The sofa had sagged under Maxim so deeply that it had formed a perfect hollow in the shape of his body. Three months was enough time for furniture to memorize the outline of its owner. The monitor screen flickered with a bluish-green glow, reflecting in his tired eyes. Somewhere in the background, game music was playing, while his fingers mechanically raced across the keyboard.
“Max, do you even hear me?” Anya’s voice cut through his concentration like a knife through butter.
“Mm-hmm,” he muttered without looking away from the screen. Five more minutes, and he would finish this level. Just five minutes.
“I’m serious! We need to talk. Now!”
Something in his wife’s tone made Maxim press pause. He turned around and saw Anya standing in the middle of the room with her arms crossed. Her face was pale, her lips pressed into a thin line. A bad sign. A very bad one.
“What happened?” he asked, trying to look interested, though deep down he already regretted pausing the game.
“What happened?” she laughed bitterly. “What happened is that my parents just transferred us another twenty thousand. For the third time in two months, Max! The third time!”
Maxim shrugged.
“So what? They offered to help themselves until I find something suitable. Your father said himself that he was ready to support us.”
“Suitable!” Anya threw up her hands. “You’ve already been offered three positions! Three normal jobs with decent salaries!”
“Anya, come on. That company in the industrial zone is an hour and a half away one way. I’d spend three hours a day stuck in traffic!”
“And the second job?”
“The salary there was fifteen percent lower than at my previous job,” Maxim grimaced, as if the offer were ridiculous. “I’m an experienced specialist. I can’t devalue myself on the job market like that.”
“Devalue yourself,” Anya repeated, steel entering her voice. “And what about the third option? The salary was good, and the office was twenty minutes from home.”
Maxim looked away. Yes, the third option had been decent. But the interview had been so boring, the HR manager had seemed arrogant, and his future boss was too young. He simply hadn’t wanted to work in that atmosphere. He had the right to choose where he worked, didn’t he?
“The team seemed weird,” he muttered. “Not my thing.”
“Not your thing,” Anya echoed. She walked over to the window and stared out at the evening city. “Then what is your thing, Max? The sofa? Your games? Living off my parents’ money?”
“I’m looking for a job!” he snapped. “The market is bad right now, okay? Crisis, layoffs. You can’t just grab the first thing that comes along!”
“You’re looking for a job,” Anya said slowly, still facing the window. “Tell me, when was the last time you sent out your résumé?”
Maxim hesitated. When had it been? A week ago? Two? Or longer? He really had meant to do it, but first he had needed to finish one difficult quest, then an update came out, and then…
“Last week,” he lied. “I sent out about five résumés.”
“You’re lying,” Anya said calmly, turning toward him. “I checked the browser history. The last time you visited a job site was three weeks ago. Three weeks, Max! And the rest of the time it was games, streams, forums.”
His cheeks flushed with indignation. How dare she check his browser? That was an invasion of privacy!
“You’re digging through my computer?” his voice rose. “Is that normal?”
“Normal?” Anya stepped toward him, and he saw her eyes shining with restrained tears. “You want to talk about normal? Is it normal for a grown man to sit at home all day playing games while his wife works two jobs? Is it normal for my parents, who spent their whole lives saving for old age, to support a healthy lazy man?”
“I’m not lazy!” Maxim shouted, jumping up from the sofa. “I’m just waiting for a worthy offer! I’m a professional, and I’m not going to sell myself for pennies!”
“My parents are not obligated to support you, darling, whether they have money or not!” Anya shouted, her voice breaking on a high note. “Get up off the couch already and find a job! Any job! I can’t live like this anymore!”
Silence fell. Heavy, ringing, full of unspoken accusations and resentment. Maxim felt adrenaline boiling in his blood. He wanted to keep shouting, defending himself, accusing her of not understanding. But when he looked at his wife’s face, he suddenly saw something there that made him fall silent.
Exhaustion. Boundless, all-consuming exhaustion.
“I’m giving you one week,” Anya said quietly. “Seven days. You find a job—any job—or you move out. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Are you joking?” Maxim muttered in confusion. “Anya, this is our home.”
“No,” she shook her head. “This is my home. My parents gave me this apartment as a wedding gift, remember? It’s registered in my name. And I have every right to decide who lives here.”
“But we’re husband and wife!”
