“She’s the mother of my children. It just so happens that on your special day, I’ll be by her side. Don’t take it personally,” Kirill said, looking gently at his fiancée.
“What do you mean, don’t take it personally?” Lena nervously snapped a toothpick in half. “I’ve been by your side for almost two years, and you still can’t tear yourself away from that shrew.”
“My love, I’ve explained to you many times that the only thing worth taking personally is money transfers.”
“Then I’ll transfer you money for a gift right now.” Kirill pulled out his smartphone and opened his banking app.
“Buy yourself something nice.” The man leaned back casually in his chair in the cozy café and sent Zhanna forty thousand rubles.
“You didn’t even want to choose a gift for me yourself. You just brushed me off with money,” his fiancée said, offended. “It feels like you don’t care at all.”
“Not caring is one thing. Loving is something completely different,” Kirill said, as usual interpreting his fiancée’s words and emotions in his own way. “I love you. Those are different things.”
“Honestly, Kiryusha, I’m sick and tired of that ex of yours. You’re constantly running around after her like a loyal dog!” Lena rested her elbows on the table.
“I can still understand you seeing the children on weekends and during the week. Taking them for walks, raising them. That’s wonderful.
“I’m not even saying anything about that. But why do you constantly spend time with their mother?” Lena looked at him irritably.
“My love, we’ve discussed this more than once,” Kirill sighed heavily. “My children are still little. It’s important for them to see both their dad and their mom nearby.
“If it weren’t for the children, I would have erased Svetlana from my life long ago. But right now… I have to pretend that my ex-wife and I have normal relations.” Kirill sadly lowered his gaze.
“But you’ve already tortured everyone with the way you look after her…” Lena threw the broken piece of toothpick at him. “One day you bring her groceries, the next you’re fixing things for her, then you’re meeting her mother at the train station…”
“Yes, I buy groceries a couple of times a week. But that’s more for the children than for her. I don’t see anything terrible about it.” Kirill shook his head.
“And the boots you bought her? You even dragged them into our home. I tried them on… I thought they were a gift for me… You can’t even imagine how awful I felt when I realized they were meant for her.” Tears appeared in Lena’s eyes.
“Lenusya, you shouldn’t have gone through someone else’s things. I didn’t think you would open a sealed bag, let alone try on the shoes. I deliberately hid it under the bed so you wouldn’t accidentally see it.” Kirill took a sip of coffee.
“I came across it by accident… I was just cleaning the house. How was I supposed to know it wasn’t a gift for me for March Eighth, but for your ex-wife?” Lena snorted unhappily.
“My love, I gave you an excellent gift too. She got boots, and you got a new smartphone. I don’t remember you being especially happy about it. But Svetyusha was delighted.” Kirill looked at Lena with irritation.
“To be honest, I didn’t particularly like that moment myself. After all, I love you more. Besides, the phone cost much more than the boots.” Kirill looked thoughtfully out the window at the sunlit street.
“So she’s Svetyusha to you… Very interesting…” Lena grimaced as if she had tasted a sour lemon.
“Give me at least one reason why I should celebrate my birthday without you, while that woman gets all your attention on my special day?” Lena returned to the main topic of the conversation.
“Lena. Svetlana has surgery tomorrow. Nothing dangerous, fortunately. But at times like this, our whole family must support her,” Kirill answered seriously.
“And am I not your family? You proposed to me a year ago.” Lena nervously brushed her bangs away from her forehead. “A whole year has passed, and there’s still no wedding… What am I supposed to tell my friends if you’re not there?”
“That’s exactly what you’ll tell them. Explain that everything is fine between us and that we’re going to get married soon. And that I couldn’t come because of family circumstances.” Kirill calmly took another sip of coffee.
“We’ve been together for two years, and you still haven’t introduced me to your parents! Do they even know we’re getting married?” Lena sharply slapped her palm on the table. Several café visitors turned around in alarm.
