“Igor, where’s the garment bag with my dress?” Natalia called out, standing in the kitchen doorway. In her hands, she clutched an empty plastic hanger she had found on the closet floor.
Igor sat at the table, picking at his plate of fried potatoes with a fork. He didn’t even look up at the sound of her voice, methodically chewing his food while staring into his smartphone. There was an opened bottle of beer and some crusts of black bread on the table in front of him. The kitchen was thick with the heavy, persistent smell of over-fried oil and onions – a smell that immediately seeped into Natalia’s blouse.
“I’m talking to you,” Natalia raised her voice, stepping forward. “Where’s my emerald dress? The Italian silk one. I haven’t even cut the tag off yet. It was hanging in the back corner, in a cover.”
Igor finally bothered to tear himself away from his phone. He turned his head slowly, licked his greasy lip, and looked at his wife with a look of bored superiority mixed with slight irritation, as if she was dragging him away from solving the world’s problems for some trivial nonsense.
“Lenka has nothing to wear to the company party! I gave her your evening dress and shoes! Why are you yelling? You two are the same size! Is it such a big deal to give something to my sister? She’ll bring it back tomorrow… maybe! Don’t be a selfish witch, you have a whole closet full of clothes!”
Natalia froze. Her husband’s words reached her mind with difficulty, as if through cotton. She thought she must have misheard. It was so absurd her brain refused to process the information.
“You gave my dress to Lena?” she repeated, feeling a cold, angry wave building inside her. “The one I bought with my quarterly bonus? The one that costs as much as your monthly salary? Igor, are you out of your mind? That’s genuine silk, it needs dry cleaning, you can’t just touch it with dirty hands!”
“Oh, stop making a fuss,” Igor grimaced, setting down his fork. The clink of metal against porcelain echoed unnaturally in the kitchen’s silence. “It’s just a piece of fabric. Silk, big deal. Lenka showed up upset, there’s some fancy banquet at her office, everyone’s going to be all dressed up, and she’s got nothing but jeans and sweaters. Is she supposed to go looking like a stray orphan? I told her: go on, pick something from Natasha’s closet, she’s got tons of stuff anyway.”
“You let her mess around in my closet?” Natalia felt a lump rising in her throat. “Without me? Without asking? You let someone into my personal space to go through my underwear?”
“Lena isn’t a stranger, she’s my sister,” Igor snapped, his gaze turning cold. “And stop being dramatic. ‘Mess around,’ ‘underwear’… what words you pick. She looked carefully, chose that green dress—the one that, by the way, looks better on her than you. She’s got a bigger bust, the neckline is more flattering. And she took those beige stilettos too. Said they’re a little tight, but she’ll break them in.”
Natalia grabbed the back of the chair to keep herself from falling. Her beige suede pumps. The very ones she was afraid to even breathe on, only wearing them in dry weather from the door to the taxi and back. And now Lena, with her wide feet and habit of crushing the backs of her sneakers, was out there “breaking in” the delicate suede at some office party.
“The shoes,” Natalia gasped. “She took my shoes. Igor, we don’t even have the same size. I’m a 38, she’s a full 39, maybe even a 40. She’ll just ruin them!”
“They’ll stretch,” her husband waved off, taking a swig of beer straight from the bottle. “Leather stretches, you know. Why are you being so petty? Your sister needed a hand, I helped her out. That’s what we do in our family — we help each other. And you’re clutching your stuff like Scrooge McDuck. It just sits there, gathering dust. Things are meant to be used, not rot away in a closet.”
Natalia looked at her husband as if she was seeing him for the first time. Sitting in front of her was not the partner she’d shared five years with, but some stranger—a brash man who honestly didn’t get the concept of other people’s property. There he was in his sleeveless undershirt, ketchup stain on his belly, talking about her designer clothes as casually as a feudal lord handing out his serfs’ possessions.
“This isn’t helping, Igor,” Natalia said in an icy tone, making sure to enunciate every word so it would cut through the beer haze in his brain. “It’s stealing. You took my things without asking and handed them to someone else. That dress cost eighty thousand rubles. The shoes—forty. Do you get that your sister is now ruining 120,000 rubles’ worth of my budget?”
Igor slammed the bottle down on the table. Foam spilled out over the top, pooling on the vinyl tablecloth, but he didn’t even notice. His face started turning red.
