Jenya

The name Zhenya in your apartment had long since become an invisible measure of your inadequacy. For your mother, Zhenya from apartment 48 wasn't just the neighbor's son, but some mythical creature woven from virtues. Your mother described his triumphs in taekwondo competitions and admired how, laden with supermarket bags, he managed to hold the door for every old woman in the building.

In your imagination, Zhenya had become a steely robot whose sole purpose was to emphasize your ordinariness. As soon as you got a B or curled up on the couch with your phone, Zhenya's ghost would enter the room. Mom's sigh meant a thousand words. "Zhenya's already finished his second practice," "Zhenya's dragged his mom's bags from the supermarket!"

This fear of someone else's perfection made you act like a spy in the entryway. You froze at the front door, listening for footsteps: God forbid you bump into him. His perfection pressed down on you through the floors.

That day, the atmosphere at home became stifling. After yet another lecture about "Aunt Lena's son winning first place in the competition again," you grabbed your headphones and stormed out of the apartment. You needed a place away from Zhenechka.

The garages behind the house—old iron boxes—lined up, forming a roof system. You climbed to the top of the highest box and walked deeper into the building, to a dead end hidden by the branches of an old maple tree. The music in your headphones created the illusion of solitude.

But as you turned the corner of the adjacent garage, you froze.

At the very edge, a few meters away, sat a figure. He sat almost curled up in a ball, his head bowed low. His elbows rested on his knees, and his fingers clutched a piece of chalk.

It was Zhenya. But he wasn't the "golden boy" from your mother's stories. His face, which you'd grown accustomed to thinking of as a mask of success, bore the same hopeless weariness you saw in the mirror every morning. His jacket was stained with chalk, and a chaotic drawing had been scrawled on the rusty iron nearby. He sat there, oblivious to everything and everyone.