Vita hadn’t left the apartment for three years, two months, and twelve days. She kept track—each morning, she would mark a cross in a thick black notebook. She also wrote down phrases from books and inserted magazine cutouts—pictures of beautiful places and sometimes actors, especially Tom Hardy.
Actually, living without leaving home isn’t hard at all. There’s enough fresh air if you open the balcony door, and there’s plenty of sun in her room—the window faces south. She could video call friends, order clothes by courier, study remotely, and even call a doctor to her home. Besides, she wasn’t living alone but with her parents. She used to live with her sister too, but now she had moved in with Boris—a bearded veterinarian who collected soda cans and grew bonsai. Their wedding was scheduled next month, which Vita wouldn’t attend—not because she didn’t love her sister, but simply because she never left the house.
Her sister, Kira, was her complete opposite. Even before Vita confined herself to the apartment, they were different in every way. Kira was loud and impulsive, Vita was quiet and unhurried. Kira was bold and decisive, able to swim across rivers and climb up to the fifth-floor balcony, while Vita was a coward who would wide circle around dogs. Strangely, although they used to live quite discordantly, Kira had become kinder and more attentive to her sister, taking on the role of an older sibling even though she was actually three years younger.
«We’re going to Bali,» Kira announced during a dinner they attended with Boris. «A pre-wedding trip. Then I’ve got a new project, no time for trips.»
Kira worked at a group of companies that created software for the financial sector—a very un-feminine job. «You could visit the Charlie’s Chocolate Factory,» Vita suggested. «There are such beautiful huts, unreal. And there’s also an art museum and a house from the movie ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, and…»
«Dear, why don’t you fly there yourself?» interrupted their mother, who still harbored hope that her daughter would one day leave the house.
Vita fell silent, and an awkward pause hung over the table.
«I bought a new bonsai tree,» Boris suddenly said out of place.
Nevertheless, Vita looked at him with gratitude, as if he had intentionally changed the subject.
Mom promised to water the trees. And Kira promised to visit all the places Vita told her about and send detailed photo reports, which she did. Vita examined the photos with maniacal attention, comparing them to online pictures and mentally checking off: «really worth seeing» or «total disappointment.» She also noted how her sister’s tan and neon swimsuit suited her, and Boris, when he shaved his beard, somewhat resembled Tom Hardy. Odd, considering Tom Hardy also wore a beard, but his was completely different.
She told Vita about the accident first, not wanting to upset their mother. But such a thing, of course, couldn’t be hidden—even the local news portals wrote about it because there was difficulty transporting Boris back to his homeland.
Kira got off lightly—a few scratches, a broken rib. Boris was less lucky—a complex spinal injury, a displaced leg fracture, a serious concussion… With the same maniacal attention, Vita examined the photos Kira sent to the family chat—Boris’s face was swollen and unrecognizable.
He spent a lot in the hospital, including the day of the wedding. The festive dinner in a fancy restaurant had to be canceled, and it seemed, so did the wedding itself. But Kira hustled, gathered the necessary documents, and they were married in the hospital. As mom told it, Boris objected, saying why would she want a disabled husband, but Kira joked it off and reminded him that a wife should be with her husband in sickness and in health, better to start in sickness and then move to health.
While Boris was in the hospital, everything was more or less fine: mom brought him soups in a thermos, Kira procured rare medicines. Then he was discharged, and the young family faced their first crisis—Boris wore out three caregivers in a week, after which Kira threw up her hands.
«I have this feeling,» she confessed. «Like he’s doing this on purpose so I would quit my job and take care of him. And it’s not about the money, I have savings, but we have a project, I can’t just drop everything!»
«Don’t worry,» said mom. «Bring him to us, I’ll take care of him.»
«Mom, he’s just unbearable, you won’t be able to.»
«Me?» she snorted. «After dealing with your teenage years, I can handle anything.»
Mom really did manage quite well, although Boris truly behaved horribly: refused to eat, to exercise, etc.
«He needs antidepressants,» Vita mused, who reacted to her son-in-law’s appearance in the apartment as if her mom had brought home a budgie—showing no external interest.
«That’s an idea!» mom was pleased.
A few days later, she had the necessary prescription, but Boris refused to take the pills.
At first, Kira came to spend the night with her husband, back at her parents’ apartment, but it was a long drive, and she had a project, so she began staying at home. Boris grew increasingly morose and did his muscle-strengthening exercises less and less.
Once, when dad was still at university (he taught philosophy), and mom went to the theater with a friend (they adored one actor and invariably attended all his plays three times), Vita quietly entered the room where Boris lay in a specially bought medical bed and asked into the void:
«Can I take your bonsai when you die?»
Nobody had said anything like that to Boris—everyone, on the contrary, assured him that he would definitely recover, stand on his feet, and all that. Maybe that’s why he didn’t stay silent as usual but slightly rose in bed and said indignantly:
«Why would you think that? Better to bury me with them, I’ve been growing them for ten years.»
Vita shrugged and answered.
«Well, as you wish. I would have taken care of them.»
She walked into the room and sat on a chair next to the bed.
«Do you want me to read to you?» she offered.
Boris grunted.
«‘The Master and Margarita’, maybe?»
«Why that?»
«Well, people like you always love ‘The Master and Margarita’.»
«I actually wanted to suggest ‘Harry Potter’.»
Boris rolled his eyes.
«That’s a good tale. Calming.»
He didn’t respond, and Vita went and grabbed the third part of ‘Harry Potter’ and returned to Boris’s room.
«Hey, this isn’t the first book!» he was surprised.
