Alina entered the rented apartment and pressed the set of keys to her chest.
Four years.
Four years of denying herself vacations, new dresses, and restaurant meals. Four years of watching other people live while she saved every penny.
Kirill was sitting on the sofa, scrolling through something on his phone. He raised his eyes and glanced briefly at the keys in her hands.
“Did you get them?” he asked without much interest.
“Yes.” Alina smiled. “Here they are. Real keys. To our apartment.”
She placed the keys on the dresser and went into the bathroom. She wanted to wash the entire day away—all the lines, signatures, and documents. She wanted to stand beneath the hot water and imagine how they would go there together tomorrow, how they would decide where to put the bed and where to hang the curtain rod.
Water streamed over her shoulders, and Alina hummed quietly, almost soundlessly. She could not sing, but today she was allowed to.
Today, anything was allowed.
When she came out, drying her hair with a towel, the dresser was empty.
Alina blinked. She looked at the floor, then at the windowsill, and then back at the dresser.
“Kirill,” she called calmly. “Where are the keys?”
“Oh.” He did not even look up. “Olga stopped by. She took them so she could see the apartment.”
Alina froze, still holding the towel.
“Who took them?”
“Olga. My sister. You know Olga.”
“I know her,” Alina said slowly. “I don’t understand why you gave her my keys.”
Kirill looked at her with mild irritation, as though she were a child asking a stupid question.
“She wanted to see the place. What’s the big deal? She’s not a stranger.”
“She is a stranger,” Alina said. “As far as that apartment is concerned, she is a stranger. It is my apartment. Why didn’t you ask me?”
“You were in the shower.”
“I was in the shower for fifteen minutes.”
“Well, sorry.” He shrugged. “She was in a hurry.”
Alina sat on the edge of the bed. A thin warning sound seemed to be ringing inside her head. She took a deep breath, then another.
“All right,” she said evenly. “Call her. Tell her to bring the keys back.”
“Now? It’s already late.”
“Now.”
Kirill rolled his eyes but dialed the number. The conversation was brief. He ended the call and said:
“She’ll bring them tomorrow morning. She’s already home. She’s not going to drive over this late.”
Alina nodded.
She decided that Kirill simply had not thought it through, as usual. During their five years of marriage, she had grown accustomed to his impulsive decisions and his constant, “Come on, what’s the big deal?”
She went to bed, but sleep would not come. Something scratched at her from the inside, making it difficult to breathe.
Alina woke early the next morning. Kirill was still asleep, hugging his pillow. She quietly got up, dressed, and drank coffee while standing by the window.
At a quarter to nine, she called Olga.
“Hello?” Olga’s voice sounded sleepy and annoyed.
“Olga, it’s Alina. I’m coming for the keys. Where are you?”
There was a pause.
Then Olga said:
“What keys?”
“The keys to my apartment. Kirill gave them to you yesterday.”
“Oh.” Another pause. “Listen, I’m busy right now. How about this evening?”
“No,” Alina said calmly but firmly. “Not this evening. Now. I need the keys.”
“Why are you getting so worked up? I didn’t eat them.”
“I’m not worked up. I simply want my keys back.”
Olga snorted.
“Fine. Come to the apartment. I’ll give them to you there.”
“Which apartment?”
“Yours, obviously. I’m here.”
Alina opened her mouth.
“Where are you?” she asked again.
“In the apartment,” Olga replied as if she were explaining something obvious to an idiot. “In yours. Come over.”
The call ended.
Alina stood in the middle of the kitchen. Her head felt empty, filled only with a sharp ringing.
Then a thought appeared, clear and cutting:
Something was wrong.
Something was very seriously wrong.
She turned around. Kirill was standing in the doorway, scratching his stomach.
“Is there any coffee?” he asked.
“Your sister is in my apartment,” Alina said. “Did you know?”
He hesitated.
“You knew,” she repeated.
“Listen.” He raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Don’t start. She only wanted to look around. Well, maybe she spent the night there. Nobody’s living there anyway.”
“She spent the night in my apartment?”
“In ours,” he corrected her.
“No.” Alina shook her head. “Not ours. Mine. The apartment is registered in my name. It was bought with my money—with my grandfather’s inheritance, my father’s money, and my aunt’s money. You did not contribute a single kopeck, Kirill. Not one.”
He grimaced.
“Here we go again. I already explained that I had expenses.”
“Yes. Expenses for your sister, your brother, and your family. Meanwhile, my family spent four years gathering money so I could buy an apartment.”
“Well, great.” He shrugged. “You bought it. Why are you getting so worked up?”
