Mark

The first snow was falling outside. The old neighborhood was bathed in the gray light of street lamps, and a single yellow lamp burned in the small kitchen.

She was eighteen when she ran away from home. For years, her toxic family had been turning their apartment into a place where it was impossible to live peacefully. She left with almost nothing—a backpack, some savings, and the absolute certainty that there was nowhere to return.

This is how Mark appeared in her life.

He was thirty-three. A tall, strong, reserved man, accustomed to living alone. He hadn't initially intended to start a relationship. He wanted a young woman with no serious commitments.

She wasn't looking for love either.

The arrangements came together almost naturally: Mark provided her with a roof over her head, food, and the opportunity to live peacefully. In exchange, she cooked his dinners, kept him tidy, and was his close companion. For her, homeless and without anyone to rely on, this arrangement seemed perfectly acceptable.

Gradually, the apartment stopped feeling alien. Her mug appeared in the kitchen, and a throw blanket she'd chosen herself appeared on the sofa. Mark got used to coming home to the smell of cooking and the sight of light in the window.

They never called it a relationship.

Until that evening.

There was a test with two stripes on the kitchen table.

Mark simply stared at him for a few seconds. The girl sat across from him, her hands clasped in her lap. She feared not so much the future as the prospect of losing the only place she could call home.

Mark slowly sat down next to me.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said quietly.

She remained silent.

Snow continued to fall outside. The warm light of the lamp reflected off the glass, and for the first time, a question arose between them that hadn't existed before.

Their arrangement began as a convenient deal between two complete strangers.

But now they had to decide what to do with the consequences of this deal - and whether they could remain simply temporary tenants of the same apartment for each other after this.