“What does that have to do with anything? Of course they know!” Kirill answered, confused. “Don’t shout. Everything will be fine.
“You’ll celebrate your birthday calmly, and then we’ll start preparing for the wedding.” Kirill called the waiter over and asked for the bill.
“Well, Kiryusha, you really know how to do it. This is a complete setup. You knew perfectly well that I wouldn’t be able to move the celebration, and you put me in front of the fact at the last minute.” Lena abruptly got up from the table and went outside.
If only the bride had known what unexpected twist was waiting for her the very next day.
“Unfortunately, a birthday only comes once a year! But don’t be sad! There are still many wonderful days ahead. I wish you every day to be as bright as today!” Veronika hugged her friend tightly.
“And this is a gift from us.” The married couple, Irina and Sergey, handed Lena a luxurious bouquet of white roses.
“And my Kiryusha didn’t even give me a tiny bouquet this morning…” Lena thought.
“Happy birthday, dear!” her school friend Galina warmly congratulated Lena. “And I have a stylish handbag for you.”
“Wow! It must have cost a fortune… You shouldn’t have spent so much on such an expensive gift…” Lena was sincerely surprised.
The guests gradually gathered in the cozy restaurant around a long table that was practically collapsing under the weight of the food.
Lena loved her friends and had prepared a warm, heartfelt evening for them. A celebration that was missing only one person.
“Lena, where is Kiryusha? We thought he would come too…” Irina asked the very awkward question.
“He has family circumstances…” Lena answered with a forced smile.
Since morning, Kirill had not even congratulated her. When the birthday girl woke up, he was already gone from home. The bride called her fiancé several times, but he never answered.
“What could possibly be more important than the birthday of the woman you love?” Galina asked indignantly.
“An operation for someone close to him…” Lena answered coldly.
“Galina, you understand, this doesn’t look like a normal relationship at all.” When all the guests had left, Lena, after drinking a bottle of wine, began sharing her worries with her best friend.
“Not showing up for my celebration… Fine, I can somehow understand that… After all, Svetlana is the mother of his children… But not a single message from Kirill all day… That’s basic disrespect.” Lena sat in an armchair on the veranda, hugging her knees.
“Yes, that’s real disrespect, my friend. I wouldn’t tolerate that,” Galina answered indignantly.
“He thinks that because he sent money, he’s fulfilled his duty. Do you know how much that annoys me?” Lena angrily crumpled a napkin.
“Let’s go to the hospital! You can tell him everything you’ve been holding in right away,” Galina suddenly suggested.
“Actually, yes! I really want to look Kiryusha in the eyes and tell him exactly what I think of him.” Lena jumped up sharply and showed her friend with her whole appearance that she was determined.
“I remember the name of the hospital. Kirill said yesterday where they had taken her.” Lena called a taxi, and the girls went to the clinic.
“What do you mean she wasn’t admitted here? Did you check everything properly? Maybe she was transferred somewhere else?” Lena leaned over the reception desk and stared at the monitor.
“Miss, I am telling you for the third time. A patient with that surname was not admitted to us either today or yesterday,” the nurse said clearly.
Lena sank down onto a bench in the corridor, bewildered.
“Do you know his ex-wife’s address?” Galina brought Lena coffee from the vending machine.
“Yes… He brought me to her house once. She lives with her parents at their dacha. In New Moscow.” Lena took the cup.
“Then let’s go to her. We need to figure this out. If Kirill really lied, I’ll strangle him with my own hands.” Galina held out her hand to her friend. “Get up.”
It was already dark outside. The girls rode in the taxi. Galina tried to find Kirill’s ex-wife’s page on social media, while Lena stared thoughtfully out the window.
“Well, this is definitely not how I imagined my birthday. What a scoundrel. The day is almost over, and he hasn’t even congratulated me.” Lena looked at her friend.
“You can stop searching. She’s not on social media,” Lena said thoughtfully, scratching her nose. “I’ve already tried to find her a hundred times.”