Alina did not answer. She picked up her bag and left.
The taxi got her there in twenty minutes. She climbed to the third floor and stopped in front of the door.
Her door.
The one marked with the number 38.
It was locked. She rang the bell.
Olga opened it.
She was wearing a bathrobe and holding a cup. Behind her, Alina could see a sofa—not Alina’s sofa, but some other old, worn-out thing covered in a floral pattern. There was also a coffee table and several boxes.
“Oh, you’re here.” Olga stepped aside. “Come in. Sorry about the mess. I’m still getting settled.”
Alina crossed the threshold and looked around.
There was an old wardrobe in the room, its varnish peeling. Someone’s jackets hung on a coat rack. Someone’s slippers lay on the floor.
“What is all this?” Alina asked.
“My things.” Olga took a sip from her cup. “I’ve settled in a little. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I do mind.”
“Oh, come on.” Olga waved her hand. “The apartment was standing empty. And I’m in a difficult situation. My Igor is with his new woman now, and he needs the apartment. Where am I supposed to go? I can’t live on the street.”
“Then live on the street,” Alina said. “Or with your brother. Or with a friend. Anywhere but here.”
Olga laughed. It was a short, unpleasant laugh.
“Are you serious? I’m your husband’s sister. His own sister. I’m not some stranger off the street.”
“You are a stranger as far as this apartment is concerned. And you are here without my permission.”
“Kiryukha gave me permission.”
“Kirill has no right to give you permission.” Alina felt something hot and heavy rising in her chest. “This is not his property. Legally, he has absolutely no connection to this apartment. None.”
Olga put the cup on the table and crossed her arms.
“You know what?” Her voice hardened. “You can stand there and throw your weight around all you like, but I’m not going anywhere. I have nowhere else to go, so you’d better get used to it.”
“Get used to it?” Alina smiled.
It was a strange smile, without warmth or amusement.
“You broke into someone else’s apartment, and you’re telling me to get used to it?”
“I didn’t break in. Someone gave me a key.”
“The key was given to you by someone who had no right to give it away.”
“He’s your husband!”
“He is my husband,” Alina agreed. “But this is my apartment. And now you are going to pack your things and leave.”
Olga snorted.
“Sure. Keep dreaming. Call whoever you want. You’re not getting me out of here. You don’t have that kind of power.”
Alina took out her phone and began recording the room, Olga’s belongings, and Olga herself standing there in a bathrobe with a cup.
“What are you doing?” Olga tried to cover the camera with her hand. “Put that away!”
“I’m documenting the fact that you are living here illegally,” Alina said calmly. “For my lawyer.”
The One-Day Life Project, Vladimir Leonidovich Shorokhov
That evening, Alina returned to the rented apartment.
Kirill was sitting exactly where she had left him—on the sofa with his phone.
“So?” He looked up. “Did you meet your new neighbor?”
“What neighbor? Your sister, who has occupied my apartment?”
“Our apartment,” he corrected her again.
“The documents.” Alina tossed several sheets of paper onto the table. “Read them. The purchase agreement. The property-ownership certificate. Everything is in my name. Every payment came from my accounts. The money came from my inheritance and gifts from my relatives. You contributed nothing, Kirill. Literally nothing.”
He picked up the documents, flipped through them, and threw them back onto the table.
“So what? We’re husband and wife. Everything belongs to both of us.”
“No.” Alina sat across from him. “Not everything. Property received through inheritance or as a gift is not considered jointly acquired marital property. That is the law. Look it up.”
“So now you’re giving me legal lectures?”
“I’m explaining reality to you. Your sister is occupying someone else’s property—my property. And if she is not gone by tomorrow morning, I will file for her eviction.”
Kirill stood up and began pacing around the room. His face grew increasingly angry.
“Have you completely lost your mind?” he shouted. “She is my sister! My own sister! She has nowhere to go! Do you understand that? And you’re standing there waving legal documents around!”
“She has somewhere to go. She can stay with your brother Igor, in his apartment. Or she can rent a place, just as you and I rented one for four years while I saved money.”
“Igor can’t take her in. He has a girlfriend!”
“And I have my own life,” Alina said quietly. “I worked for four years to build that life. I accepted a position that is destroying me because it pays well. My father sold a plot of land where he had wanted to build a house for himself, just so he could help me. My aunt gave me her last savings. Meanwhile, you spent all your money supporting your relatives. And now you want your sister to live in the apartment that my family paid for?”
“It’s only temporary!”
