Oleg slammed the refrigerator door so hard that the contents on the shelves inside trembled. One of the magnets decorating its surface fell to the floor with a dull thud.
Lena stood opposite him, pale, with tightly clenched fists.
«Well, do you feel better now?» she exhaled sharply, tilting her chin up.
«You just drive me crazy,» Oleg’s voice cracked, though he tried hard to speak softly. «What kind of life is this? No joy, no prospects.»
«So it’s my fault again?» Lena laughed, but her laughter sounded bitter. «Of course, everything is not as in your dreams.»
Oleg wanted to reply, but just waved his hand. He opened a bottle of mineral water, took a sip straight from the neck, and set it on the table.
«Oleg, don’t be silent,» Lena’s voice trembled. «Just tell me what’s the matter?»
«What’s there to say?» he sneered. «If only… but you wouldn’t understand. I’m sick of all this. To the devil!»
They looked at each other in silence for a few seconds. Finally, Lena took a deep breath and went to the bathroom. Oleg sank onto the couch. From behind the door, the sound of running water could be heard: Lena probably turned on the tap to drown out her tears. But Oleg caught himself thinking that he no longer cared.
Oleg and Lena had been married for three years. They lived in Lena’s apartment, which she had inherited from her parents. After retiring, her parents moved to a country house, and the city apartment was transferred to their daughter. The apartment was spacious but with a simple renovation, and the furniture was almost from the Soviet era.
At first, Oleg was content: after all, the apartment was almost in the city center, close to work, in a decent area. But after six months, the daily grind began to irritate him. Lena felt cozy in her family fortress with familiar brown wallpaper and her grandmother’s sideboard. Oleg, however, found everything too mundane.
«Lena, explain to me,» he repeatedly started the same conversation. «Don’t you want to change that horrible yellow linoleum? Or re-paste the wallpaper? Make everything modern, stylish?»
«Oleg, we don’t have the extra money for a major renovation right now,» she answered, trying to speak gently. «Of course, I’d like to change everything, but let’s wait for the bonus or save up.»
«Wait?! That’s your whole life — waiting, enduring.»
Oleg often recalled how he met Lena. She was a modest student, but her blue eyes and kind smile conquered him. He told his friends, «I see a flower bud in her — just wait till it blooms, and everyone will be amazed.» Now, he seemed disappointed: «She hasn’t bloomed; she withered at the root,» he thought, watching as Lena wiped the dust from her mother’s fragile vases, fed sour cream to a kitten picked up from the street, or adjusted the frames with childhood photos on the walls.
But Lena didn’t feel like a «grey mouse»: she simply lived the way she thought was right. Small things pleased her — a new napkin, a quiet evening with a book, a cup of tea with mint, the warm light of a table lamp. Oleg, however, saw this as stagnation.
However, despite constant complaints, he didn’t want to divorce — deep down, the thought of having to move out of the convenient apartment to his parents’, with whom he never got along, held him back. Especially since his mother, Tamara Ilyinichna, tended to take his wife’s side in any argument.
«Son, you’re wrong,» she often repeated. «Lena is a wonderful girl, a smart one. You live in her apartment… be happy.»
«Mom, how would you know?» Oleg grumbled. «What do you even understand in life? Stuck, just like Lena, in your stone age.»
Tamara Ilyinichna sighed: her son had long drifted away. His father, Igor Sergeyevich, knowing Oleg’s temperament, only said:
«Let him figure it out, Tamara, don’t interfere.»
Meanwhile, Oleg came home and grew increasingly angry: «Lena is like a shadow, a grey mouse, and she even tied me to this apartment,» he kept telling himself. During another argument, he shouted:
«I once saw a beautiful flower in you! And now? I live with a frozen bud…»
Then Lena cried for the first time in many months.
And on that hot day — the same day it all started — they seriously discussed divorce for the first time. Oleg stood by the window, watching neighbors in the opposite house hang things on the balcony.
«Lena, I’m tired,» he said quietly, continuing to look through the glass.
«You’re tired… of what?» she tried to speak evenly.
«Of this life, of our endless quarrels. You’re locked in your pots and napkins. Do you think I want to aimlessly pass the years?»
Lena was silent for a minute, then took out the trash and left the corridor. Oleg heard the door slam. He hoped she would return in a couple of minutes, maybe explain herself. But Lena was gone for half an hour, returning more composed.