“Then act like a husband,” she said, turning toward the door. “One week, Max. Seven days.”
The bedroom door slammed behind her with terrifying finality.
For the first two days, Maxim convinced himself that Anya had simply lost her temper, that these were empty threats, that everything would work itself out. She often flared up, but she always cooled down. He just had to wait out the storm.
He continued playing, though now he lowered the volume whenever he heard her footsteps and tried at least to pretend he was doing something useful. He opened a couple of job sites in another tab—just in case she came in to check.
Anya barely spoke to him. She came home from work late, ate dinner in silence, and locked herself in the bedroom. At night, Maxim heard her crying, but he didn’t know what to say. It seemed unfair to him that he was being blamed. After all, he hadn’t lost his job by choice—the company had gone bankrupt, his entire department had been laid off. That wasn’t his fault. Why should he grab the first option that came along? He had earned the right to wait for something worthwhile.
On the third morning, his phone rang. An unfamiliar number.
“Maxim Igorevich? This is Olga from the Career recruitment agency. I’d like to discuss a sales manager position with you at…”
He didn’t even listen to the rest. Sales? He had never worked in sales and had no intention of starting. That wasn’t his field at all. He politely declined and hung up.
An hour later, there was another call. This time they offered him a position as a technical specialist with client visits. The salary was even slightly higher than at his previous job, but Maxim immediately pictured himself dragging heavy equipment around offices, sitting in traffic, dealing with unhappy customers. No, that wasn’t for him. He was a technical expert, not a courier with tools.
By the evening of the fourth day, Anya silently placed a sheet of paper in front of him. It had an address and a time written on it—two interviews scheduled for the next day.
“I found these vacancies myself,” she said in an emotionless voice. “I arranged the meetings. You’re going.”
It didn’t sound like a request. It sounded like an order.
“Anya, I don’t even know what kind of companies these are…”
“You have three days left,” she interrupted. “Three days, Max. I’m not joking.”
On the morning of the fifth day, Maxim reluctantly put on the suit he hadn’t worn since his last day at work and went to the first interview. The company turned out to be small, the office cramped and noisy, and his potential colleagues looked at him with poorly hidden skepticism. The position required irregular hours and a willingness to “grow with the company,” which usually meant working for an intern’s salary with promises of a bright future.
“We’re a young startup,” the manager said enthusiastically, a twenty-five-year-old guy with the burning eyes of a fanatic. “We’re changing the market! Yes, at first you’ll have to work hard, but later, when we take off…”
Maxim listened with half an ear and thought only about how to leave as quickly as possible.
The second interview went a little better. A normal company, a reasonable director, a decent salary. The only problem was that they needed him to start the day after tomorrow, and Maxim still wasn’t mentally ready. He needed time to think the offer over, weigh the pros and cons, maybe negotiate better terms…
“We’ll make our decision within two days,” the director said as they parted. “If you’re approved, we’ll call.”
That evening, Anya asked how it had gone. Maxim muttered something vague about prospects and opportunities, without mentioning that the first vacancy was completely unsuitable for him and that he hadn’t exactly tried hard to make a good impression at the second one.
The sixth day passed in an anxious emptiness. No one called. Maxim sat in front of the computer, but even games no longer brought him the same pleasure. He felt the clouds gathering over him, but he still hoped Anya would back down, forgive him, give him a little more time.
The seventh day began with a phone call. The second company was offering him the position. He could start as soon as tomorrow. Maxim asked for a day to think it over—it was an important decision, after all, not something to accept rashly.
“All right,” they replied. “We’ll wait for your answer until this evening.”
He hung up and froze. There it was—the offer. A normal job, decent money, not far from home. All he had to do was say yes. Just one word.
But something inside him resisted. What if something better appeared tomorrow? What if he rushed and missed a truly good opportunity? Maybe he should wait just a little longer?
That evening, Anya came home and silently began packing his things into a bag.
“What are you doing?” he jumped up from the sofa.
“Seven days have passed,” her voice was even, though her hands were trembling. “Did you find a job?”
“They offered me one!” he blurted out. “They called this morning! I start tomorrow!”
She froze, holding his shirt in her hands, then slowly turned toward him.
“Really?”
“Yes! I swear! Do you want me to show you the call on my phone?”
Anya sank onto the edge of the bed. For one brief moment, there was hope on her face—timid, cautious, but alive.
