Ариана Баженова – Intertwined Fates (страница 2)

The way from the airport was long. The monotonous flickering of summer landscapes outside the window lulled me. I slightly closed my eyes, and childhood memories immediately appeared in my head as bright pictures.

– Mom, Dad! – I, who had celebrated my fifth birthday a couple of months ago, ran into the spacious living room, my eyes sparkling mischievously and tightening the elastic band on my long blond ponytail. – When will the snowstorm stop and there be sun? I want to walk with you!

– So cast a spell! – Mom shrugged jokingly. – That’s what I always do. Do you know how?

– How? – I tilted my head to the side with interest, looking at her with wide eyes.

She came up to me and squatted down, smiling broadly. I looked impatiently into her bright blue eyes, wanting to know how to drive away the snowstorm.

– Clench your fist. Imagine what you want: how brightly the sun shines, and you can walk and slide down the hill. And unclench your fist, as if sending your wish into the air. Like this, – she nodded contentedly, watching as I squeezed my little hand with all my might and squinted, imagining a bright sunny day.

Then I suddenly unclenched my fist. And after that, the sun shone in the sky for two weeks without a single cloud.

My parents taught me, either as a joke or seriously, small witchcraft pranks – and after about five years I began to foresee many things, and wishes spoken out loud often came true almost immediately.

There was only one thing I never learned from them – love. At first, I thought that love was something that was earned through merit, and seeing disappointment in their eyes because of the fours in the diary, I began to bring only fives, and then – more and more victories in Olympiads. But even this stopped saving me – and I was losing ground, not understanding why another excellent mark could not guarantee their love and acceptance.

– I just opened and read your letter, which you asked me to send to your friend in another city, – the formidable figure of my mother hung over me, sitting on the sofa with my head down. – What are you thinking about? What passion for music, what boys? At your age, you should be thinking about studying. You should be ashamed of yourself!

My father stood next to me and nodded silently. At that moment, they were both against me. Everything inside was seething with anger. I was vulnerable. I trusted my mother with a request – and she unceremoniously opened my personal letter for a friend, full of girlish experiences and secrets, and shamed me for who I am. How can I devote more time to studying if I already study all day? – Where are you going to hang out with your friends? You are ungrateful! We have done so much for you! Don’t try to ask us to buy you something or help you anymore! – Mom would shout resentfully when I asked her to let me go to a cafe with my friends.

And I tried to understand. Honestly. All seventeen years. But neither the beginnings of magical abilities nor common sense could explain to me how to get my parents’ love, how to relax in their presence. Success at school, certificates, medals and scholarships no longer saved me.

Did my parents love me? Judging by their words – yes. But this love suffocated, burned, plunged into tears, demanded in return to give up myself, my freedom. Something inside told me that love can be felt differently. It must be something warm, unobtrusive, sparkling and warming, supporting in difficult times.

– How strange. I want love, but I’m afraid. Maybe now, when I’m already seventeen, I’ll be able to run away to another city, meet my loved one there? I’ll be able to forget about what was happening at home, and everything will be different in my family! – I said to my reflection with a sad smile, looking at myself in the mirror in my parents’ apartment before stepping out the door with my suitcase and leaving for a dorm in Novosibirsk.

…The car suddenly jumped on a bump. I opened my bleary eyes, looking out the window in confusion. Endless green fields gave way to dense rows of brick buildings. We stopped at one of their entrances, and the driver cheerfully turned to me:

– We’ve arrived!

I nodded to him, got out of the car, took my suitcase and looked around. A square of a yard, enclosed in high brick walls of houses, a new playground. Mothers with strollers stroll leisurely along the sidewalks, older children play in the sandbox, old ladies chat about something on the benches. Even though it was not like what I imagined when I moved to St. Petersburg – I could not see Palace Square or English Embankment from my window. Well, a quiet area on the outskirts is a great place to get used to a new city.

Having dragged my suitcase into the small apartment that was to become my new home, I exhaled tiredly and sank down onto the wide sofa. Bright rays of bright sun unceremoniously penetrated the apartment through the windows – at this time in St. Petersburg there was an abnormal heat. I quickly looked around the daylit dwelling – a studio with a small, modest kitchen, a glass table in the corner, a wide sofa and a wardrobe. That’s all I might need for the first time.

I slid off the couch and opened my suitcase in search of a towel and shower gel – I wanted to wash off the traces of a long and tiring journey. But then I discovered a lot of unnecessary things – a couple of books on psychology, a jewelry box… Obviously, I was packing in a hurry. Right after defending my diploma, I came home and started packing my suitcase, and a couple of days later I flew to St. Petersburg – I couldn’t wait to start working for a large IT company and build a bright and successful life, leaving gloomy Siberia behind. Six months before graduating from university, like most students, I was faced with the ugly truth: the labor market does not wait with open arms, and it is completely unclear where to go without experience. The naive ideas that a career will somehow start on its own, which calm you down at the intoxicating moment of admission, completely dissipate by the day of graduation. After graduating from the psychology department, I clearly understood that I wanted to continue working with people, and was determined to leave Siberia in search of a more interesting life. Fortunately, an advert for an internship at one of the St. Petersburg IT companies came across on the university website in time – and I immediately took advantage of the chance and applied.

…I climbed into the shower, letting the cool streams of water wash away the fatigue after a long flight and the unexpectedly tiring St. Petersburg heat. You need to get used to it. In just a couple of days, a job at a large IT company awaited me, a pure humanities student. With a diploma from the psychology department in hand, I could only do an internship in the marketing and advertising department – and this interested me. I couldn’t wait to find myself among smart and inventive people working on new technologies.

Although the world of complex formulas and technologies was inaccessible to me, I was always desperately drawn to this environment. Almost all my school friends were studying to be programmers, engineers, designers, and I envied them whitely, realizing that they would be doing important work for humanity in their offices and laboratories. I thought that I, a humanities student, had no way into their world, a mysterious world – also magical in its own way. But as soon as I saw the logo of the IT corporation where I was supposed to work, a premonition awoke inside me – someone was already waiting for me there, and I had to go quickly.

But who could it be?

New friends? Mentors? Or love?

I got out of the shower, wrapped my long blond hair in a towel and sat down at the table in the corner of the room that served as a kitchen, dining room and bedroom at the same time. I pulled a cup of invigorating mint tea closer, looked out the window at the quiet courtyard and tried to collect my thoughts. But they stubbornly returned to the recent past, which I so wanted to leave behind, and thought that the wings of the plane would reliably carry me away from it.

Since my youth, I was able to foresee certain events. So at the age of seventeen, I already saw in my dreams and clearly imagined what my first love would look like, and one glance and a couple of phrases between us at the university were enough for us to recognize each other’s souls without a doubt. My foresight did not fail me a few months ago either. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, calming my aching heart. On that winter day, the sun was shining especially brightly, we were chatting with a young man who had already become a groom, and laughing heartily, but even then I clearly knew that this was our last conversation. I looked into his expressive blue eyes behind the glasses, listened to his low voice, and my heart was filled to the brim with light sadness from the realization of the inevitable.

A few days later he wrote to me that he had decided to break up, because «I have more ambition than he does,» and he had no intention of moving to St. Petersburg with me.