“Why did you take so long to open the door? I’m already frozen,” Artyom snapped irritably as soon as the door opened.
Irina did not answer right away.
For several seconds, she simply looked at her ex-husband, trying to understand exactly what she was seeing. He was standing there with a supermarket bag, his jacket unzipped, and that same expression on his face that had driven her crazy for years. As if the whole world existed solely for his convenience.
“Why are you silent?” he frowned and, without waiting for an invitation, stepped into the apartment.
Irina automatically moved aside. Artyom walked past her with such confidence, as if he had come home from work, not shown up at his ex-wife’s apartment a month after the divorce.
He took off his shoes, hung his jacket on the hook in the hallway, and immediately headed to the kitchen.
“Well, at least the slippers are still here,” he smirked. “With you, everything always ended up getting rearranged.”
Irina slowly closed the front door.
He had given her the keys after the court hearing. All of them. She had personally checked the keyring. So now only one thought was spinning in her head: what the hell was he doing here?
Meanwhile, Artyom had already opened the refrigerator.
“Oh, cutlets? Not bad. Is there a side dish?”
He said it so calmly that Irina involuntarily clenched her fingers around the edge of the countertop.
A month.
Only one month had passed since the divorce.
And this man still had not understood that he no longer lived here.
Artyom looked into a pot, then opened the cabinet with the plates, took one out, and put it on the table.
“Why are you just standing there?” he asked over his shoulder. “Heat it up then. I’m hungry as a dog.”
Irina silently stared at him.
Tall. The same habit of giving orders without even raising his voice. The same expression of a man convinced that everyone owed him something.
Once, that confidence had seemed reliable to her.
Now it was just arrogance.
“Artyom,” she said quietly. “Have you forgotten something?”
He turned around.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly what I said.”
He gave a puzzled snort and sat down at the table.
“Ir, let’s not make a scene. I’ve been running around all day. I’m tired as hell. Can I just eat in peace?”
She did not even find an answer right away.
Not because she was confused.
But because everything inside her had literally frozen from the absurdity of what was happening.
“You came to my home. Without calling. Without an invitation. You dug through my refrigerator. And now you’re sitting here demanding dinner?”
“I’m not demanding,” he corrected calmly. “I’m just saying it like it is. I’m used to eating properly.”
Irina gave a short laugh.
A laugh so sharp that she felt it herself.
Artyom leaned back in his chair and said in that same casual tone:
“We got divorced, so what? You still have to cook dinner for me. I’m used to eating properly.”
The phrase hung in the kitchen.
A car drove past outside the window. Somewhere upstairs, a door slammed.
And Irina slowly closed the refrigerator.
A cold smile appeared on her face.
And in that very moment, she suddenly understood clearly: Artyom had not realized at all what had happened.
For him, the divorce was something like a temporary quarrel.
He sincerely believed that the stamp in the passport had disappeared, but the service remained.
“So you’re serious right now?” she asked.
“Why are you getting worked up?” Artyom grimaced. “I’m not a stranger to you.”
Blood rushed to Irina’s face.
She walked over to the table and slowly placed a bunch of keys in front of him.
Those very keys.
“Do you see this?”
“I see it. So what?”
“These are the keys you returned to me after the divorce. Remember?”
“Well?”
“That means you know you don’t live here anymore.”
Artyom let out a heavy sigh, as if he were speaking to a spoiled child.
“Ir, don’t start. We lived together for ten years. What now, are we supposed to be enemies?”
“And between ‘being enemies’ and ‘feed me after the divorce,’ you have no other options?”
He frowned.
“You’re twisting everything on purpose.”
“I am?”
Irina even laughed.
Nervously. Loudly.
Then she abruptly stopped.
“You barged into my home as if it were yours!”
“Because it used to be my home too!”
“Used to be!” she cut him off. “The key words are used to be!”
Artyom irritably ran his palm across the table.
“God, why are you yelling right away? I just came to eat normally.”
“Then go to a café!”
“And spend money on that too?”
She stared at him.
For several seconds, she simply blinked, unable to believe that a grown man had really just said that.
“So you decided to save money at my expense?”
“Oh, don’t start with your drama again! I brought groceries, actually.”
He nodded toward the bag.
Irina walked over, opened it, and silently took out:
a loaf of bread,
cheap sausages,
mayonnaise,
a can of food.
She slowly raised her eyes.
“This is what you call groceries?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“You seriously came here with a loaf of bread and expect a full dinner?”
“Well, so what? You have everything else.”
Irina closed her eyes.
Just for a second.
Because any more, and she would either burst out laughing or throw that can at him.
In ten years of marriage, Artyom had never understood the simplest thing.
Food does not appear by itself.
Towels do not become clean by themselves.
Floors do not wash themselves.
And a woman does not automatically turn into service staff just because she got married.
During the first years, Irina tried to explain.
Then she tried asking.
Then arguing.
Then she went silent.
Artyom was one of those men who sincerely believed that if his wife got home earlier than him, then she was obligated.
He never said thank you.
He never noticed how much Irina carried on herself.
But he immediately noticed if dinner was not ready at home.
“So what do we have?” he continued as if nothing was happening. “Pasta? Potatoes?”
“We?” Irina repeated.
“God, here we go again.”
“No, Artyom. I have potatoes. I have a refrigerator. I have an apartment. I have a kitchen.”
