“You’re twisting everything again!” Ilya’s voice rang so sharply that Masha flinched, even though she was trying to remain calm. “I don’t understand why you’re making a mountain out of a molehill when we’re talking about a perfectly normal solution.”
“Normal?” She set her cup down on the table so abruptly that tea splashed over the rim. “Ilya, are you serious? You call it normal to suggest selling my apartment? Before the wedding? And just like that, out of nowhere?”
“Not ‘out of nowhere’!” he exhaled, as if explaining some obvious truth to a child. “We’re adults now. We need a spacious apartment. Not this… one-room place. We’re going to live together, build a family.”
“Build a family by leaving me without my own home? Is that what ‘family’ means to you?”
Ilya ran a hand through his hair in irritation and stepped toward the window, looking down at the courtyard where cars sat soaked in the February slush. The day was gray, wet, and sticky—the kind of Moscow February that made everyone angry by default.
“Mash, why are you starting?” he said without even turning around. “It’s logical. You sell yours, I add my savings, we take out a mortgage, and buy a two-room place. In a new complex, a decent one. So we can live like normal people, not in these fifteen square meters.”
“Fifteen square meters?” Masha gave a bitter smile. “It’s thirty-six, just so you know.”
“Damn it, what difference does it make?” He waved his hand. “It all comes down to the fact that you’re just clinging to what’s yours. As if I’m trying to cheat you.”
She said nothing.
Because that was exactly what it sounded like.
And the ugliest part was that this was not the first time the thought had crossed her mind.
“Wait,” Ilya finally turned around. “Do you seriously think I would…?” He faltered, looking at her with wide, offended eyes. “That I could use you?”
“I think you’re far too comfortable making decisions about something that doesn’t belong to you,” Masha said slowly, feeling the anger begin to boil in her chest again.
“Oh, sure, sure.” He raised both hands. “Here we go. ‘It’s mine, I bought it myself, it’s the result of my hard work.’ I know. You repeat it like a mantra. But we’re planning to live together. Or maybe we’re not?”
Masha wanted to answer sharply, precisely, to the point, but suddenly she felt a strange exhaustion. As if the past ten minutes of conversation had burned away half her strength.
She sank onto a chair.
“Ilya, why is it so important to you that I sell it? What do you get out of it? You have savings too. A stable job, parents nearby. We can rent for now, or live here, and decide later. Why is this so urgent?”
Ilya twitched, as if she had struck a sore spot.
“Because it’s the right thing to do!” he snapped. “That’s what Mom said. And Dad agrees. They’re not stupid people. They understand what’s best.”
Masha slowly lifted her head.
“Ah. So here we are. Your parents again.”
Ilya tensed.
“Don’t start that.”
“Start what?” Masha could no longer hold back. “You just said they think it’s right. What about you? Do you ever think with your own head?”
“I trust their experience!” he flared up. “They worked hard their whole lives to live decently. Not like some people…”
He stopped, but it was too late.
“‘Like some people’—was that aimed at me?” Masha stood up. Her voice turned cold. “I worked my backside off for eight years to buy this apartment. Without ‘Mom said,’ without ‘Dad gave me money,’ without any of that. Alone.”
“I know!” Ilya barked, though nervousness was already showing through in his voice. “I know you’re proud. It’s just… you can think beyond your own square meters!”
Masha stepped closer.
“And can you stop repeating other people’s thoughts?”
He looked away.
A heavy, viscous silence hung between them.
Masha already understood: the conversation had gone somewhere from which there would be no easy way out. But they had to say it aloud—otherwise everything would sink into the swamp.
“All right,” she exhaled. “Let’s go point by point. No emotions. I sell the apartment, yes? We buy another one, yes? It will be jointly owned, with a mortgage. For another twenty years. Correct?”
“Well, yes,” Ilya shrugged awkwardly. “So what? It’s a normal arrangement. Everyone does it.”
“Except with everyone else,” Masha raised a finger, “both people invest equally. Or at least proportionally. But I give up everything. Everything I have. And you add a portion. Do you feel the difference?”
Ilya let out a heavy breath, as if she were torturing him.
“Mash, here we go again… your accounting!” He rolled his eyes. “There are no percentages in a relationship! A relationship is about trust!”
