Ivan Kniaziev – What Remains After Goodbye (страница 3)

She tore out a page carefully, as if the paper mattered.

“What are you doing?” Ethan asked.

Mira didn’t answer. She wrote something quickly, her handwriting fast and a little messy. Then she folded the paper once, and again, and held it out to him.

Ethan looked at it. “What is this?”

“An offering,” she said, as if she were half teasing.

He took it, turning it over in his fingers. “I’m supposed to open it?”

“Not here,” she replied. “Later.”

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s suspicious.”

“It’s practical,” she corrected. “We didn’t exchange numbers last time. And if we keep relying on rivers and luck, this will turn into a very strange friendship.”

Friendship.

The word landed softly between them. Not too intimate. Not too distant.

Ethan unfolded the paper carefully.

There was a phone number.

And beneath it, one line:

If you come back, don’t come back only to the river.

He looked up.

Mira was watching him closely, her face unreadable, like she’d handed him something more than a number.

Ethan held the paper a little tighter.

“Okay,” he said, and he meant it.

Mira leaned back again, as if she’d done what she came to do.

The sky deepened toward evening. The city lights began to wake up one by one. And for the first time in a long time, Ethan felt the smallest shift inside himself – a quiet opening, as if something that had been sealed shut had moved, just slightly, toward air.

He slipped the paper into his pocket as if it were delicate.

As if it mattered.

Because it did.

Chapter Three

They didn’t meet the next day.

Ethan stared at the folded piece of paper on his kitchen table more times than he cared to admit. He told himself he was being careful, that waiting was sensible, that rushing into something undefined had never worked out well for him before.

The truth was simpler: he didn’t want to do it wrong.

He reread her sentence in his head more than once.

If you come back, don’t come back only to the river.

It sounded like a boundary disguised as an invitation.

That night, he typed the message three times before sending it.

Hi, it’s Ethan.

Delete.

This is Ethan. We met by the river.

Delete.

Finally:

Ethan here. I hope today was kind to you.

He stared at the screen for a long second, then pressed send and set the phone face down as if it might react badly to the attention.

It didn’t buzz for a while.

When it did, Ethan felt it immediately – not in his hand, but somewhere deeper, a quiet tightening that surprised him.

It was honest, Mira replied.

Which is sometimes better than kind. How was yours?

He smiled without meaning to.

They didn’t write long messages. They didn’t explain themselves. The conversation moved slowly, like a careful walk on unfamiliar ground.

He told her about the building he was working on – a project that no longer felt like his. She told him about a painting she’d abandoned halfway through because it felt dishonest.

They didn’t ask follow-up questions right away. They let statements exist.

At some point, she wrote:

Do you want coffee tomorrow? Not river coffee. Real coffee.

Ethan didn’t hesitate.

Yes.

The café she chose was small and unremarkable, tucked between a bookstore and a closed flower shop. The windows fogged easily, and the tables were mismatched, as if no one had bothered to coordinate them on purpose.

Mira arrived first.

She sat near the window, her jacket draped over the back of the chair, her notebook open in front of her. When Ethan walked in, she looked up immediately, as if she’d been listening for his steps.

“You came,” she said, standing halfway before stopping herself.

“So did you.”

She smiled at that and gestured toward the chair across from her.

He sat down.

Up close, the café felt warm in a way the river never did. The air smelled like coffee and old paper. Somewhere behind the counter, someone hummed quietly, off-key but confident.

They ordered without much discussion. Ethan noticed that Mira paid in cash and left the change on the counter without counting it.

“You trust people a lot,” he said.

She shrugged. “I choose my risks.”

They sat in a comfortable silence while the drinks arrived.

For a moment, neither of them reached for their cups.

Mira was the first to speak.