“Lenusya, doesn’t it bother you that he doesn’t have a single photo with you?” Galina began scrolling through Lena’s fiancé’s page.
“There are photos with the children, with friends too, even with his parents, but none with you… As if he never proposed to you a year ago…” Galina thoughtfully shook her head.
“Yes, that has always bothered me too…” Lena took the phone from Galina and carefully looked through her fiancé’s page.
“Not only has he failed to introduce me to his parents and children in two years, he hasn’t even introduced me to his friends…” Lena added after a pause.
“He lives with me half the week, and the other half he disappears somewhere. He says he stays with the children at his parents’ place.” Lena handed Galina her smartphone back.
“He says they have a big apartment there. And after the divorce, the children spend two days with him and his family, and two days with Svetlana…” Lena sighed heavily. “And yet he’s still constantly hovering around that Svetlana.”
“Lenusya, with all due respect, you know how many years we’ve been friends… I think he’s deceiving you.” Galina put the phone in her bag and looked at her friend sympathetically.
The car pulled up to the house of Kirill’s ex-wife’s parents. Galina and Lena got out of the taxi. Lena loudly kicked the gate.
A minute later, a woman of about sixty came up to the gate. She was wearing a tracksuit, her hair gathered into a bun.
“We came to find out which hospital Svetlana is in,” Lena said quickly.
“And where Kirill is,” Galina added.
“What do you mean, hospital? What happened?” The woman behind the gate clutched her chest. “My Svetlanochka…”
“Yes! Kirill said she urgently needed surgery. And now he isn’t answering his phone,” Lena said firmly, trying with all her might to hide her irritation.
“What surgery? I only saw her off with the children this afternoon… She got into a taxi with Kiryusha and went to the amusement park. They’re staying there overnight until tomorrow evening…” The woman grabbed the fence.
“Which hospital is she in? Wait, I’ll get ready now, we’ll go together!” The woman at the gate was so confused that she didn’t even think to ask the girls who they were.
“Tell me, didn’t Kirill divorce Svetlana?” Lena mumbled in a trembling voice.
“Nonsense! They live wonderfully… True, for the last two years Kirill has often stayed with his parents. He helps them after work… But otherwise… Everything is excellent with them…” the woman answered confidently, still holding her heart with one hand and leaning on the gate with the other.
“Who are you, anyway? And how did you find out about the hospital? What happened to my daughter and son-in-law?” The woman at the gate realized that, in her emotional state, she had said too much. Now she demanded explanations herself.
“I’m Kirill’s cousin, and this is my friend. We came to visit Kirill… But his phone died,” Galina was the first to think of a way out of the conversation so they could leave calmly.
“And the story about the hospital and the divorce… It was a prank. Kirill said you had a wonderful sense of humor, so we decided to joke with you!” Lena cheerfully nudged Galina with her elbow, barely hiding her anger.
“That’s right, I remember now. Kirill told me a couple of days ago that he was going to the amusement park with the children,” Galina nodded. “Remind us of the name of the park. We’ll surprise him there.”
“You could lose your teeth over jokes like that. Have you no shame at all?” Svetlana’s mother grumbled unhappily.
“Sorry again. So what is the name of the amusement park?” Galina asked calmly.
After finding out the name, the girls got into a taxi and set off to arrange a grand surprise for Kirill.
The road took three hours. Throughout the trip, Lena sobbed on Galina’s shoulder. Lena called Kirill such crude names that even a drunk electrician who had accidentally been electrocuted had never heard anything like them.
Unexpectedly, a message from Kirill came to Lena’s phone.
“My love, I’m in the hospital. I forgot my charger. My phone is almost dead. I’m saving the battery. Don’t wait up for me today. I’ll congratulate you properly tomorrow!”
“You scoundrel!” Lena shuddered with pain, as if hundreds of stun guns had struck her all at once.