“Don’t start throwing money at me!” he barked, leaning forward. “Our budget is shared! And if I decide my sister deserves to look decent, that’s what she’ll do. You spend your eighty thousand on covering your own ass, and Lena’s dragging that mortgage around, counting every penny. You could’ve offered to help her yourself if you had a conscience. But no, you strut around with your ‘brands,’ your ‘silk.’ Ugh, you’re impossible to look at. Snob.”
“A snob?” Natalia gave a bitter laugh. “So I work hard, make good money, buy quality things, take care of them—and you, the generous brother, hand them out so you can look good at my expense? Why didn’t you give her your watch? Or your laptop? Go sell your car, pay off her mortgage if you’re so noble!”
“Don’t twist this!” Igor slammed his fist on the table hard enough to make the fork jump. “Clothes are consumables. She’ll wear them, bring them back. Maybe she’ll stain them—so take them to the cleaners, no big deal. You can afford it. But it’s a big day for Lena—let her have her fun.”
“Lena had nothing to wear to the office party! I gave her your evening dress and shoes! Why are you yelling? You’re the same size! Are you just being stingy with your things? She”
You should’ve seen the way her eyes lit up when she put that dress on.
“Did she really squeeze into it?” Natalia asked in horror, picturing the delicate seams straining around her sister-in-law’s large figure. “Did she force it on with sheer strength?”
“Well, the zipper was really tight, so I helped her pull it up,” Igor admitted earnestly, picking up his fork again. “It pinched a little around the armpits, but the fabric is strong. The important thing is, it looks expensive. She said she’ll outshine everyone there.”
Natalia closed her eyes—the image was painfully vivid. Igor’s thick fingers yanking the hidden zipper over the thinnest silk. Lena, sweaty, struggling to squeeze into something a size too small. The crunch of the fabric. Rage filled Natalia so fiercely that her vision darkened. This wasn’t just a dress. This was humiliation. He hadn’t just handed over her things; he’d helped ruin them, stretching them onto someone else’s body, and felt like a hero for it.
“You’re an idiot,” she said quietly. “A truly spectacular idiot, Igor.”
“What did you say?” He slowly stood up from his chair, his bulk looming over the table and blocking the chandelier’s light. “Say that again.”
“I said you had no right to touch my things. And now I’m calling your sister,” Natalia turned sharply and hurried into the living room where her phone was lying on the couch. She needed to stop Lena, make her take off the dress and return it before it was too late, before she spilled red wine on the silk or tore the hem with her heel.
“Stop right there!” Igor barked after her.
Natalia heard the chair scraping back and Igor’s heavy footsteps behind her. She quickened her pace, almost running, feeling his aggressive, labored breathing at her back. She had to grab her phone—it was her only lifeline to reality, the only way to stop this crazy act of generosity at her expense.
“Don’t you dare embarrass me in front of my family!” Igor growled, catching up to her just as she reached the couch.
Natalia managed to grab her smartphone. Her fingers fumbled desperately across the cold screen, trying to unlock it, but then her husband’s heavy, damp hand gripped hers, squeezing her wrist so hard her joints cracked. This wasn’t playful wrestling or a careless touch. This was a hard, uncompromising grip—how you’d hold down a thief caught in the act.
“Let go! You’re hurting me!” Natalia shouted, trying to pull her hand away. Pain shot through her forearm and up to her shoulder, but Igor’s grip was like iron.
“You’re not calling Lena and ruining her evening with your poison,” his face came frighteningly close, his eyes, usually calm, now clouded with anger. His breath reeked of alcohol and cheap cigarettes. “She’s out there, among people, feeling like a queen. And you want to ruin everything? Call her and say, ‘Take it off, that’s mine’? You want to embarrass her in front of her colleagues?”
“Yes! That’s exactly what I want to do!” Natalia glared at him with a hatred she hadn’t even known she could feel five minutes earlier. “I want her to take off my clothes that she took without asking! Igor, that’s my phone, give it back—now!”
She tried to hit him with her free hand to make him loosen his grip, but Igor caught her other hand, too. Now they stood locked in an awkward, ugly pose in the middle of the cozy living room, breathing heavily right in each other’s faces.
“The only thing you have here is what I let you have,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Did you forget who’s in charge in this house? Forgotten whose territory you live on?”
With a sharp jerk, he twisted her wrist. Natalia cried out in sharp pain and reflexively let go. The phone slipped from her grasp. Igor snatched it out of the air with a surprising agility that deserved a better use.
“Give it back!” she lunged toward him, but he shoved her roughly in the chest. Natalia staggered and fell onto the couch, the springs creaking mournfully under her weight.