He smirked.
“Here we go.”
“No. It started when you decided to come here after the divorce to stuff your face!”
Artyom abruptly stood up.
“Watch your words.”
“Or what?”
He stepped closer.
Once, in moments like this, Irina would immediately fall silent.
But now something inside her seemed to click.
She was no longer afraid.
At all.
“Did you come here to threaten me?” she asked calmly.
“Don’t go too far.”
“Then step away from me.”
He exhaled noisily and sat down again.
“We were talking normally…”
“We were not talking. You were using the fact that I tolerated everything.”
“What exactly did you tolerate? You lived like a normal person.”
Irina gave a short nod.
There it was.
That was the real reason.
Artyom truly believed he had given her a wonderful life.
Because he had been next to her.
“Listen carefully,” she said. “You do not come here anymore without an invitation. Never.”
“Ir…”
“Never. Not to eat. Not to lie down. Not to ‘just talk.’”
He twisted his face.
“Of course. You’ve already found someone, haven’t you?”
She recoiled in surprise.
“What?”
“What? You’ve suddenly become too bold.”
Irina slowly placed her palms on the table.
“So if a woman doesn’t want to serve her ex-husband, that means she must have found someone?”
“That’s usually how it is.”
“No, Artyom. Usually, it happens differently. One day, a woman simply gets tired.”
He snorted.
“Tired of what? Living in a normal apartment?”
“Of you.”
Silence fell over the kitchen.
Artyom looked at her as if he were seeing her for the first time.
Irina looked at him carefully too.
And suddenly she understood something frightening.
He really had understood nothing after the divorce.
Nothing at all.
To him, she had remained the guilty one.
Not him, who had lived for years like a boarder.
Not him, who considered it normal to come home and immediately ask what was for dinner.
Not him, who was too lazy even to pour himself tea.
Her.
Because she had stopped tolerating it.
“Do you really think you’re right?” Irina asked.
“I think you cut everything off too abruptly.”
She smirked.
“Abruptly?”
Endless evenings flashed before her eyes.
Artyom on the sofa.
Phone in his hands.
And his usual:
“Is there anything to eat?”
No “hello.”
No “how are you?”
No “are you tired?”
Only service.
“I asked you for two years to at least wash your own plate,” Irina said quietly. “Two years.”
“Here we go…”
“No. You’re going to listen. Today, you’re going to listen.”
He rolled his eyes.
And that was what finally finished her off.
Not the words.
Not the arrogance.
But that eternal expression of a man whom everyone was preventing from living.
Irina abruptly grabbed the bag with his “groceries” and shoved it into his hands.
“Take it.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“What the hell are you doing in my apartment?”
“I came normally!”
“Normally?! You showed up after the divorce to eat at my home!”
“Don’t yell!”
“Then get out of here!”
He jumped up.
“Fine! Hysterical woman!”
“Keys on the table!”
Artyom froze.
“What keys?”
“The spare ones. The ones you made without my knowledge.”
Something flickered across his face.
Irina narrowed her eyes.
She had hit the mark.
“I’m waiting.”
“I didn’t make anything…”
“Artyom.”
He looked away.
Irina abruptly opened the drawer in the hallway, pulled out a keyring, and threw it in front of him.
“Then where did these come from?”
He was silent.
“You made duplicates?”
“Just in case.”
“What case?”
“You never know.”
Irina laughed nervously.
So that was why he had entered so confidently.
That was why he had not even called in advance.
All this time, he had believed he had the right to come in here.
“Are you even normal?” her voice broke. “We are divorced!”
“So what now? We’re strangers?”
“Yes! Exactly! After a divorce, ex-spouses do not visit each other for cutlets!”
He abruptly grabbed the keys from the table.
“Choke on your food then!”
“You’d be the one choking! You can’t even boil pasta yourself!”
Artyom yanked the cabinet door so hard that it hit the wall.
“Of course! Now everything is my fault!”
“Yes! Imagine that!”
He stepped into the hallway.
Irina followed him.
Her heart was pounding so hard that she could hear her own pulse.
But she was no longer going to back down.
“And don’t come here again,” she said firmly.
“As if I need to.”
“I’m serious. If you show up again without an invitation, I’ll call the police.”
“You’ve completely lost it…”
“What’s completely insane is secretly making keys to your ex-wife’s apartment!”
He yanked his jacket from the hook.
“Crazy woman.”
“But no longer a free cafeteria!”
Artyom glared at her angrily.
Then he abruptly opened the door.
And already on the threshold, he threw back:
“Who would even need you with a character like that?”
Irina slowly crossed her arms over her chest.
“A person who knows how to cook his own dinner certainly wouldn’t be scared.”
The door slammed so hard that the mirror in the hallway trembled.
For several seconds, Irina stood motionless.
Then she walked over to the door and turned the lock.
Twice.
After that, she took out her phone.
“Hello, Sergey Petrovich? This is Irina from apartment 126. Could you please give me the number of a locksmith? I need to change the locks urgently.”
Only then did she return to the kitchen.
She looked at the can of food Artyom had left behind.
At the open refrigerator.
At the crumpled bag.
And suddenly she burst into loud laughter.
So hard that tears came to her eyes.
Because only now did she finally understand:
she owed nothing to anyone anymore.