“Stop.” Masha lifted her palm. “You just said it. Trust. Well, trust is not asking someone to throw their safety out the window for someone else’s comfort. Trust is when no one pressures anyone. When no one gives ultimatums.”
“No one is giving ultimatums!” he snapped. “I just want a normal future! Mom said that—”
“Enough.” Masha closed her eyes. “If you say ‘Mom said’ one more time, I’m leaving and ending this conversation.”
He shut his mouth.
But it was clear in his eyes: he himself no longer understood where his own thoughts ended and where the thoughts implanted by Tamara Petrovna began—the woman Masha had met only twice, yet around whom she always felt as if she were being interrogated by a prosecutor.
A sharp phone call broke the silence.
Ilya glanced at the screen and exhaled sharply.
“Mom.”
Masha looked at him in such a way that he became embarrassed, muted the call, and shoved the phone into his pocket.
She spoke more gently.
“Ilya… do you hear me even a little? I don’t want to sell the apartment. That is a full stop. Not a comma. A full stop.”
He turned pale.
“So… that’s final? You’re not willing, for us… well… to make a sacrifice?”
The word “sacrifice” sounded so loud it seemed to strike the room.
“Sacrifice?” Masha gave a short, dry laugh. “Wonderful. So now my own apartment, honestly bought, is a ‘sacrifice.’ Excellent. Then let’s do this: your car is also an asset. Shall we sell it? Everything into one pot, right?”
Ilya visibly flinched.
“Mash… that’s different.”
“Of course it is.” She nodded. “Because what’s yours is sacred. What’s mine is just a tool.”
He wanted to object, but stopped himself.
For two minutes, they stood in silence.
At last, Ilya forced out:
“All right. I… I need to think. I don’t want to fight right now. You don’t understand me, I don’t understand you. Give me time.”
Masha nodded, feeling something tighten into a hard knot inside her chest.
“Fine. Think.”
He took his jacket and stood in the doorway for a moment, as if he wanted to say something, but then changed his mind.
“I’ll be back tonight,” he threw out curtly.
But Masha already knew: he would not come back that night.
And he really did not.
Not that evening.
Not that night.
The next morning—silence.
Then another full day.
Masha did not call.
She wandered around the apartment as if through a museum of her own decisions. She tried to work remotely, sorted reports, answered emails. Everything was mechanical, broken by pauses, with emptiness inside.
Meanwhile, the weather turned into one endless gray mush: snow, water, puddles, dirty boots in the stairwell, a perpetually wet umbrella. February crawled slowly onward, leaving behind a feeling of endless heaviness.
On the third day, Ilya texted.
“Hi. Sorry I disappeared. I want to talk. Can you tonight?”
Masha sat at her laptop, staring at the message for five minutes.
So he wanted to talk. That meant he had returned to the idea that “Mom said.” Or maybe the opposite—he had decided to step back?
She typed:
“Come at eight.”
He came.
With flowers. With a crooked attempt at a smile. With a guilty look.
“Mash, I…” He sat down without taking off his jacket. “I was wrong. I understand I went too far. I…” He hesitated. “Mom was pressuring me, yes. And I absorbed it. I needed to think everything through myself. Without her. Without emotions.”
Masha remained silent and listened, but she did not believe him.
Until she saw behavior, words meant nothing.
Ilya continued:
“I thought… Maybe we just need to communicate better all together. So you can get to know Mom, and she can get to know you. She’s a good person, honestly. Just strict. Let’s go to their dacha this weekend. It’ll be calm there, without all this…” He waved his hand. “You two can talk. She’ll understand. You’ll understand. And we’ll sort everything out normally.”
Masha wanted to refuse.
With all her heart.
But she knew that if she refused, the conflict would flare up again, and this time it would be final. And she was not yet ready to put a period at the end.
“All right,” she said quietly. “We’ll go.”
Ilya exhaled in relief.
And Masha knew: ahead of her was not a visit to a dacha.
Ahead of her was an interrogation. An interview. A test.
“Well, are you ready?” Ilya peeked around the corner of the car when Masha came out of the entrance. His voice was cheerful, but his eyes betrayed tension. The February wind struck their faces with tiny icy grains; the asphalt was covered in gray slush, the kind that made you want to curse out loud.