Igor weighed the smartphone in his hand, as if deciding whether to smash it against the wall or not. The screen lit up with a notification—someone had sent a message via messenger. Probably her mother. Or a friend. Igor couldn’t care less right now. He threw the phone hard onto a soft couch pillow near Natalia. It bounced and slipped into the gap between the seat cushions.
“Sit!” he barked, seeing his wife reaching for the phone again. “If you touch it, I’ll throw it out the window. With the charger, too. You hear me?”
Natalia shrank into the corner of the sofa, rubbing the red marks on her wrists. Fear was slowly giving way to a cold, sticky realization: she was trapped. The man standing before her was utterly convinced he was in the right. In his twisted view of the world, she was the aggressor, the one who wouldn’t spare a scrap of cloth for his own blood.
“You’re acting like an animal,” she said quietly. Her voice didn’t tremble—it was dry and brittle, like old paper. “Do you realize you just used physical force against me over a dress?”
“I used force to snap you out of it!” Igor yelled, the veins on his neck bulging thick like ropes. He started pacing the room, waving his arms, working himself up even more. “Look at yourself! Sitting here like a princess—manicure, pedicure, fitness! How much do you spend every month on your creams? Ten thousand? Fifteen? And Lenka’s barely scraping by! She’s paying a mortgage, supporting her elderly mother, slaving away at two jobs!”
“That’s her choice, Igor. And don’t forget, I help your mom too,” Natalia tried to interject, but he cut her off, refusing to listen.
“Choice?! What kind of choice is that? She just didn’t get lucky enough to find a husband like me, someone who provides for her!” He thumped his chest with his fist, the sound dull and solid. “You have everything handed to you. This apartment is mine, I did all the renovations. You spend your salary just on your high heels. And you’re stingy? You’re stingy about letting your husband’s only sister borrow a damn dress for one night? In my family, we share everything! We’d split our last piece of bread! But you… you’re being petty and selfish!”
He stopped in front of the couch and pointed his finger at her. His nail was dirty, rimmed with black.
A rat. That’s what you are. A real rat sitting on a pile of treasures, hissing if anyone tries to reach out. I thought you were a good person. I thought you had become part of the family, one of us. But you’re just a leech with demands.
“If I’m just a leech, then why did you take my money for new tires last month?” Natalya shot back, staring him straight in the eyes. “Why did we use my job bonus to pay for the vacation in Turkey? Why didn’t you complain about ‘my family’ then?”
That was a mistake. Mentioning money hit Igor like a red flag to a bull. His face flushed with red blotches. His wounded male pride, mixed with alcohol and a fierce desire to protect his sister, brewed a dangerous cocktail.
“Oh, so now you’re counting money?” he hissed, moving in closer. “You’re counting MY money? I’m the one who feeds you! I clothe you! Everything here is mine! If I say Lena’s taking the dress, she’s taking it. And the shoes, too. And if she wants your fur coat—she’ll take that as well! Because she’s family. But you, if you keep opening your mouth and counting every penny, you’ll be left with nothing at all.”
He suddenly leaned in, bracing his arms on the back of the sofa on either side of her head, trapping her within the cage of his body.
“Listen to me carefully, Natasha. Right now, you sit quietly. Don’t call Lena. Don’t write her nasty messages. Don’t complain to your girlfriends. You just sit and wait until she returns the things. And when she does, you’ll smile and say, ‘You’re welcome, Lena, I was happy to help.’ Do you understand me?”
“And if I don’t?” Natalya asked, feeling everything inside of her tighten into a coiled spring. “What if I get up right now, grab my phone and call a taxi?”
Igor gave her a crooked smirk. He straightened up, looked her over contemptuously from head to toe as if appraising merchandise, and slowly headed out of the room. But instead of going into the hallway, he turned back toward the bedroom, where the walk-in closet was.
“Then, dear, we’ll have ourselves an inspection,” he tossed over his shoulder, his voice suddenly calm and menacing. “Since you’re so greedy, since you don’t know how to share nicely… clearly you have too much you don’t need. I’ll teach you some humility. Right now.”
Natalya heard the sliding door of the wardrobe in the bedroom slam shut. The sound was as sharp as a gunshot. Then came the clang of a pulled-out drawer—the one where she kept her sewing and handicraft tools. Natalya’s heart skipped a beat. She knew exactly what was in there. Heavy, professional tailor’s scissors with long blades, the ones she had bought for her dressmaking courses.
