is available. You can come see it today.”
“Why is it so cheap?”
“Because I need a normal, quiet person, not the highest possible price. I’m in… a difficult situation right now. The apartment is mine, but I’m temporarily living elsewhere. It’s important to me that the place doesn’t sit empty.”
His voice was calm, without tricks, without fuss.
Marina agreed to meet.
The apartment turned out to be bright, with high ceilings and large windows. Dmitry — thin, slightly stooped, with attentive eyes — showed her the rooms, the kitchen, the bathroom.
“Would the large room suit you?” he asked. “There’s a lot of light here. Convenient for any kind of work.”
“You’re not asking what I do?”
“It doesn’t matter to me what you do. What matters is that the walls stay in place and the neighbors don’t complain.”
Marina smiled.
“I sew. A sewing machine, fabrics, fittings. It may be noisy sometimes.”
“Noisy is when my former common-law wife recorded videos for her blog at three in the morning with a karaoke microphone. A sewing machine is silence compared to that.”
“Former?”
“Long story. In short — we lived together for four years. The apartment is mine, bought with my money, and now she’s trying to prove she has a right to it. So I’m staying with my mother for now and renting the apartment out so it doesn’t sit empty.”
“That situation is familiar to me. In a way.”
“So, do we have a deal?”
“We do.”
Marina moved in three days later. She turned the large room into a workshop: the sewing machine by the window, the worktable along the wall, a mannequin in the corner. The second room became her bedroom. Svetlana helped move her things.
“Nice place,” she said, looking around. “And the landlord seems normal. Kind eyes.”
“Svet, don’t start.”
“I’m not starting anything. I’m stating a fact. Kind eyes. That’s all.”
The first month, Marina worked from morning until night. Orders came in — first in a thin stream, then more confidently. A wedding dress for the friend of that same bride. A set of curtains for a restaurant. Three evening dresses for a corporate event. She completed every order as if her entire life depended on it — and, in a sense, it did.
Dmitry appeared once a week — to pick up mail, check the pipes, leave money for utilities. They exchanged a few words and went their separate ways. But one evening, he came in while Marina was in the kitchen heating soup after a twelve-hour workday.
“May I?” he stopped in the doorway.
“Of course. It’s your kitchen.”
“Ours,” he corrected her. “As long as you live here — ours.”
“Would you like some soup?”
“I wouldn’t refuse.”
They sat at the table. The soup was simple — potato soup with dill. But after a long day, it was exactly what was needed.
“How is your situation?” Marina asked carefully. “With the apartment?”
“Coming to an end. Polina — my ex — hired a lawyer, but she has no documents proving any investments. Because there weren’t any. I bought the apartment, I did the renovation, all payments were mine.”
“And what does she say?”
“That she ‘invested emotionally’ for four years. That she kept the household. That thanks to her, I could calmly earn money.”
“Familiar words. Only reversed.”
“What do you mean?”
“In my case, I was the one who invested — financially and domestically. And my husband ‘invested emotionally.’ More accurately, he didn’t invest at all.”
Dmitry looked at her for a long moment.
“You and I are on opposite sides of the same coin.”
“Seems so.”
After that evening, their conversations became more frequent. Dmitry stopped by two or three times a week, sometimes staying for dinner. They talked about strange things — about how the world works for people who honestly work hard, and how easily those who parasitize on other people’s labor take everything.
Marina told him about her two years with Andrey. Dmitry told her about his four years with Polina.
“Once she spent forty thousand of my money on a ‘spontaneous’ flight to Sochi,” he said. “Because she ‘needed content.’ Content, can you imagine? Forty thousand was my budget for the month.”
“And what did you do?”
“I stayed silent. As always. I was afraid of conflict. Afraid she would leave.”
“And then she left anyway.”
“She didn’t just leave. She went to some guy with a travel channel, and then declared the apartment was shared.”
Marina smirked.
“You and I are two idiots who fed someone else’s arrogance with our patience.”
