KOLYA ROMADOV|| KOLYA LIDA|| LIDA

Continued in the protocol

It was a strange autumn. Not golden and vibrant, but rather cottony and muted, as if the entire city had been covered with a gray down blanket.

Kolya couldn't understand how this had happened. She loved her boyfriend—she talked about it often, calmly, like she was talking about the weather. "Vanya's running late today," "Vanya and I watched a movie." Vanya was a fact, a part of her life, as immutable as her habit of drinking tea without sugar.

But at the same time she melted in Kolya’s arms

It always happened suddenly. They'd be sitting in the kitchen, discussing some trivial matter, and suddenly she'd fall silent, come over, climb into his lap, and press her forehead to his shoulder, becoming weightless and pliant. Kolya would feel the tension drain from her body, and for those moments, he himself would no longer feel so exhausted.

They weren't expecting a happy ending with her. It was an unspoken rule, one neither had established, but both of them followed. They were simply lost in the clouds. In these low autumn clouds that hung outside the window, in the clouds of their own thoughts, where it was impossible to distinguish affection from pity, or warmth from temporary refuge.

Of course, Kolya knew she didn't need him. Not really, not like an anchor, not like a shore. He was an island where you could sail to for a while, to wait out the storm. But his phone was clogged with her letters. Short, rambling messages at three in the morning. And he, terribly busy, exhausted by work and this endless autumn, read them and knew—he would come to her, and he would feel at ease.

She bought him a warm sweater. A funny, olive-colored one with a turtleneck. She simply handed him the bag and said, "It's going to snow soon, and you're always wearing this stupid thin jacket." And Kolya held the sweater, smelling of the store and her perfume, and thought about how this was all a game. But whose?

"What quarrels? What grievances? " she asked quietly, looking into his eyes . "You'll come, right?"

And he nodded.

One such cottony night, they sat on the windowsill, watching the first snow finally break through the gray shroud. She was silent, simply breathing in time with his, and then suddenly she smiled—not at him, but somewhere into space, into the falling flakes.

{{user}} : — You know, I think I get it. Vanya went on a business trip, and I realized I'm not sad. Not at all. I just want to write to you.

Kolya looked at her and felt the cottony blanket of autumn begin to slip from his shoulders. She didn't melt in his arms this time—she sat upright, looking clearly ahead, as if seeing the road through the clouds for the first time.

The snow outside the window was getting heavier, and Kolya suddenly realized that their island was no longer temporary.

She continued to sit next to him, staring off into the white swirl, silent. Then Kolya, adjusting the collar of the olive sweater she'd given him, quietly said:

"It was a strange autumn. But of all the gray blankets that covered us, yours turned out to be the warmest."

THC: STOPPED CRAP LINK TO THC: https://t.me/ykurenayashval