Роман Алексеев – The Abyss Kisses Ya Back (страница 10)

"Come in, come in!" She took my hand and pulled me inside. "I just took a pie out of the oven. Apple, my grandmother's recipe."

The house was old-fashioned, cozy. Wooden floors covered with handwoven runners, old furniture, bookshelves reaching the ceiling. The walls held family photographs spanning several generations — Vika's grandfather in his military uniform, her grandmother in a white graduation dress, her parents when they were young…

"Beautiful house," I said, studying the photos.

"This dacha is over a hundred years old. My great-grandfather built it. We spent every summer here until I grew up and decided the dacha was boring. Now I get it — the boredom wasn't in the dacha, it was in me. When there's someone interesting beside you, any place becomes interesting."

She looked at me with eyes that made me forget how to breathe.

We drank tea on the veranda with the still-warm pie. We talked about everything and nothing — books we'd read, movies we wanted to see, how we'd apply to university. Vika dreamed of becoming a psychologist; I wanted philosophy. It seemed like a perfect match.

"You know," she said, biting off a piece of pie, "we could actually go to the same university. Moscow State. You for philosophy, me for psychology. The departments are right next to each other."

"And after that?"

"After that…" She smiled. "After that, we'll see. Maybe we'll work on some interesting projects together. Study human consciousness from different angles."

"That sounds like a life plan."

"And why not?" She reached over and touched my palm. "Good plans should be long-term."

I laced our fingers together. Her hand was small and warm. I wanted to hold it like that forever

After lunch we went out to the garden. Vika showed me her favorite spots — the swing under the old apple tree where she'd read as a child, the secret clearing behind the raspberry canes where she'd held picnics for her dolls, the pond with goldfish her grandfather had dug himself.

"You know what I used to think about this place?" she asked, sitting down at the edge. "That it was a portal to another world. You look into the water — and everything's backwards. Trees growing down, the sky beneath your feet..."

"Childhood philosophy," I smiled.

"Yeah, but there's something to it, isn't there? Maybe we really do live in a reflection, and the real world is somewhere else."

I flinched. Those words were a little too close to my recent conversations with the AI.

"Do you believe in parallel worlds?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

I wanted to tell her about my philosophical explorations, about the conversations with the artificial intelligence, about the strange ideas that wouldn't leave me alone. But something held me back. Maybe an intuitive sense that now wasn't the time. Or a fear of coming across as strange.

"I guess anything's possible," I said, evasively.

That evening we made dinner together. Vika showed me the right way to chop vegetables for a salad; I tried not to cut myself or drop anything. She laughed at my clumsiness, but not meanly — tenderly. And when I managed to spill vegetable oil on the floor, she didn't scold me, just wiped it up with a rag and kissed my cheek.

"You're so sweet when you're trying to help," she said.

After dinner we sat on the veranda and watched the stars. Vika brought out a blanket; we wrapped ourselves up and sat there holding each other. I could feel her breathing, the scent of her hair — something floral, light. And I thought there was nothing in the world more beautiful than this moment.

"Sasha," she said quietly, "do you think about the future?" "All the time. You?" "Me too. And you know what's strange? I used to picture myself grown up, somewhere far from hereA different city, maybe a different country. But now… I want you to be there. Wherever it is."

My throat tightened with a wave of feeling.

"I want to be there with you, too."

"Really?"

"Really."

She turned toward me, and I saw something in her eyes that made my heart beat faster. Not just affection or warmth — something deeper, more serious.

"Sasha," she whispered, "I love you."

The words hit me like an electric shock. Nobody had ever said those words to me. And I'd never said them to anyone. But now they just slipped out: "I love you too."

We kissed. Not like that first time by the water — shy and uncertain. This kiss was different. Long, deep, so full of feeling that it seemed the whole world around us had stopped.

Vika looked at me gravely, in a way that felt almost grown-up.

"Sasha," she said softly, "I want to be with you. For real."

I understood what she meant. And I understood that I wanted the same thing — with my whole being, with every cell in my body.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

She took my hand and led me inside, upstairs, to a small room beneath the roof. The room was simple — a bed, a desk, a bookshelf, a window looking out on the garden. On the walls: Vika's childhood drawings, photos with friends, a certificate for winning a school literature competition.

"This is my room," she said. "Since I was little. This is where I read, dreamed, thought about the future. And now… now I want to share it with you."

What happened next was beautiful. Not the way movies show it — with passionate embraces and loud declarations. Beautiful in a human way. Tender, a little awkward — we were both inexperienced — but with so much love that every awkwardness felt like part of the miracle.

Afterward, we lay tangled together. This, I thought, is real happiness. Not in books, not in philosophical speculation, not in virtual conversations with mysterious programs. Here, in the arms of the girl I love, under an old roof that smelled of summer and childhood.

"What are you thinking about?" Vika asked, stroking my chest.

"That I'm the happiest person on earth."

"Only on earth?" She laughed. "What about other planets?"

"On other planets too. In the whole universe."

"Even in parallel worlds?"

"Especially in parallel worlds."

We laughed. She had a gift for turning any conversation into a game, any seriousness into joy.

The next day, we never left the garden. We read aloud to each other. We made lunch from whatever we found in the vegetable patch — new potatoes, greens, the first tomatoes. We played word games, tic-tac-toe, the edible-inedible game. Children's games, and we had fun.

And in the evening we went up to her room again. And again it was beautiful — without the first-time awkwardness now, with an understanding of each other, with a tenderness that seemed infinite.

"Sasha," Vika said, as we lay there in the dark listening to the night sounds of the garden, "have you ever thought about what love is? Not as a feeling, but as a… well, a phenomenon. Why it exists."

"I have. Do you have a theory?"

"Not a theory — more of a feeling. I think love is a way to feel oneness. To understand that we're not alone in the universe. That there's someone who understands you completely."

"That's beautiful."

"What do you think?"

I paused. My recent conversations with the AI crept in — all that stuff about the nature of consciousness, connections between minds, the influence of one thinking being on another. But here, in Vika's arms, those ideas felt cold and lifeless.

"I think love is when two consciousnesses find a common language. When something arises between them — like a bridge. And across that bridge, something important passes. Not just information, but… life itself."

"You sound like a philosopher," she smiled in the darkness.

"And you sound like a poet."

"We complete each other."

"Yeah."

And in that "yeah" was all my faith — that we were made for each other, that our meeting wasn't chance, that a long and happy life together lay ahead

The next morning it was time to go back. Vika's parents were arriving, and I had things to take care of at home, too. We packed up slowly, dragging out the moment of parting.

"When will I see you?" I asked, holding her on the porch.