“Ready,” Masha answered shortly, getting into the passenger seat.
They barely spoke on the way. The radio played some pop song, and Ilya changed stations every two minutes, as if he could not sit still. Masha looked out the window, watching the city gradually give way to the outskirts, then sparse trees, then cottage settlements with fences that all looked alike.
The closer they came to the dacha, the stronger her feeling became that she was not going “to visit,” but to some kind of trial. An internal hearing where she was the accused, Tamara Petrovna was the judge, and everyone already knew the verdict.
Her future mother-in-law herself was standing by the gate—tall, in a down jacket the color of wet snow, with a perfect hairstyle that looked as if it could survive even a hurricane. On her face was a friendly smile, but Masha knew: this was not warmth. It was control.
“Oh, you’ve arrived!” she said as if she really meant, “Finally.” “Come in, my dears, I’ve been waiting and waiting for you.”
Ilya’s father, Viktor Sergeyevich, appeared briefly in the doorway and immediately disappeared again, as if afraid to be near his wife’s turbulent emotions. Masha suddenly thought that this was how he always lived: quietly, off to the side, not interfering, not arguing. She decided everything. And she always decided.
Inside, it smelled of coffee and fried meat. The kitchen table had been set so thoroughly that it looked as if six people were expected, not two. Masha made a mental note: performative generosity.
“Mashenka, take off your jacket,” Tamara Petrovna said with soft command in her voice. “How was the drive? The road is awful now, of course.”
“It was fine,” Masha replied. “We drove calmly.”
“And that’s right. Calm is what we need.” Her future mother-in-law smiled. “Young people nowadays get worked up, argue, rush around. I hear you and Ilyusha have also been… nervous. That’s not good.”
Masha felt something crack inside her.
“I hear”—which meant Ilya had already complained. They did not even need to talk properly. She already knew everything.
Ilya became embarrassed, looked away, but said nothing.
They sat down at the table. For a couple of minutes, everyone pretended to be busy with food. Then, carefully pushing a plate of vegetables toward Masha, her future mother-in-law began:
“Mashenka, I’m very glad you came. We needed to talk woman to woman. Like adults. Do you understand?”
Masha nodded, though she wanted to say something else entirely.
“You girls are smart these days, independent,” Tamara Petrovna continued in a honeyed voice. “That’s good. But sometimes… sometimes you lose sight of what matters most. Family is not a competition over who owns more property. It is shared goals.”
Ilya listened attentively, as if catching every word his mother said.
“Ilya told us you’re worried about the apartment,” his mother continued. “But, dear child, why are you clinging so tightly to those walls? It’s just square meters. Things. Family is people. Trust. Do you understand?”
“I understand.” Masha put her fork aside. “But in a family, trust should be mutual. Not one person giving up everything she has and receiving in return the opportunity to ‘trust.’”
Tamara Petrovna tilted her head to one side like a teacher listening to a student who had an inflated opinion of herself.
“Masha, what are you saying?” she gently scolded. “No one is asking you to ‘give up everything.’ Just… to sensibly combine resources. You have a long life ahead of you. A child will come someday. Or two. A couple needs space. And space requires money. You’re a smart girl. You count everything.”
“I do.” Masha nodded. “And that is exactly why I understand that my apartment is my security. I don’t want to lose it.”
A pause settled over the table.
Viktor Sergeyevich looked at his wife. She gave an almost invisible shrug.
It was a signal: “Now I will continue.”
“Security…” Tamara Petrovna sighed. “Child, you are not marrying a bandit. Ilyusha loves you. You should value that. And your apartment… well… that is the past. You must look ahead.”
“I am looking ahead.” Masha met her gaze. “And when I look ahead, I see that I’m the only one risking everything.”
Her future mother-in-law’s cheekbones twitched slightly. The sweet tone vanished.
“Masha… you are saying dangerous things. If you don’t trust the man you’re planning to build a family with from the very beginning… perhaps you should think about whether you need this family at all.”
Ilya lifted his head.
“Mom!” But there was no confidence in his voice.