«You know,» she said, leaning against the wall, «maybe you really should be alone for a while. Move out.»
«No way,» Oleg snapped as if stung. «I’m not leaving my home.»
«Oleg, this isn’t your home. It’s my parents’ apartment,» Lena said bitterly. «Let’s be honest: it’s not working out. We need to accept that.»
He found nothing to reply, so he retreated to the room and sat at the laptop. But the thought haunted him: «Where will I go? To my parents… with whom I have strained relations.» The argument hung in the air, and in the following days, it repeated: they argued over trifles, but the root of each conflict was the same — indifference to his wife, whom he considered a «grey mouse,» mixed with the fear of being left without a roof over his head.
It reached a breaking point: Oleg finally got angry and filed for divorce himself. «I decide, not her,» he stubbornly muttered. «In the end, I have parents, I have somewhere to go.» He packed his bags and went to Tamara Ilyinichna and Igor Sergeyevich, though without much enthusiasm. Lena agreed to the divorce calmly.
Applications in the registry office — and soon they were officially no longer husband and wife.
Three years passed. Oleg lived with his parents all this time. Initially, he thought, «I’ll rest a couple of months and return to normal life: rent an apartment, find a new girlfriend who will share my ideals.» But he got stuck, as in a swamp. Work was joyless: money was only enough for modest pleasures. And the prospects somehow didn’t materialize. His parents grumbled that their son was over thirty and still living off them.
And then one cold spring evening, Oleg was returning after meeting a friend. He walked past a small cozy cafe, where bright lights shone in the window. Oleg decided to stop by to warm up. But, as he approached, he suddenly froze: Lena was standing at the entrance. The same Lena he left three years ago in her apartment. But this was a different woman: confident posture, neat hairstyle, strict but elegant clothes, and a calm gaze. In her hands were car keys, judging by the make, not cheap.
«Wow…» thought Oleg, not even realizing how he approached her.
«Lena?» he called out.
She turned around, didn’t recognize him at first, but then smiled. Oleg noticed that the smile wasn’t the same as before — shy and embarrassed, but truly calm and confident.
«Hi, Oleg,» she said. «Glad to see you! How are you?»
«Fine…» he adjusted his scarf, feeling somewhat bewildered. «I see you’re doing well.»
«Let’s just say, I now live as I always dreamed,» Lena answered without a trace of pomp.
«Is that so…» Oleg swallowed, trying to swallow along with the lump in his throat and the growing envy. «And… well done. Are you still working there?»
«No, I changed fields. I opened my own floristry studio. I was afraid at first, but…» she smiled. «Someone supported me.»
«Who is that?» the words slipped out before he could stop them.
Before Lena could answer, a tall man in a coat emerged from the cafe doors. He approached Lena and embraced her shoulders:
«Darling, a table just freed up, shall we go?»
Lena turned to Oleg, introduced the man:
«This is Vadim, meet him. Vadim, this is Oleg,» she smiled at the man, touched by his care. «Anyway, Oleg, I was glad to see you. I… hope you’re doing well too.»
Oleg nodded, feeling a storm brewing inside. Looking at Vadim, he suddenly realized: Lena was completely different, not the «grey mouse» he considered her. She had bloomed, like the flower he himself described, but not with him, with someone else.
«Lena…» he wanted to say something like «forgive me,» but all words stuck in his throat. «Happy for you, really.»
«Thank you, Oleg,» she replied softly but confidently. «Take care.»
Vadim smiled at Oleg, nodded slightly, and they disappeared behind the glass door of the cafe. Oleg felt the cold wind literally piercing him through. He closed his eyes for a moment and remembered: «Living with a frozen bud…» — he once harshly threw at Lena. And now the bud had bloomed, and he himself was left outside, both literally and figuratively.
Through the large windows of the cafe, he could see Lena and Vadim talking about something, laughing. He watched their gesticulation, sincere smiles, and caught himself thinking that his evening was already ruined. And not just the evening — the feeling of emptiness in his soul was growing. Once, he could have been the source of confidence for Lena, encourage her to change, support her aspirations. But he chose something entirely different.
Oleg, lowering his head, walked away from the cafe. Perhaps, if he could see himself now, he would realize that he had turned green — from envy, from regret, and possibly from the agonizing feeling of a missed opportunity.