“And I loved him!
“He proposed to me…
“And he wasn’t even divorced…
“So that’s where he was going every week when he left me…
“He was going to his wife…
“So they’re living happily together, and he isn’t even planning to get divorced!
“And what am I to him? A toy? A temporary amusement?”
Lena cursed again.
At night, the girls arrived at a hotel.
“We’ll stay here, and tomorrow we’ll make a scene for him.” Lena and Galina exchanged looks.
In the morning, Lena and Galina went to the amusement park.
“What a bastard!” Lena was the first to notice Kirill and Svetlana walking through the park, tenderly holding hands.
“I’ll show them now!” Lena clenched her fists and looked furiously at the couple. “So this is how he helps his ex-wife, who isn’t his ex-wife at all.”
Lena and Galina quietly followed Kirill and Svetlana. When the couple sat down in a café and the children went off to the rides, Lena and Galina quickly sat down across from them.
“Instead of coming to my birthday, you decided to arrange a celebration for your wife? So this is how you help her!” Lena looked furiously at Kirill, who froze in confusion.
“Who are these people, Kirill? And why did she call me your ex-wife?” Svetlana looked at her husband in confusion. The husband she had never even thought of divorcing.
“Svetlanochka, the thing is…” Kirill wanted to say something in his defense, but Galina interrupted him.
“The thing is, Svetlanochka… Lena and I… We are the women your husband spends time with when you’re not around.” Galina decided to improvise and added herself to the story to shock Svetlana even more.
“See this ring? Kirill proposed to each of us. For two years, he strung us along, promising a wedding and a happy family life,” the girl added excitedly.
Galina waved an impressive ring in front of Svetlana, a ring one of her admirers had given her. Lena showed the ring Kirill had given her.
“We found out about each other by accident, and then we found out about you. So we came to look into his shameless eyes!” Galina fully stepped into the role and looked sternly at Kirill.
“It’s all lies! They made it all up… I’m seeing them for the first time… This is some kind of performance…” Kirill shouted. “Get out of here!”
“A performance, you say? Lena, show her the messages,” Galina commanded.
“Don’t you dare!” Kirill shouted as Lena handed her phone to the stunned Svetlana.
“You move, and I’ll pour boiling water over your head!” Galina deftly grabbed Kirill’s cup of hot tea.
The further Svetlana read through the messages, the wider her eyes grew. When Svetlana’s eyes became the size of saucers…
Svetlana grabbed her cup of coffee and threw the drink onto Kirill’s shirt.
“We’re getting divorced! You really are an idiot, Kirill. Damn you…” Svetlana ran out of the café in tears.
Kirill wanted to rush after his wife. Galina abruptly stood up and, grabbing Kirill by the shoulder, forced him back down into the chair.
“We’re not finished talking yet!” the girl said threateningly.
Lena stood up and walked over to a nearby table where a man was eating a bowl of hot borscht.
“Excuse me. Order yourself another portion. I’ll pay for everything.” Lena took the almost full bowl and walked back to Kirill.
“Now it’s over!” Lena poured the entire soup over her former fiancé’s head.
Lena paid for the neighboring table and, together with Galina, triumphantly left the café. The visitors watched the loud and unforgettable scene with great attention.
“Men, never cheat. It ends badly!” Galina swept her eyes over the men sitting on the veranda and, with a slight bow, followed her friend out.
Kirill and Svetlana divorced with a loud scandal. Galina’s mother was an excellent lawyer. On that very emotional day, Galina had given Svetlana her phone number. Kirill was taken for everything he had.
Six months later, Lena met true love and got married. At her wedding, Galina met the man of her dreams too.
“I didn’t even have to catch the bouquet,” the girl later joked.
People who cheat… When they are backed into a corner, they sometimes start saying it was an accident.
But the truth of life is that it is not an accident. It is their decision. We are always made up of our decisions. No one ends up in someone else’s bed by accident.