“There is nothing temporary about this.” Alina shook her head. “She has already unpacked and brought in furniture. What part of that is temporary?”
Kirill stopped in the middle of the room. He looked at her with a new expression—a mixture of anger and contempt.
“Do you know what you are?” he hissed. “You’re selfish. A cold, calculating egoist. You’re ready to throw a member of the family onto the street.”
“Your sister is not my family,” Alina said. “And after this, she never will be.”
“What about me? Who am I to you?”
“You are my husband. For now. But if you tell me that you support this takeover, you will become nobody to me.”
He remained silent for a long time, breathing heavily.
“Olga has nowhere to go,” he finally said. “I can’t throw her out.”
“You could have chosen not to give her my keys.”
“They’re just keys!”
“They are a symbol, Kirill. A symbol of trust. Trust that you threw into a ditch without even thinking.”
His jaw tightened.
“If you force me to choose between you and my sister—”
“I’m not forcing you.” Alina stood. “You already chose. You chose when you gave her the keys. You chose when you helped her move her furniture—and yes, I know you helped her. The neighbor across the hall described you. You chose when you lied to my face this morning. You have already made your choice.”
“And what happens now?”
“Now I’m giving you and your sister twenty-four hours. By this time tomorrow, the apartment must be empty.”
He laughed—a bitter, abrupt sound.
“Or what? You’ll call security? Beat us up? You wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“I will hurt someone,” Alina said, looking directly into his eyes. “If I have to. Do not mistake my kindness for weakness. I am kind, but I am not weak.”
Alina did not sleep that night.
She sat at her laptop, exchanging messages with a lawyer. After an online consultation and hours of preparing documents, she had a completed eviction notice and a clear plan by morning.
Kirill left early while she pretended to be asleep. He slammed the door and did not say goodbye.
Alina got up, washed her face, and drank some coffee.
Then she methodically packed all her belongings into the boxes she had brought the previous week. She carefully pushed Kirill’s belongings against the wall. His boxes went there too.
Everything that belonged to him was placed separately.
Everything that belonged to her was separate as well.
She called a moving company. The movers carried down her boxes and loaded them into the truck. Alina got into a taxi and went to the familiar address.
Olga opened the door.
She was standing in the same position and wearing the same bathrobe, only this time she was not holding a cup.
“Oh,” she said sourly. “You’re here. Come to evict me, have you?”
“Something like that.” Alina handed her a document. “This is an official eviction notice. By law, you have three days. But I’m offering you the chance to leave today, peacefully.”
“You can shove your notice where the sun doesn’t shine,” Olga snapped.
“Where exactly?”
“Up there.”
“Be more specific.” Alina took out her phone and began recording. “I’m documenting everything.”
Olga opened her mouth and then closed it.
Kirill came out of the room.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked hoarsely.
“Exactly what I said I would do yesterday.”
Alina walked past them and entered the room. She recorded the furniture, belongings, and boxes.
“This is illegal occupancy. This is somebody else’s property. This is unlawful self-help.”
“This is family!” Olga shouted. “Do you even understand what family means?”
“I do.” Alina turned toward her. “Family means people who support you. People who do not betray you. People who do not force their way into your life without permission. This”—she gestured around the room—“is parasitism.”
“You’ve become completely shameless.” Olga stepped toward her. “I’m going to teach you a lesson!”
“Go ahead.” Alina did not step back. “Do it on camera. Please.”
Kirill grabbed his sister by the shoulder.
“Ol, don’t. She’s provoking you.”
“I am not provoking anyone.” Alina put her phone into her pocket. “I am protecting my property through legal means. You are the ones breaking the law.”
At that moment, the intercom buzzed.
Alina went to open the entrance door. It was the movers carrying her boxes.
“Bring them in,” she said. “Put them in the second room, the one on the right.”
Kirill watched strangers carrying his wife’s boxes into the apartment. His expression changed from surprise to anger, and then from anger to confusion.
“What about mine?” he suddenly asked. “Where are my things?”
“In the rented apartment,” Alina replied calmly. “Where they were.”
“You didn’t bring them?”
“Why would I? They’re your belongings. You can collect them yourself.”
“Are you throwing me out?”
“I’m not throwing you out.” Alina looked directly at him. “I’m giving you time to think. Think about what you did, whom you chose, and what you have become. You can live alone for a while.”
“You…” Kirill stepped toward her, his hands trembling. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
“I do.”
“You’re putting me out like a dog!”
“You put yourself out. You did it when you decided that my money was your money, that my apartment was your apartment, and that my life was your toy.”
Kirill choked with rage.