“And did you accept? Did you give them a definite answer?”
Maxim hesitated. Only for a second, but it was enough.
“I… I said I’d give them an answer this evening. But of course I’ll accept! I just wanted to think it over…”
The hope went out. Anya stood up again and continued folding his things.
“Anya, wait! I’m telling you I agree! I’ll call them right now and say yes!”
“No need,” she replied quietly. “I understand everything. Until the very last moment, you hoped I would back down, didn’t you? That I would give you more time, another week, another month. And then more after that. You would have kept sitting on that sofa while my parents spent their last savings.”
“That’s not true!” His voice sounded desperate even to himself. “I really was looking! I went to interviews!”
“You went because I forced you,” she zipped the bag shut and handed it to him. “You don’t want to work, Max. You want to be comfortable. You want everything to be perfect: the job prestigious, the salary high, the commute short, the team pleasant. But life doesn’t work that way. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t like because you have responsibilities. Because you’re an adult.”
“I am an adult!” he almost shouted.
“No,” she shook her head. “Adults take responsibility for their decisions. Adults don’t live at someone else’s expense. Adults don’t lie to their wives and hide from reality in computer games.”
Maxim wanted to object, but the words stuck in his throat. Because somewhere deep down, he knew she was right. He had seen how she worked two jobs, how she came home exhausted, how she looked at the apartment bills with anxiety. He had seen how her father joked half-heartedly that they had to postpone repairs at the dacha because “the young couple needs help.” He had seen it all, but he hadn’t wanted to feel guilty. Because admitting guilt meant admitting that he was a failure, that he had messed up, that he hadn’t coped.
“I didn’t mean to,” he mumbled. “I really didn’t.”
“I know,” sadness sounded in her voice. “But what we want isn’t enough. What matters is what we do. And you did nothing.”
She opened the door, and Maxim realized this was the end. The real, final end.
“Anya…”
“Stay with your parents for a while,” she said without looking at him. “Get yourself together. Find a job—any job. Maybe when you become yourself again, we’ll be able to talk. Or maybe not.”
He took the bag and stepped into the hallway. He looked back—she was standing in the doorway, pale, red-eyed, but ready to see it through.
“I love you,” Anya said. “But that isn’t enough. I’m sorry.”
The door closed.
His parents met him in silence. His mother threw up her hands, his father frowned, but no one asked questions. They made up a bed for him in his old room, where posters from his student days still hung on the walls and textbooks gathered dust on the shelf.
Maxim didn’t sleep the first night. He lay staring at the ceiling, replaying the past few months in his head. How it had all started with a simple “I’ll take a short break,” how that break had turned into weeks, and the weeks into months. How every day he had postponed unpleasant decisions until tomorrow, hoping tomorrow everything would somehow solve itself.
In the morning, he called the company that had offered him the job. He apologized for the delay and said he accepted. He would start the very next day.
“I’m sorry,” the secretary replied. “But last night we hired another candidate. We waited for your call until six in the evening, as agreed. After that, we offered the position to the next person on the list.”
Maxim lowered the phone. So this was what a missed opportunity felt like. Not an abstract one, but a very real one.
The following days blurred into a haze of searches, calls, and interviews. He sent out résumés by the dozen, went to meetings without even fully understanding what the companies did. He just went. Because sitting still had become unbearable.
Two weeks later, he was offered a job. Not the most prestigious one, not the highest-paying one. Just an ordinary specialist position at a mid-sized company. But it was a job. Maxim accepted on the spot.
On his first day of work, returning home—to his parents’ place, because he no longer had any other home—he wrote Anya a message: “I started work. I’m sorry for everything.”
The reply came several hours later: “I’m glad for you. But I filed for divorce this morning. I’m sorry.”
Maxim sat down on a bench by the entrance and stared at his phone screen for a long time. He had finally done what was required of him. But it turned out to be too late.
Some mistakes can be fixed. But some cannot. No matter how right your later actions may be, they do not erase the consequences of past decisions. Or, more precisely, past inaction.
He stood up and went home—to a home that would never truly be his. Because his home, his life, his future had remained there, behind the closed door, in the apartment from which he had driven himself out. Not his wife’s anger, not cruelty, not injustice—but a simple unwillingness to change until it was too late.
And that was the bitterest truth of all the truths he had ever had to admit.