She continued without looking at him:
“We don’t know you well, Masha. But we can already see that you are too… independent. Excessively so. A man beside you should feel like a man. Not like an accountant during an audit.”
Masha felt the blood pounding in her temples. She wanted to stand up and slam the door. But she did not let herself snap.
“I thought you wanted to talk,” she said quietly. “But you want to reeducate me.”
“Reeducate you?” Her future mother-in-law widened her eyes. “Goodness, no! I simply want my son to have a normal wife. A reliable one. One who won’t keep secrets from him or separate accounts, the way some women love to do nowadays.”
“What secrets?” Masha narrowed her eyes.
Tamara smiled slightly.
“Well… Ilyusha said you didn’t tell him right away how much you earn. And that you don’t want to show your contribution to the future. That’s strange. Very strange.”
Masha sharply turned to Ilya.
“What, did you complain to her that I wouldn’t show my salary statement?”
“I just…” He faltered, frightened by her tone. “Mom asked… So I told her…”
“Right.” Masha nodded. “Same as always. She asked, you told her. Nothing of your own exists with you.”
Tamara Petrovna intervened instantly, like a hawk.
“Why are you attacking him? He is honest. He is open. He has no secrets from you. But you…” She waved her hand vaguely, making Masha feel like some suspicious individual. “You are closed off. Distrustful. That’s not good.”
“But convenient,” Masha smirked. “For you.”
The words hung in the air.
The pause was heavy and thick, like the air before a thunderstorm.
Her future mother-in-law lost her patience.
“Mashenka, I will say this directly. You must decide: either you are in our family, or you are on your own. And if you choose ‘on your own,’ then say so. We won’t hold you back.”
Ilya sat with his eyes lowered, like a schoolboy who felt ashamed but did not know why.
Masha understood: this was the moment of truth.
No need for loud speeches.
No need for explosions.
Only a clear, honest position.
She pushed her plate away.
Placed her hands on the table.
Inhaled.
“All right. I’ll say it.” Her voice was steady. “I am on my own.”
The silence hit harder than any scream.
Ilya raised his eyes, stunned.
“Mash… What are you talking about? You’re…”
“No,” she interrupted. “I’m not ‘talking nonsense.’ You have all just said it. You. You demand that I dissolve into your rules. That I have no voice of my own. That I live the way that is convenient for you. But it is not convenient for me.”
Both he and his mother looked at her as if she had torn the mask off some secret.
Tamara Petrovna hissed:
“So you put your property above our son?”
Masha stood.
“No. I put my life above your schemes.”
She took her jacket and headed for the exit.
Ilya rushed after her.
“Wait, where are you going? Mash, stop! We just talked! I don’t want it like this! I… let’s do it differently, let’s start over, let’s…”
Masha turned around.
She looked at him as honestly as she could.
“Ilya. You are a good person. Maybe. But as long as you live by your mother’s words, you are not a man. You are a son. And you will always remain a son. None of your decisions are yours. And living with a man whom I have to coordinate through his mother… I’m sorry, but that is not my life.”
It was as if he had been struck.
He stood there blinking, lost, small, and suddenly foreign.
She stepped out into the cold, damp air.
Behind her, she heard only Tamara Petrovna’s muffled voice:
“Leave her. It’s for the best. We don’t need someone like that.”
She took a taxi home.
She sat looking at the streams of wet lights and the gray haze behind the glass. The car gently bounced over potholes, while inside Masha felt a strange calm.
Not joy.
Not relief.
Clarity.
She entered her apartment late that evening. Took off her boots. Went to the kitchen. Everything was in its place. Quiet. Peaceful.
She poured herself some tea.
Sat down.
There was no loneliness in that silence.
There was freedom.
Yes, it hurt. It was bitter. It was offensive. But beneath all that pain, for the first time in a long while, she felt a strong, reliable foundation.
Herself.
Her apartment.
Her will.
Her decision.
She had not lost.
She had chosen.
Her phone vibrated. Ilya had written a long message. Then a second one. Then a third—apologetic, confused, desperate.
She did not read them.
She turned off the sound, placed the phone face down, and said aloud, almost in a whisper:
“That’s it. Enough.”
And for the first time in a long while, it became easy for her to breathe.