«The first two are boring,» Vita snapped. «But if you want, we have ‘The Master and Margarita’, left by Kira.»
She didn’t even understand why she said that—it was actually mom who loved that book, and Kira hardly read anything.
They didn’t talk much—Vita would come into his room with a book, read aloud for about an hour, surprisingly well—artfully changing voices and tones, as if performing a little play, and that was all.
Then they started talking. Just about nothing—they both were involuntary recluses, and their world had shrunk to one apartment with a window like a TV and the internet. Vita had already gotten used to seeing the world that way, indirectly, but Boris, apparently, couldn’t come to terms with it.
One day Vita said:
«Listen, why are you sulking—doctors say you can fully recover, but you need to work, work a lot, not just lie there like a banana peel.»
«Why a banana peel?» Boris was always surprised—her comparisons were beyond him.
«Because what’s the main thing in a banana? The filling. Just like in a person. The soul is the main thing, and the body is just a shell. Who needs a banana peel without the actual banana?»
Boris was offended.
«I have a soul, it’s just the peel that’s letting me down.»
«No,» Vita objected. «When there’s a soul, the peel is always smooth and beautiful.»
«And you then, are you also a banana peel?»
He probably expected Vita to argue, but she just nodded. That’s how the topic of Vita’s voluntary confinement within four walls first came up between them.
Several times Boris beat around the bush, asking questions one way or another. Then he asked directly.
«Why do you never leave the house? Do you have, like, agoraphobia?»
She shrugged as usual.
«But something must have happened for you to be like this… Maybe someone hurt you?»
Vita didn’t answer. What did he think? That she hadn’t been asked these questions before! The parents had done everything but bring a psychic home to find out what happened to their youngest daughter.
Once, when Kira found a slot in her busy schedule and came to visit her husband, she was very surprised to see that he no longer refused medications, diligently did his exercises, and overall—was clearly improving. Mom said:
«I told you—you can’t mess around with me. Listen, Kira, are you planning to take your husband back? Or should I adopt him?»
«Of course, I came for that—our project is ending, I thought that if I spend more time with him, he’d recover faster, well since that’s the case… We’ll move him over the weekend, I’ll order a car.»
It seemed that after that day, the apartment should have been filled with joyful anticipation, like before New Year’s Eve—all lovers reunited, the lady of the house free for her hobbies and theater trips, and Vita no longer needing to read and make sure Boris did all the necessary exercises. But no—mom sighed for some reason, Vita read as if she was a robot, and Boris returned to his old tactics and hid the medicines under the pillow.
On the eve of his departure, Vita entered his room (dad, as usual, was tormenting his students, mom went to a violet exhibition), sat down on a chair, and said:
«I liked this one boy, we met playing Mafia. He was so cool: with tattoos and very much like Tom Hardy. And I didn’t know how to meet him properly. So I started following him. Naturally, like detectives in movies. I even read a book about it, found it on the internet.»
She paused, examining the nails on her fingers as if surprised they were there. Boris said nothing.
«I honestly don’t know if all this really happened or if I made it up. I read books that the brain sometimes creates these incorrect memories. Anyway, once I was following him and saw how… There were three of them, huge thugs. He owed them something or did something wrong, I didn’t understand anything—I pressed myself against the wall and stood there, eyes closed. I’m a coward. I should have run, right away, as soon as it started, but it was like I was paralyzed. Then one of them, with a glass eye, noticed me. I thought they would do the same to me… But this one with the eye came up to me and whispered, ‘Tell anyone and the same will happen to you.’ And he laughed. Tell me, would they have let me go if it were true? I don’t know… But then I always felt like someone was following me. I even gathered the courage and decided to go to the police. Walking there felt like going to the gallows. And all the time I kept looking back. I see him. With the glass eye. I ran off in the other direction, pretended to go to a store for stationery. And the next day, I found a dead woodpecker in the mailbox. That’s the absolute truth, mom saw it too. But she said it was just the boys from the courtyard messing around, she always scolds them because they trample her flower beds. That’s after the woodpecker I decided to sit it out at home for a while. And then, you know, I got used to it. It’s calm here. Safe. I thought—if they show up here, I’ll definitely go to the police. But there was nothing. And no more woodpeckers either.»
She fell silent, licked her dry lips. She wasn’t looking at Boris, still staring at her fingers. So she jumped when he, swaying and holding onto a stool, suddenly took the first real step during that time. If she hadn’t caught him, he would have fallen to the floor, but she caught him. And then what was bound to happen, happened—he kissed her.
They were both scared by all this, stunned, but at the same time… happy? He began to talk about how he would definitely get on his feet and protect her from any bandits, that he would explain everything to Kira himself, that she was so amazing and knew so much, although she had never been anywhere…
Vita didn’t sleep that night. She flipped through her notebook with cutouts, and something new and incomprehensible was born in her soul. When the sun rose, she had a short letter ready for Boris and a slightly longer one for her parents. She didn’t write to Kira, she would send her a selfie later. The money she had saved over the years (she freelanced writing articles about celebrities and different countries) should be enough for a while, and then she would figure out what to do. She hadn’t dared to buy a ticket herself, though she had found a list of countries that let her in without a visa, but she had registered at a travel agency that worked on Saturdays—let them help her and send her somewhere today, a one-way ticket. She took her packed bag, resolutely opened the door, and stepped outside.
It turned out that the sun outside was completely different from the one inside, she had forgotten about it. And the smells were different, and the noise—it dazzled her, deafened her, filled her with both exhilaration and terror. But she didn’t stop—she walked forward. It was time to visit all those places from the pictures, and then find her Tom Hardy, not steal him from her sister…