“Were idiots,” Dmitry corrected her. “Were.”
There was no lightning between them, no spark and thunder. There was something else — a slow, warm recognition. Two people burned by the same fire found each other not out of weakness, but out of honesty.
Two months later, Dmitry won the dispute over the apartment. Polina lost all claims and was forced to admit she had no rights to the living space. Dmitry returned — this time for good. They became neighbors not by agreement, but by life.
“You can stay,” he said one day. “Not as a tenant. Just… stay.”
“And if I want to pay?”
“Pay me in dinners. Your potato soup is worth more than any rent.”
It was during this period that Marina received a large order — corporate uniforms for a restaurant chain. Twenty sets with individual fittings. She worked fourteen hours a day and hired an assistant — Svetlana brought an acquaintance who also knew how to sew.
The apartment was turning into a real atelier.
And then Andrey appeared.
He called one evening, just as Marina had finished cutting the last set. An unknown number — he had changed his old one.
“Marina, hi. It’s Andrey.”
She froze. Then she sat down on a chair and exhaled.
“What do you want?”
“Listen… It didn’t work out with Victoria. She… turned out not to be the right person. She didn’t believe in my talent. She wanted to rewrite everything her own way, turn me into a commercial author. And I’m not like that.”
“Andrey, why are you calling me?”
“I thought maybe we could meet. Talk. I’ve realized a lot.”
“What exactly did you realize?”
“That you were the best thing that ever happened to me. That I didn’t appreciate you.”
Marina closed her eyes.
Six months ago, those words would have knocked her down. Six months ago, maybe she would have cried and said, “Come.” But now she felt only one thing — a dull, heavy anger. Anger that even his apology sounded as if he was doing her a favor.
“No,” she said.
“What do you mean, no?”
“No, we won’t meet. No, we won’t talk. No, Andrey. Just no.”
“Marina, wait…”
She pressed “end call” and deleted the number. Then she opened her messenger — there was a message from Andrey, long, two screens full, overflowing with self-pity and pretty words. She read the first line — “Marina, I know I hurt you…” — and deleted it without finishing.
“Who called?” Dmitry came out of his room with a mug of tea.
“My ex-husband. Wanted to come back.”
“And what did you do?”
“What could I do? Deleted him. He doesn’t need me. He needs someone who will cook, wash, and believe in his ‘talent.’ And I’m no longer doing charity work.”
Dmitry smiled and placed a second mug in front of her.
“That’s right. You sew by your own patterns. Other people’s don’t fit.”
A year passed.
Marina’s workshop became an atelier with two assistants and a steady flow of orders. She rented an additional space nearby for cutting and storing fabric. Her online page gained followers, and orders began coming in from other cities. Dmitry helped with organization — he created a website and set up online booking.
They were together — calmly, evenly, without strain. Two people who knew the price of pain and therefore protected each other.
One evening, Marina was returning from the atelier. It was late — she had been finishing an urgent order. She went up to her floor, took out her keys — and saw him.
Andrey was standing by the door. In his hands was a crumpled folder.
“Marina,” he began, “I know you don’t want to see me. But hear me out. Five minutes.”
“Andrey, I told you everything over the phone. Six months ago.”
“Listen, I have nothing. Victoria threw me out. I lost the apartment. My mother rents out her room and won’t let me in. Marina, I have nowhere to go.”
“And that’s my problem?”
“You’re the only person who…”
“Who what? Who fed you for two years? The only person you threw out like an old rag? The one you told to move out of an apartment paid for by her own hands?”
“I was a fool.”
“You weren’t a fool, Andrey. You were calculating. You planned everything — leaving for Victoria and kicking me out. You didn’t make a mistake. You made a choice. Now live with it.”
“Marina, I’ll be sleeping on the street. Let me stay for just a week. I’ll sleep in the kitchen.”
“No.”
“Please!”
He stepped toward her and grabbed her sleeve. Marina yanked her arm away.
“Let go.”
