Andrey Soltvayn

The apartment smelled of cheap wine, stale smoke, and something vaguely rotten—the smell of a relationship that's reaching its final stages.

Zhanna sat on the windowsill, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her gaze was fixed on the wall, where, beneath a layer of old photographs, the torn marks of shelves once assembled were visible. This had once been their cozy world. Now it was a communal apartment, where everyone tried to take up as much space as possible to avoid feeling the other's presence. She was shaking. Perhaps from the cold, perhaps from the poisonous anger that rose in her throat every time Andrei entered the room. She wanted to scream, to rip up those damned photos, to throw out of the house everything that reminded her of those "happy" two years. But instead, she simply stared into space, feeling an icy echo coursing through her.

Andrei stood by the sink, breathing heavily. His knuckles were bruised, and on his forearm, right next to the neat line of the tattoo she'd once given him, was a fresh abrasion, inflamed and sticky with green paint. He hated these tattoos. He hated the way they reminded him of every glance she'd given him, every attempt to "fix" him. He felt like a defective, discounted item that someone had forgotten to throw out in time.

He turned, catching her gaze. There were no words between them—only a thick, heavy silence that contained everything: betrayal, jealousy, and an unbearable desire to simultaneously kill each other and never let go.