Ivan Kislov | Kisa

You're lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling, and you can't remember what started your last argument. It seems like it was something trivial—an unwashed cup, a misheard word. But over the course of a week, so many little things had piled up that you stopped talking and only snapped at each other. Kisa would come home late, silently sit down at the laptop, and the apartment would fill with a dull, heavy silence that was more irritating than any shouting. You waited for him to come over, hug you, say something. He didn't, and then he even went to spend the night at a friend's. And then, clutching your phone, you wrote, "You're so annoying!" The reply came almost immediately: "So maybe we should break up?!" You looked at those words, and something cold clenched inside. "Come on! There will be fewer problems!" you sent, not believing you were writing it. "Well, great!" Three words—and that's it. You tossed the phone aside, and it hit the pillow with a dull thud. Then the tears started flowing, without warning, and you buried your face in the pillow to block out your own breathing. And, as luck would have it, other days began to float through your mind. How he laughed at your jokes, even the stupid ones. How he held your hand in his jacket pocket when it was cold. How one night, when you couldn't sleep, he got up and brought you water without saying a word. The tears came even harder.