“Just listen to me!” he raised his voice. “You owe me! For two years, I put up with your whining, your factory, your threads all over the apartment! You owe me!”
“I owe you?!”
Marina turned and slapped him across the face.
The sound was dry and short, like the click of scissors.
Andrey recoiled, grabbed his cheek, his eyes widening.
“You… You hit me?”
“Yes. And if you say one more time that I owe you anything, you’ll get a second one.”
Andrey stood there, pressing his palm to his cheek, and in his eyes was something Marina had never seen before: real fear. Not surprise, but fear — from the realization that another person was standing in front of him.
Not the quiet, patient Marina who ironed his shirts and silently listened to him talk about his greatness.
A completely different one.
“Leave, Andrey. And don’t ever come here again.”
“You’ve changed,” he muttered.
“No. I just stopped tolerating things. Now get out of here before I call security.”
He backed toward the stairs, stumbled on a step, and caught the railing. He looked up at her from below — stunned, pathetic, empty. Then he turned and went downstairs.
Marina entered the apartment and locked the door with both locks. Dmitry was standing in the hallway — he had heard everything.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m perfectly okay. My hand hurts a little.”
“You should’ve used both hands.”
“One was enough. He’s a coward. Always was.”
They went to the kitchen. Dmitry poured her tea — hot, sweet, with lemon. Marina warmed her hands around the mug and stayed silent.
“You know what’s the scariest part?” she finally said. “I don’t feel sorry for him. At all. Not one drop. And I don’t feel guilty about it. Before, I would have. Before, I would have sat and thought — maybe I’m cruel? Maybe I should have helped? But now — no. Nothing. Empty. And it’s the right kind of empty.”
“That’s not emptiness. That’s freedom.”
A week later, Marina learned from Svetlana the story that put a thick final period on everything.
It turned out Victoria had thrown Andrey out for a reason. She threw him out after discovering that all the “manuscripts” he had shown her — all his “chapters” and “drafts” — had been copied. Whole chunks from obscure foreign authors, hastily paraphrased. There had been no talent. No potential. Only arrogance and the ability to persuade.
“Are you serious?” Marina sat at Svetlana’s place, unable to believe it.
“Absolutely. Victoria told a mutual acquaintance, and she told me. When she ran the texts through a checker, the match was almost eighty percent. He hadn’t even bothered to properly rewrite them.”
“So for two years… he wasn’t even really trying to write?”
“He was trying to look like someone he wasn’t. To everyone. To you, to Victoria, to his mother. To the whole world.”
“And Galina Sergeyevna? Does she know?”
“She knows. They say she stopped calling him. She doesn’t bring cutlets anymore.”
Marina leaned back in her chair and suddenly laughed.
Not cruelly, not bitterly — with relief.
For two years, she had fed a person who not only did not value her, but who had been a fiction from beginning to end. A cardboard character of his own invention — the only work he had ever managed to create.
“You know, Svet,” Marina said after laughing, “I’m thirty-one years old. I have my own atelier, two assistants, orders booked for three months ahead, and a man who doesn’t think I’m his servant. That’s the best result that could have grown out of the worst beginning.”
“Then keep living that way, Marinka. By your own patterns.”
That evening, Marina returned home, went into the workshop, and stood for a long time looking at the mannequin with the half-finished dress. Burgundy velvet, hand embroidery — an order for an anniversary. A beautiful thing. A real thing.
Dmitry peeked into the room.
“Are you going to eat dinner?”
“I am. I’m cooking today.”
“Really? What are you making?”
“Soup. Our potato soup, with dill. The one that’s worth more than any rent.”
He smiled and held out his hand to her. She took it — firmly, confidently, without fear. The way one takes scissors before the first cut into fabric — knowing the line will be straight because the pattern is her own.
And Andrey…
Andrey disappeared.
He dissolved like an unfinished manuscript in the trash bin.
Without publication.
Without an ending.
Without a single reader who would regret the lost text.