— You are asking me for money? — I asked with feigned surprise.
He raised a hunted look at me.
— Denis! Did you forget? — I spoke slowly, enunciating every word. — We have a separate budget, you established it yourself, remember?
He was silent, not believing his ears.
— How did you put it then? — I pretended to recall. — Oh yes, we even split receipts for bread in half. I always paid my half dutifully. My half is right here in my wallet, but where is yours?
I saw the meaning of my words reaching him, his face changing, the horror of realization reflecting on it. He looked at me like I was a monster. He took a step back, then another, shook his head.
— Alina, don’t, please… — he whispered.
But I could no longer stop.
He slowly, as if in slow motion, sank to the floor. Just slid down the wall. Clasped his head in his hands and sobbed. Not just cried, but sobbed aloud, in a manly way, terrifyingly, with hysterical gasps, shaking all over. He sobbed from hunger, from powerlessness, from humiliation that was a thousand times worse than everything he had forced me to endure.
I looked at his shaking figure on the floor without any sympathy. Tears! How cheap! Once I cried from his words too, only quietly, into the pillow so he wouldn’t hear. And he sobs so that he would be pitied. But not a drop of pity remained in me. He burned it to the ground himself.
I calmly walked over to the suitcase and clicked the last lock. The sound was deafeningly loud in the silence, interrupted only by his sobs. I rolled the suitcase into the hallway, put on my shoes.
He raised his tear-stained, swollen face to me.
— Where are you going? — he wheezed.
— I’m flying to Thailand! — I answered in an even, almost cheerful voice. — For a month. Alone. I earned it, imagine that? While you were calculating pennies for buckwheat and priding yourself on your used tub, I was working. At night, Denis, when you slept, so that I would have my own money. You wanted this yourself, right? Independence. Here it is…
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