A week later, we met again. Nadya, clearly still thinking about what had happened, asked me, “Does this happen to you often? And what do you do to prevent it from happening again?” Her question caught me off guard, and I didn’t know what to say. This had never happened to me before, and I didn’t have a ready explanation or solution. I just stayed silent, not knowing how to respond.
After this difficult conversation, we took a short walk to clear our heads and soon went back to my place. Once things had calmed down and we were lying next to each other, I started thinking about the situation with Ekaterina and Nikolay, which had once pushed me to the brink and made me have an emotional breakdown. That situation had caused a lot of tension between us, and I knew I needed to apologize. I couldn’t keep it inside any longer, so, gathering my courage, I apologized to Nadya for that emotional outburst.
Nadya replied with a slight smile, “Don’t worry about it.” There was something mysterious and, perhaps, caring in her look, but it wasn’t as confident as I was used to seeing. Still, there was something strange in her gaze that made me uneasy.
We lay in silence for a bit, and to lighten the mood, I suggested we open a bottle of wine that Alexander K. had recently brought me. Nadya agreed. We sat at the table, and with each glass, the conversation became easier, but inside my emotions were boiling. The alcohol only intensified what I was trying to hide. After some time, I became more open, sharper, and emotional. When we finished drinking, I suggested I walk her home.
We took the bus, and the whole ride I felt words building up inside me—words I had kept to myself for a long time. Streetlights flashed in the window, turning into blurred streaks, and the silence between us only made the tension worse. When we got off at her stop, we walked in silence past an old church with tall dark windows and a schoolyard that looked empty and abandoned at that hour. The windows in the houses were lit, but it felt as if the whole world had frozen, waiting for something inevitable.
When we reached her building, I stopped. On the doorstep, under the weak glow of a streetlamp, with alcohol in my blood and pent-up emotions, I couldn’t hold back any longer. “Nadya, do you remember the day I told you I was sick? In reality, I was on amphetamines,”—the words burst out suddenly, as if by themselves, and it was too late to take them back.
She froze for a moment, and her face changed. There was surprise in her eyes that quickly turned to disappointment. She didn’t say anything else, just shouted, “You told me you didn’t use!”—and then immediately turned around and hurried into the building.
I stood there, stunned by her reaction. Just a moment ago, I thought I could explain myself, that everything could be fixed, but now her disappearing silhouette became a symbol that something important between us had cracked. The wind rushed past me, and inside it became empty and cold. I realized that now a new, painful uncertainty had appeared between us, and everything that once seemed strong had suddenly become fragile and unstable.
The next day, I noticed that Nadya had removed her profile picture on VKontakte. This seemingly minor change became a harbinger of the coming storm. We didn’t talk for a week. During that time, I could hardly find peace, trying to reach out, but every time she responded evasively: “later.” It was obvious that she was deciding what to do, probably discussing it actively with her girlfriends. The short messages we occasionally exchanged didn’t help—on the contrary, they only increased the distance. Every time I read her words, I felt them becoming emptier and more alien, adding to the tension that was growing day by day.
After a week, I saw her name on my phone screen. It was Nadya’s number. My chest tightened, but I picked up, trying to remain calm. I went out onto the balcony for better reception, leaned on the railing, and looked at the surrounding buildings, feeling my heart get heavier. Her voice was calm, but there was determination in it, as if she had made her decision a long time ago. Nadya said: “Igor, we need to break up. We can’t even stay friends. I don’t love you. That’s it, goodbye.”
I stood there, listening to her every word as if they were the last threads holding me on the edge of something that had recently seemed so important. There was nothing unexpected about it—I had felt for a long time that everything was heading this way. But I still wanted to protest, to explain that the situation wasn’t as black and white as she thought. But her voice sounded so firm and confident that any attempt of mine to say something seemed doomed to disappear into the void. I just stood there, unable to say a word, staring at a city that suddenly felt foreign and indifferent.
After we hung up, I realized I needed to pull myself together and prepare something to make sense of everything that had happened in the past three months. I needed to find answers and explanations, both for myself and for Nadya. I started thinking through every moment, every mistake, trying to find what had led us to this ending. We broke up, and it became a new stage in my understanding and reevaluation of everything that had happened.
I have to say that when Nadya left, I still had some hope of explaining myself. But after the call, I found out that I was blocked in all messengers and social networks. Even minimal communication with her was now closed to me, let alone the chance to explain anything. The sudden blocking only intensified my sense of confusion. Why did she make such a radical decision? Why didn’t she give me a chance to at least express my point of view?
Immediately after that, there was a parade of her friends deleting me on VKontakte. One by one, her acquaintances disappeared from my contact list, as if her whole life, including our mutual friends, was cutting me off forever. This only intensified the sense of isolation, as if the world I was once a part of was now consciously erasing me.
I realized that I had been left with no opportunity to explain my side, and that was yet another blow.
A Lyrical Digression: Unresolved Questions
To this day, I don’t understand why Nadya didn’t want to discuss it with me in person. She didn’t give me a chance to explain, didn’t try to talk. Instead, she may have decided to discuss the situation with her friends, who had no idea of all the circumstances. Why did she choose the advice of people who only knew me superficially over a conversation with me—the person she had just been building a relationship with?
Perhaps Nadya was afraid. Maybe she didn’t know how to behave in this situation or how to talk to me about it. The fear that I was a drug addict and would lie or twist the facts might have kept her from coming to me for an honest conversation. Maybe she made her decision based on her own prejudices and stereotypes, which were easier to believe than to try to see the truth.
Instead of giving me a chance, she drew her conclusions based on other people’s opinions and stereotypes. That left me without the opportunity to explain myself, and I felt “beheaded”—deprived of the right to speak and defend myself.