“Igor?” she called, rising from the sofa. Her legs felt like rubber, but instinct for self-preservation pushed her forward. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer. All she could hear from the bedroom was the shuffling of slippers and a chilling sound that made her hair stand on end—the sharp “snip-snip” of steel blades closing. He was testing the tool, checking how sharp it was.
Natalya rushed down the hallway toward the bedroom, realizing the conversation was over. This was war now. And the enemy wasn’t outside; he was right here, in the heart of her home, armed with her own scissors and convinced he had the right to punish and decide.
Natalya burst into the bedroom and froze in the doorway, as if she’d hit an invisible wall. The scene in front of her looked surreal and terrifying in its everyday cruelty. The massive sliding wardrobe was thrown open, showing off neat rows of blouses, skirts, and jackets, all carefully hung.
Standing before her little temple of feminine joy was Igor. In his right hand, he held a heavy pair of tailor’s scissors with black handles. The blades gleamed predatorily under the ceiling light as he slowly, deliberately, opened and closed them. Snap. Snap. In the silence of the bedroom, that sound seemed louder than a gunshot, vibrating right through Natalya’s core.
“Stay where you are,” Igor said calmly, not even turning around. He traced the sharp tip of the scissors along the sleeve of her beige cashmere coat. “Nice fabric. Soft. Probably cuts easily. Like butter.”
Natalya froze, her fingers gripping the door frame. It felt like the ground was slipping away beneath her feet. This was some kind of nightmare. Her husband—the man she’d shared a bed with—was threatening to destroy everything she had worked years for, just to prove his dominance.
“Igor, put the scissors down,” her voice broke into a harsh whisper. “You’re drunk. You don’t understand what you’re doing. That coat costs two hundred thousand. If you ruin it…”
“Money again?” he snapped, spinning around suddenly, the scissors’ tip swinging in a dangerous arc. “Is your brain just a calculator? Two hundred thousand… But what’s the price of respect for your husband? Huh? What about love for your sister? You can’t value things like that, because you have no soul, just accounting.”
He turned back to the clothes, grabbed the hem of a light summer dress with his left hand, and pulled the fabric taut.
“You know, Natasha, I’ve been thinking. You’ve got way too many clothes. It’s almost obscene. Why do you need so many? You only have one ass. It’s all pride. You dress up, spin in front of the mirror, think you’re better than everyone. Better than Lenka, better than me. But really, you’re just a clothes rack for expensive rags. And if you don’t shut up and sit on the bed right now, I’m going to start restoring justice.”
“Don’t you dare!” Natalya shrieked, taking a step forward. “Touch anything and I’ll destroy you! I’ll file a report!”
Whirr.
The sound was short and nasty. Without hesitation, Igor closed the blades. The wide, embroidered strap of the dress was sliced apart in one motion. The bodice sagged helplessly, exposing the lining. Igor disdainfully tossed the ruined dress aside, straight onto the floor.
“That’s your first warning,” he told his wife, staring at her with cold, glassy eyes. “Next will be the coat. Then the fur coat. I’ll shred everything to pieces. You’ll mop the floors with them, or take them to the trash. I don’t care. To me, it’s all garbage. And you need to see it as garbage too, if you want to save this family.”
Natalya covered her mouth, struggling not to be sick. The sight of the sliced fabric hit her harder than a slap in the face. It was pure violence, senseless and merciless. He was reveling in his power. He saw her fear, saw her pupils dilate, and it thrilled him even more than the alcohol.
“You’re sick,” she whispered, sliding down the doorframe. Her legs refused to hold her up. “You’re just a psychopath.”
“I’m just a man trying to teach his out-of-line woman some sense,” Igor shot back. He walked over to the section with blouses. “Look how many you have here. White, blue, polka-dot… Where do you wear all these? To work? Or are you trying to get your boss’s attention? Maybe that’s why you can’t spare a dress for Lenka? Afraid she’ll look better than you? Jealous, maybe?”
He snatched a hanger with an ivory silk blouse.
“This one. Remember? You wore it on our anniversary. Now imagine what would happen if I tear the sleeves off. Turn it into a vest. That’d suit you, make you more modest.”
“Igor, please,” Natalya felt cold sweat trickle down her back. She really did love wearing that blouse; it was her good luck charm for important meetings. “Don’t. I won’t call Lena, OK? I won’t call her. Just leave my things alone.”
Igor let out a satisfied grunt, but he didn’t put down the scissors. He toyed with them, savoring his total control.