Then he turned and began kicking one of Alina’s boxes.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
“Kiryukha, stop!” Olga screamed.
But he did not hear her. He continued kicking the cardboard until books spilled out onto the floor.
Alina approached him from behind, grabbed his shoulder, and spun him around.
Then she struck him directly in the face—a short, precise blow driven by the turn of her hip, exactly as she had been taught in the self-defense classes she had taken three years earlier.
Kirill grunted and stumbled backward. He tried to keep his balance but tripped over the scattered books and fell, awkwardly landing on one hand.
There was a sharp crack from his wrist.
Blood began flowing from his split lip.
“You… You…” He stared up at her, clutching his arm.
Alina grabbed him by the collar and dragged him toward the door. He was heavy, but adrenaline made her stronger. She opened the door and pushed him out onto the landing.
“Now you,” she said, turning toward Olga.
Her sister-in-law backed away.
“You’re sick!” Her voice trembled. “You’re insane! I’ll sue you!”
“For what? For defending my property against an illegal intrusion? Go ahead and try. I have the documents.” Alina slapped the bag hanging from her shoulder. “I have the recordings. I have the eviction notice. And there”—she pointed toward the door—“is your brother, who broke into my apartment, started destroying my belongings, and received exactly what he deserved.”
Olga stared at her.
There was fear in her eyes—real, animal fear.
“Pack your things,” Alina said. “Otherwise, I will call a removal service, and they will pack them for you. Then they will leave everything outside your building, including your shabby sofa.”
Olga did not move.
“Now,” Alina added.
She did not shout. She spoke quietly and evenly, which made her sound even more frightening.
Olga began packing her belongings. Her hands trembled. She dropped clothing and became tangled in plastic bags.
Alina stood and watched.
She did not help.
She did not interfere.
She simply watched.
Then Olga suddenly ran away. Alina did not understand where she went or why, but she did not care. She called the same company that had delivered her own belongings, and within an hour, nothing belonging to anyone else remained in the apartment.
Alina called her sister-in-law.
“Your junk is outside your building,” she said. “The sofa, the wardrobe, and all the bags. Pick it up before it starts raining.”
“You’ll pay for this,” Olga hissed.
Alina did not answer. She simply ended the call.
Kirill sat in the rented apartment, surrounded by his boxes.
His arm ached, and his lip was swollen. An unfinished sandwich and an empty cup sat on the table.
He stared at his phone.
He expected Alina to call, apologize, admit that she had overreacted, and ask him to come back.
The phone remained silent.
He tried calling her.
“The subscriber is unavailable.”
She had blocked him.
He sent her a message.
It was not delivered.
Kirill leaned back in his chair. His mind felt empty, filled with a hollow buzzing.
He could not understand how it had happened.
Just yesterday, he had had a wife, an apartment, and a life.
Today, he had a split lip, an injured wrist, and boxes in an empty rented room.
The rent was due the following week, and he barely had enough money.
He had grown accustomed to Alina paying for everything.
Always.
He called Olga.
“Well, are you happy now?” Her voice was sharp and angry. “Did you enjoy the circus you created?”
“Me? You created it!”
“I only wanted somewhere to live! Temporarily! Couldn’t you calm her down and explain things properly?”
“You don’t know her! She’s… She’s insane!”
“You’re the insane one!” Olga began shouting. “Because of you, I have no roof over my head! My things are getting soaked outside the building! The neighbors are staring at me as if I’m homeless!”
Kirill ended the call.
Then he sat for a long time, staring at the wall.
There was blood on his shirt. His hand ached. His lip was so swollen that he could barely close his mouth.
He remembered the way Alina had looked at him before striking him.
There had been no anger in her eyes.
And then he understood.
She was not coming back.
Ever.
He had lost her at the exact moment he gave away the keys.
He simply had not noticed.
He had thought it was a small thing.
He had thought they would work it out.
He had thought, “Where could she possibly go?”
But she had not gone anywhere.
She had simply left.
And she had taken everything with her—the apartment, the money, and the future.
She had left him with nothing but boxes and a battered face.
Kirill buried his head in his hands.
In the corner of the room lay his jacket—the same jacket he had worn while helping Olga move her furniture.
Her spare key was still in the pocket.
It was useless now because Alina had almost certainly changed the locks already.
He had lost.
Completely.
Absolutely.
Irrevocably.
And somewhere across the city, Alina stood in her empty apartment, looking at a wall that needed to be painted.
She smiled.
Quietly and wearily, but she smiled.
Because it was her apartment.
Her life.
Her choice.
