On that January morning, Sergey, as usual, arrived at work by nine. He greeted the security guard, Uncle Kolya, and made his way to his fourth-floor office. The office smelled of coffee as always—Mikhailych, his neighbor to the right, was busy brewing his strong coffee with cinnamon. Just another ordinary day, one of many over the past twenty years in this construction company…
“Good morning, Sergey Andreevich!” Olga’s voice caught him off guard while he was sorting through some papers. She stood in the doorway, smiling that familiar smile which, for some reason, made his chest tighten. Three months ago, when she had joined their department, he could never have imagined that everything would turn out this way.
Her chestnut hair was gathered into a casual bun, she wore a light touch of makeup and a light blue blouse… God, why was he even noticing these details? After all, Natasha was waiting for him at home—the only woman he had loved all these years.
“Sergey Andreevich, could you help with these calculations? I just can’t figure out this specification…” Olga said as she sat on the edge of his desk, leaning in slightly. She carried the scent of some gentle, barely perceptible flowers.
“Of course, let’s take a look,” he replied, trying to sound as formal as possible, even though her nearness made his heart race.
In the evening, as he opened the door to his apartment, Sergey was greeted by the familiar aroma of pies. Natasha baked them every Friday—with cabbage, his favorite. For twenty years, the same pies, the same day of the week… Why did it once feel so cozy, but now it felt somewhat oppressive?
“You’re late,” Natasha met him in the hallway. There was a hidden worry in her eyes, something he had learned to notice lately. “Did something happen at work?”
“No, just an ordinary day…” he lied as he removed his shoes. “Just a lot of things piled up.”
They had dinner in silence. Natasha would occasionally glance at him, but she didn’t ask anything. Only the frown between her brows deepened, and her fingers nervously crumbled the bread. They used to discuss their day over dinner, share news, make weekend plans… When had that changed?
That night, Sergey lay awake for a long time. Outside, snow fell in large, heavy flakes. Natasha was softly dozing nearby, wrapped in a blanket. He gazed at her familiar face, lit by a street lamp, and mused at how strangely life works. You live your life, everything seems clear and right—and then someone appears… and what you’ve built over years begins to crumble.
His phone chimed softly—a message: “Good night, Sergey. Thank you for your help today…” signed Olga. He didn’t reply; he simply turned over. Yet he couldn’t fall asleep for a long while, his mind reeling at how subtly one could get carried away, even without intending it. How easily one can cross that line where betrayal begins—even if only in thought…
February turned out to be dreary, with a biting wind and a gray sky. Sergey began staying late at the office more and more—ostensibly for work, but deep down he knew it wasn’t just about her. It was as if Olga deliberately chose that time for their conversations. One evening, when it was already dark outside and they were the only ones left in the office, everything changed.
“Sergey…” she began, sitting on the edge of his desk as usual. But something was different. Her voice now carried new notes—decisive, anxious. “We need to talk.”
He looked up from his monitor. The dim light of the desk lamp cast strange shadows on the walls. In that half-darkness, Olga’s face seemed to glow from within—her eyes shone feverishly, her cheeks had a pink tint, and her slightly parted lips trembled. Sergey couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she was at that moment—and he immediately pulled himself together.
“I can’t stay silent any longer…” she said, her voice low and strained, as if she were short of breath. “Don’t you feel it? Between us… this attraction, this chemistry. I notice every look, every accidental touch. You shudder when I’m near…”
A chill—not from excitement or anticipation, but a primal fear—ran down Sergey’s spine. He physically felt the safe distance he had so diligently maintained over these months collapsing. His throat dried up, and an alarming thought thudded in his temples: “No, not this. Please, don’t…”
“Olya, listen…”
“No, it’s you who should listen,” she replied, moving even closer. “I see how hard it is for you at home. Every time you speak of your wife, there’s so much weariness in your eyes… Don’t you deserve more? Don’t you have the right to true happiness?”
A gust of wind burst through the slightly open window, stirring the papers on the desk. The muted sounds of the evening city drifted in from outside. Absent-mindedly, Sergey spun his wedding ring on his finger—a simple band, slightly worn over twenty years, with a barely visible engraving inside: “Together forever.” Natasha had insisted on that inscription, and back then he had merely laughed at its romanticism…
“We could be so happy,” Olga continued, moving even closer, her hand resting on his shoulder. The touch made him shudder, as if struck by an electric current. “No one will ever know. It will be just ours…” Her whisper scorched his skin. “Just imagine how vibrant your life could be…”
At that moment, his phone suddenly lit up—a summer photograph appeared on the screen. It was a picture of him and Natasha in their old garden: sunlight dancing in her graying hair and on his head, a lopsided wreath of wildflowers.
He remembered that day in every detail—the scent of ripe cherries, how Natasha, laughing, fed him berries straight from the branch, how later they sat in the gazebo and she, habitually frowning, removed a splinter from his palm… “Natasha” blinked on the screen, and that simple name suddenly burned him with shame.
“Don’t answer the phone,” Olga whispered, covering his hand with hers. “Just stay with me…”
The call ended. A minute later, a message arrived: “Seryozha, will you come for dinner today? I’ve prepared your favorite pilaf…”
Such a simple question. Such familiar care. And inside him, everything churned at the realization of how close he had come to the edge.
Sergey returned home late. Natasha was already asleep—or at least pretending to be. In the kitchen, a cooled dinner awaited him, carefully covered with a cloth. He looked at the simple scene—a plate of pilaf, bread, cucumbers from that same barrel they had salted together one autumn… And for the first time in a long while, he felt truly scared. Scared of how easily one can destroy something built over years. How simply one can lose what is most important, chasing after a mirage.