“See?” he said in a patronizing tone, pointing the scissors at his wife. “You can act human when you want. Suddenly all silk and soft. You made such a fuss: ‘mine, not giving, thieves.’ Should’ve just cooperated from the start.”
He threw the blouse back in the closet, but it slipped off the hanger and fell to the floor among the shoeboxes. Igor stepped on it with his slipper as if he didn’t even notice.
“Alright,” he said, planting his hands on his hips, still gripping the scissors in his right. “Now you go to the kitchen and heat up dinner. The potatoes have gone cold while we’ve been having this little talk. And make it quiet. No sour faces. When Lenka comes back and brings the dress, you’ll thank her for taking it out. Got it?”
Natalya nodded. Inside, she just felt empty and hollow, like a burnt-out desert. She looked at the ruined sundress on the floor, at her husband’s dirty slipper standing on the delicate silk, and knew there was no such thing as ‘family’ anymore. There was a hostage and a terrorist. There was an aggressor and a victim.
“I understand,” she said quietly. “I’ll warm it up now.”
She began to stand slowly, steadying herself against the wall. Igor grinned in triumph, feeling victorious. He had broken her. Put her in her place. Now she’d know who was in charge at home and whose wishes mattered most.
But he didn’t see her eyes. There was no submission in them. Only a frozen terror mixed with the kind of disgust you feel when you see a fat cockroach in your food. Natalya turned and headed for the door—not the kitchen, but the bathroom. She needed to wash her face. To scrub off this sense of sticky filth.
“And bring me a beer too!” he shouted after her, turning back to eye the wardrobe. He suddenly wanted to check the pockets of her coat—maybe he’d find something interesting there he didn’t know about.
Natalya stepped into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. Her hands trembled so badly it was hard to manage the latch. In the mirror, she barely recognized the pale, twisted face of a stranger with messy hair. She turned the water on full blast to drown out her quiet sobs, but no tears came. All that was left was a dry, burning hatred.
Suddenly, a phone buzzed in the pocket of Igor’s bathrobe, which was hanging on a hook nearby. Natalya jumped. Instinctively, she reached into the pocket of the thick men’s robe. The screen lit up. It was a message from Lena. A photo. Natalya tapped the icon and the image expanded to fill the screen.
What she saw made her forget all about the scissors, her fear, and the smashed phone. Her whole world shrank to the size of that small glowing rectangle, which captured a catastrophe. The final point of no return.
The smartphone screen showed a photo that put one big, dirty period at the end of their five-year marriage. It wasn’t just a picture—it was a sentence for everything Natalya had tried to build, preserve, and nurture.
Lena had snapped a mirror selfie in a restaurant bathroom. Her face, flushed from booze and the heat, was shiny, lips stretched in a drunken, crooked grin. But Natalya’s attention was drawn not to Lena’s face, but lower down. The emerald silk—the gorgeous Italian silk—was hopelessly ruined. Across the whole bodice, a big, dark, wet stain spread out—clearly red wine. But that wasn’t all. On the side, right where Igor’s rough fingers had zipped her dress, the fabric had torn. Not just split at the seam, but actually tore open, exposing a strip of cheap, flesh-toned synthetic underwear digging into her loose body.
The caption under the photo, typed out with a bunch of emojis, read: ‘Bro, can you believe it? The dress couldn’t handle all this beauty! And the wine wanted in on the fun too! But the guys are loving it—we’re all cracking up at the table! Natashka’s paying for the dry cleaning, hehe!’
Natalya stared at the screen, and strangely, still no tears came. That sticky, animal fear that had gripped her only a minute ago while facing her husband with the scissors suddenly vanished. It dissolved, leaving behind a ringing, icy emptiness and clarity. It was as if someone inside her head had flipped a switch and light flooded the pathetic state of her life.
She saw not just a ruined eighty-thousand-ruble dress. She saw her future. A future where she’d always be the freeloader in her own apartment, where her boundaries would be stomped on, where her things, her money, her feelings—were just resources for Igor’s ‘family.’ She realized that if she stayed now, if she swallowed this, then in a year, he wouldn’t just hurt her emotionally—he would hit her physically. The scissors in his hands weren’t a threat, they were a promise.
‘Natasha! Did you fall asleep in there?’ came Igor’s irritated voice from the bedroom. ‘I’m hungry!’
Natalia exhaled slowly. She slipped Igor’s phone into the pocket of his robe hanging on the hook but, after a moment’s thought, took it out again. This was her only chance to call a taxi and reach the outside world, since her own phone was either broken or dead, forgotten somewhere deep in the couch.
