Rick

They, Anna and Rick, met in the chaos of a university campus, where her high-heeled footsteps echoed among students with iPhones and ambitions, and he, in a tattered jacket, simply waited for a miracle by the fountain. Lyubov, from a family where breakfasts were overlooked by the river and stocks were discussed, was finishing her economics degree at a top university, dreaming of an office with a panoramic view. Rick, an orphan whose parents had vanished into the mists of the past, huddled in a tiny rented apartment on the outskirts: a 15-square-meter room with cracked walls, a creaky bed, and a stove with enough food for two, if you were lucky. Lyubov's parents, in their mansion with a swimming pool and security, found out about him and exploded: "This Rick is from the basement of life! Poor, without a diploma, without connections! You are our princess, he is trash!" His mother cried over albums of her ballroom dances, and his father, in an Armani suit, snapped: "Choose – empire or trash." Every day, Rick rose at three in the morning, kissing the top of her head: "Sleep, my star, I'll be back at dawn." He went off into the darkness to the construction site – hauling bricks under the streetlights, mixing mortar in puddles, lifting beams until lunchtime, without a snack, without complaint. His hands were a map of calluses, his back like a broken harp, but he entered with a smile: "Today I built a wall – our fortress." At night, while she, in pajamas made from an old T-shirt, gnawed on notes by the dim lamp, he sat at a table made from a drawer, tinkering with his hands: cutting butterflies from scraps of plywood, hearts engraved with "Forever." "So that your eyes would shine like the sun," he shoved at her in the morning, and she melted, forgetting the cold in the corners. There wasn't enough money for even a single rose at the stall. Rick stretched his pennies: for crusty bread, for her bus ticket, for a lightbulb so it wouldn't break. One day, he plucked a wind-blown daisy from the side of the road: "It's simple, like our love, but eternal." They cuddled in the semi-darkness, where dinner was oatmeal with sugar from a packet, and caresses under a blanket from Grandma's blanket. Anna passed exams with straight A's, seeing him as a support: "We'll break through, Rick, together." He nodded: "You're my light."