That night, he again couldn’t sleep. He lay there, listening to his wife’s breathing, pondering all that bound them together. Not just the routines and habits—but an entire life built together. Their first apartment, the birth of their son, the time when Natasha’s mother fell ill and they took turns staying at the hospital… Could one really betray all that?
And on his phone, an unread message from Olga blinked: “Think about us. About what we could be together…”
“Don’t answer the phone,” Olga’s voice echoed, covering his hand with hers. “Forget everything…”
Sergey suddenly withdrew, as if her touch had burned him. Suddenly, his mind cleared, as if a gust of fresh wind had dispelled the fog. He looked at the woman before him—beautiful, desirable, but… foreign. Absolutely foreign.
“You know, Olya…” his voice came out unexpectedly firm. “You talk about happiness. And I wonder—what is it really? Perhaps it’s not about butterflies in the stomach or wild passion?”
He stood up from the table and walked to the window. The evening city stretched out before him like a sea of lights, and his own tired, bewildered face was reflected in the glass—yet he now knew exactly what to do.
“Happiness is when you wake up in the middle of the night and the first thing you do is check if your wife is warm. When you make her coffee in the morning even though she insists she can manage on her own. When you face losses, illnesses, failures together…” he said, turning to Olga. “When you know every wrinkle on the face you love and understand that they appeared because you went through all these years together.”
“But don’t you long for something… new?” she asked, her voice carrying an almost childlike hurt. “Isn’t it boring to live by habit?”
Sergey bitterly smiled. “You know what’s the funniest? I really started to doubt. I stared at the shiny wrapping, forgetting what was inside. And inside—it was emptiness. Beautiful, bright, but emptiness.”
Decisively, he picked up his phone and pressed the call button. The ring tones echoed in his temples like the beat of his own heart.
“Olya, enough. I’m married and I love my wife,” the words burst out naturally, simply and unmistakably. “And you know what? I’m truly happy. I just forgot that for a while.”
After the third ring, Natasha answered. In the receiver, her familiar voice sounded, slightly alarmed: “Seryozha? Where are you?”
“I’m on my way home, dear. I’m already on my way home…”
Leaving the office, he didn’t look back. A quiet sob echoed behind him, but it no longer mattered. Ahead lay a long conversation with his wife—honest, perhaps painful, but necessary. Because true happiness is built on truth, no matter how bitter it may be.
The journey home never seemed so long. Sergey drove slowly, gazing at the rain-soaked asphalt as he gathered his thoughts. He realized that the fate of their marriage was being decided in that very moment, and it all depended on whether he could find the right words.
Natasha waited for him in the kitchen. A cup of cooled tea sat before her, and the lingering aroma of pilaf filled the air. She looked up—her eyes tired, as if faded from sleepless nights.
“We need to talk,” Sergey said as he sat opposite her, extending his hand across the table to cover hers. “But please, listen to me until the end.”
He spoke at length—about how he had gradually started drifting away, how he had allowed a stranger’s attention to confuse him. About his doubts and inner turmoil. About how, today, with piercing clarity, he realized that he had nearly destroyed the most precious thing he had.
“I’m not trying to make excuses,” his voice trembled. “I just want you to know—nothing happened. But it could have… if I hadn’t woken up in time.”
Natasha remained silent, only squeezing his hand tighter. Tears rolled down her cheeks silently, one after another.
“I saw everything,” she finally whispered. “How you changed, how you began staying late at work… I thought—maybe you’ve fallen out of love? Maybe you got tired of the old wife with her endless pies and her constant talks about blood pressure?”
“Oh, Natasha…” he murmured as he moved closer, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. She smelled of home—herbal tea, pilaf, and that special warmth that words can’t convey. “You mean everything to me. Do you hear? I just… lost my way a little. But now I’m back.”
They talked until dawn. They recalled how they met at the wedding of mutual friends, how he had courted her for three months. They reminisced about their early days in a tiny rented apartment furnished only with a mattress and an old family sideboard, about the joy at the birth of their son, and how they had weathered his illnesses and whims together.
“Do you remember how you used to teach me to fold diapers?” Sergey chuckled. “I was like a clumsy bear—everything ended up a jumbled heap.”
“But now you could school any young dad,” she said, smiling for the first time that evening, and that smile made his heart ache.
In the morning, he awoke to the aroma of fresh coffee. Natasha stood by the stove, humming softly. Silver strands shimmered in her hair, and there was a trace of sadness on her face—but it was his, a face familiar down to every last line.
“I took the day off today,” Sergey said, wrapping his arms around her from behind and nuzzling her head with his nose. “Shall we go to the country house? The apple trees are blooming right now…”
“But what about work?” she asked, tensing slightly in his embrace.
“To hell with work. I’ve already submitted my transfer request to another department.”
Natasha turned to him, studying his face intently. “Is it because of… her?”
“It’s because of us,” he replied firmly. “I no longer want to risk what is truly important.”
A week later, Olga quit her job. They say she found work in another city. And Sergey… Every evening, he returned home precisely at seven, bringing Natasha her favorite peonies and recounting in detail how his day had gone. Gradually, the frown between her brows softened, and that special light returned to her eyes—the one he had nearly lost.
In the evenings, they often sat on the balcony, drinking tea in silence. Words were no longer necessary—just the warmth of their intertwined hands and the understanding that the greatest happiness is simply the ability to be together. Just to be together, no matter what.
