“What’s up?”
Linda didn’t answer. She just stood in the doorway. “Want to come in?”
She nodded.
The apartment was the same. Cozy. But this time, it didn’t seem warm, but alien.
Temporary. As if she were only there passing through. “You haven’t called me once in six months,” her aunt said.
Linda knew. She didn’t say anything. “Then it must be serious.”
Her aunt didn’t insist.
She just went to the kitchen, leaving her in silence. The next morning, while her aunt was organizing some papers, Linda grabbed her bag and left without saying goodbye. She knew her aunt would understand.
In front of the door of the old home she shared with David, she felt a strange emptiness. She went in. Everything was the same.
David’s coat, his computer, his perfume in the air. Linda went to the closet, took out her suitcase, and began packing. Without rushing.
What she took or left didn’t matter anymore. The important thing was to leave. The lock turned.
“Are you here?”
David appeared in the doorway, surprised. “You came back?”
“No,” she said, closing her suitcase. “What are you doing?
About last night?”
Linda didn’t answer. “Don’t be childish, Linda.”
She picked up her suitcase, walked past him, and headed for the door. “Are you serious?”
“It’s not the first time you’ve said that,” she replied calmly.
He tried to say something, but couldn’t. She opened the door and left. Six months passed.
Linda adjusted to her new life. It wasn’t easy. The first few weeks she operated on automatic: home – work – home.
She rented a small apartment. She slept with the window open: the total silence was unbearable. Until one day, everything changed.
When she arrived at the office, the secretary, Elena, was nervously playing with her pen. “Linda Sergeyevna, you have an interview in fifteen minutes.”
“Interview?”
“A new candidate for senior specialist.”
Linda nodded. Her schedule was so tight that she no longer checked every meeting.
The door opened. David. He walked in confidently, but when he saw her, he froze.
He didn’t know. He had no idea she would be there. “Take a seat,” Linda said, without raising her voice.
He did so, trying to maintain control, even though his lips were trembling. “Uh… I’m looking for a job,” he said finally. “My company closed.”
“I see,” Linda said, without emotion.
“You work here?”
“I don’t work here. I’m the CEO.”
He looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Linda closed the folder with her resume.
“Thanks for coming. We’ll call you.”
David stood up slowly, stunned. He left without a word.
From the window, Linda watched him leave. She felt neither revenge nor joy. Only peace.
A few minutes later, Mikhail, her partner, walked in without knocking. “Was he your ex-husband?”
“Yes.”
“So what now?”
Linda looked at the resume. “He’s not right for us.”
“You could have hired him.
Let him work for you.”
“I’ve seen him “work” before.”
As she left the building, Linda saw him standing by the gate, hands in his pockets. “Someday everything had to change,” she said. “I never thought I’d come here,” he murmured.
“Me neither,” she replied. “Are you really not going to hire me?”
“If I were sitting across from you, would you hire me?”
He didn’t answer. She turned and left without looking back.
That night, the open windows let in the breeze. On the bookshelves, the books she hadn’t had time to read before. On the table, a new contract for a major project.
Her phone vibrated. It was a text from Mikhail:
“Dinner at eight. I won’t accept no.”
Linda smiled, shut down her computer, and got up from her chair.
A part of the past remained: that Linda who waited, who kept quiet, who settled for little. She was different now. And she had no intention of going back.
