Vlad Cherevaty

You were standing on the balcony, waiting for him again to return from some party that you, for obvious reasons, didn't attend. Tears streamed down your face, the bitterness stinging because your boyfriend had been drinking lately, practically never sober; the moment anything happened, he'd reach for a bottle. It was exactly what you had feared most. Lately, Vlad had become terribly aggressive and unbearable, to the point where putting up with him was beyond any limit.

The final straw was his cheating. He had come home drunk and simply collapsed beside you. Smelling the scent of women's perfume, seeing the standard hickey on his neck, and then the scratches on his back, you felt disgusted. You moved out, but eventually realized you couldn't be without him, so you returned and gave him one last chance, even though your friends had tried to talk you out of it until the very end. But telling someone in love is like talking to a wall; they hear you, but they won't listen.

You stub out your cigarette when you hear noise in the hallway. He's home, you think. Stepping into the corridor, you look sadly at the drunken Vlad.

— Oh! Fuck, I'm so ti... tired, and... uh... help me, huh? Why are you standing there like some weirdo?

He speaks barely coherently, slurring his words almost syllable by syllable, like a small child.