She quietly unlocked the bathroom door. The water in the sink kept running, making it sound like she was still inside. On tiptoe, careful not to make the floor creak, Natalia slipped into the hallway. Her heart pounded so loudly it echoed in her ears like a hammer, but her movements were precise and measured, as if defusing a bomb.
She pulled down a simple jacket from the coat rack—no time for fastening a coat—just the jacket she wore when walking her friend’s dog. Her bag. Where was her bag? Thank God, she’d left it on the console by the door when she got home from work. Inside were her passport, wallet and car keys. That was enough. She needed nothing else from this house. No fur coat, no dress, no expensive cosmetics. All of it now seemed so trivial, so insignificant compared to the price of her freedom.
“Natasha?” Igor’s voice was closer now. He was coming out of the bedroom. “Why are you running the water? The meter is ticking!”
Natalia threw on the jacket, shoved her feet into sneakers without even bothering to tie them. Her hand landed on the cold metal door handle.
“I’m leaving, Igor,” she said loudly and clearly into the empty hallway.
Igor’s large frame appeared in the bedroom doorway. He was still holding the scissors, dangling from his fingers like a toy. Seeing her dressed, he froze, his face showing genuine, dumbfounded confusion.
“Where are you going at this hour?” he asked with a frown. “And what about dinner?”
“There won’t be any dinner,” Natalia replied as she opened the front door. The cold air from the stairwell hit her face, carrying with it the scent of freedom. “And I won’t be here either. Ever again.”
“Are you completely out of your mind?” Igor took a step toward her, his face turning its usual shade of angry red. “Get back here! You’re not going anywhere until you clean yourself up and apologize!”
“Check your phone,” she threw over her shoulder as she stood on the threshold. “Your sister sent you the corporate report. Take a look—this is all that you’re worth. Both of you.”
“What phone? Wait!” he rushed at her, raising his hand—unclear whether to grab her or to hit her.
But Natalia was faster. She stepped out onto the landing and slammed the heavy metal door right in his face. The lock clicked. She knew he didn’t have the keys in the pockets of his house pants, and by the time he found the spare set, she’d be long gone.
“You bitch! Open the door!” came his muffled yell, followed by the thud of his fist against the metal. “I’ll break your legs! You’ll regret this!”
Natalia didn’t wait for the elevator. She rushed down the stairs, skipping steps as she went. Her sneakers were loose on her feet, her jacket hung open, but she felt overheated. Adrenaline surged through her veins, burning away the last traces of fear. When she burst out of her building into the cold, damp autumn night, she breathed in deeply. The air smelled of wet asphalt and decaying leaves, but to her, it was the sweetest scent in the world.
She ran to her car, parked by a neighboring building, and with trembling hands pressed the button on her key fob. The car flashed its headlights in greeting. Only once she was inside, doors locked, did Natalia allow herself to relax. She tossed Igor’s phone onto the passenger seat. Let it ring. Let him search. Tomorrow, she’d buy a new SIM card, file for divorce, and hire a lawyer.
She remembered the ruined dress. One hundred and twenty thousand rubles. Plus the smashed phone. Plus the slashed sundress. That was the price. The price she paid to finally take off her rose-colored glasses.
“Got off cheap,” she said out loud into the stillness of the car, and suddenly burst out laughing.
It was a shaky, tearful laugh, on the verge of crying, but these were tears of relief. She pictured Lena now, drunk and smug, bragging to her friends about how she “put the rich daughter-in-law in her place.” Igor, eating cold potatoes, convinced that his wife would storm out for a bit and come running back, because “who else would want her.”
“You’re wrong, darling,” Natalia whispered, wiping her cheeks with her jacket sleeve. “I want myself.”
She started the engine. The motor purred steadily, instilling new confidence. Natalia turned on the headlights, their beams cutting through the courtyard darkness and illuminating the exit to the avenue. She had places to go—to her mom’s, to a friend’s, to a hotel. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that she was driving away from the man who dared to raise a hand and scissors against her.
She pulled out onto the road, merging into the flow of the nighttime city. Streetlights flashed by her window, blending into streaks. Inside Natalia, where there had been a scorched wasteland, a small but sturdy shoot of self-respect was starting to grow. She didn’t know how she’d divide the property or survive the divorce, but she knew one thing for certain: no one would ever dare touch her belongings, her soul, or her life without her permission again.
The dress was lost, so Natalia could be reborn. And honestly, that’s a hell of a trade…