The staircase landing greeted Andrey with an ordinary silence. After a three‐day business trip that had worn him out completely, he dreamed only of collapsing into bed and drifting off into a twelve‐hour sleep.

However, after retrieving the keys, he suddenly froze: music was coming from the apartment. It was strange—Olya had never played it so loudly.

The door opened without a problem. In the hallway the light was on, but his wife’s usual shoes were nowhere to be seen. Instead, a bright red purse he didn’t recognize was displayed on a shelf—small, stylish, and completely unlike those Olya preferred.

“Ol? Are you home?” he called out as he took off his shoes.

The music fell silent immediately. A young woman with a short bob cut came out from the kitchen, dressed in casual trousers and a loose T-shirt. In her hands she held a steaming cup of tea, and her gaze was calm and even slightly surprised.

“And who are you?” she asked, as if it were completely natural for her to be there.

Andrey blinked. For a moment he thought he’d mistaken the floor, but the familiar scratch on the door frame and the cat-themed doormat that Olya had chosen last autumn said otherwise.

“I’m the owner of this apartment,” he said slowly. “And who are you, and where is my wife?”

The woman set the cup on a small table.

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I’m the owner of this apartment. My name is Irina, and I’ve been living here for a month.”

A chill ran down Andrey’s spine. He decided this must be some kind of prank or mistake.

“Listen…” he began, but Irina was already heading to another room.

A minute later she returned with a folder of documents.

“Here you are. The purchase-sale contract, the ownership certificate. Everything is official.”

Andrey grabbed the papers with trembling hands. Despite his fatigue, he immediately recognized Olya’s signature—so distinctive, with its recognizable flourish. The date on the documents showed that everything had happened a month ago.

“This is some stupid joke,” he muttered. “A prank, right?”

“No prank,” Irina replied calmly. “I bought this apartment from Olya Sergeyevna. She was in such a hurry to sell and offered a very attractive price.”

Confused, Andrey entered the living room and sank into an armchair. The room looked completely different: new curtains, different furniture, unfamiliar scents. The family photos had vanished from the walls, Olya’s favorite blanket was missing from the chair, and even the books on the shelves were not hers.

He took out his phone and dialed his wife’s number. “The subscriber’s device is turned off or out of network range.”

“Don’t bother,” said Irina. “She changed her number.”

“How do you know?” he snapped at her.

“Know?” she repeated, sitting on the edge of the sofa. “She warned me that you’d return from your business trip and start looking for her. She asked me to tell you—it was her decision.”

“What decision?!” Andrey exploded, leaping up. “We’ve been together for ten years! We share a business, share plans. She couldn’t just…”

“Leave?” Irina finished for him. “She could. And she did.”

He rushed to the bedroom. The wardrobe was filled with someone else’s clothes—there wasn’t a single trace of Olya’s belongings. In the bathroom, unfamiliar toiletries had appeared; in the kitchen, different dishes. It seemed as though Olya had never existed there.

Andrey began frantically calling friends, relatives, colleagues. But no one knew anything—or they pretended not to know.

“Maybe you should calm down?” Irina reappeared in the doorway, holding a cup of tea. “You don’t look well.”

“To hell with this tea!” he shouted. “What’s going on? You should know!”

She shrugged indifferently.

“All I know is that she sold the apartment and decided to start a new life.”

“Without me?” he whispered, feeling the world around him beginning to blur.

“Was it really that good with you?” she suddenly asked.

Andrey looked at her closely—truly studying her for the first time. Something in her eyes seemed familiar. Something he had seen somewhere before…

“Who are you really?” Andrey asked, feeling his heart tighten with premonition.

The woman smiled—sadly and with an air of understanding.

“I’m Sergey’s sister. The very same Sergey that Olya used to talk about.”

Andrey’s heart turned cold. Of course he remembered Sergey—his wife’s first love, her college mate. They had talked about him before… or had they not? When was the last time they discussed anything other than work, just about life?

“They met by chance two months ago in a café,” Irina continued. “Olya was in a depressed state. She told him how you had grown distant. How she had become invisible to you—first with little things, and then with everything else.”

He instinctively clenched his fists.

“I was working! For both of us!”

“Really?” she tilted her head to the side. “And when was the last time you cared about how she was? Not about business or reports, but just about her emotional state?”

Andrey tried to answer, but his tongue felt as though it had stuck to the roof of his mouth. He couldn’t recall.

“She was trying to get your attention,” Irina’s voice softened. “She signed up for dance classes, changed her hair color, began taking antidepressants. But you paid no attention.”

Every word hit him like a blow. He vaguely remembered something—Olya had mentioned dance classes, perhaps even showed a new hairstyle. But then his thoughts had been consumed by a project, an important deal… Everything else had taken a back seat.

“And then Sergey appeared,” Irina paused by the window. “He knows how to listen, how to notice the details. With Olya, he did what you hadn’t done in a long time—he made her feel alive again.”

“She could have told me about this!” Andrey exclaimed.

“She did,” Irina replied quietly. “You just didn’t listen.”

He sank back into the armchair, feeling the world around him blur. Memories flooded in one after another: how Olya had called him for vacations, suggested discussing something important, cried into her pillow. And each time he had made excuses, assuring himself that “everything would pass.”

“Where is she now?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

“I can’t say,” Irina shook her head. “She doesn’t want you to know.”

“I have a right…”

“To what?” she interrupted. “To force someone to stay with someone who is suffocating them?”

Andrey fell silent. Outside, dusk was settling in, and in the neighboring houses lights were coming on. He remembered evenings spent with Olya, their plans, their dreams… When had it all ended? When did work become the most important thing? When was the last time he said “I love you” to her, looking directly into her eyes?

“What now?” he finally said after a long pause.

Irina shrugged.

“Now you have a choice: start legal proceedings, try to reclaim the apartment and find her… or let go and think about why all of this happened.”

“And you? Why do you need this apartment?” he asked.

“To help her start life anew,” Irina answered. “Formally, the apartment is in my name, but I transferred the money to her. It’s her inheritance from her mother.”

Andrey stood up, feeling a sudden heaviness in his chest.

“Can I at least get my things?”

“Of course,” she nodded. “All your things are neatly packed in the storage room.”

He headed for the door but hesitated at the threshold.

“You know… I really loved her.”

“I know,” Irina replied softly. “But love isn’t always enough. Sometimes you have to see the person next to you before you lose them forever.”

An hour later Andrey left the house carrying a suitcase. In the window of their former apartment the light was on, and he noticed Irina’s silhouette behind the curtain.

Somewhere in another city, Olya was building a new life. Without him. And him? He had to figure out exactly where he had gone wrong. Perhaps sometimes one must lose everything to realize what truly matters. The heavy suitcase in his hand seemed a symbol of a ten-year life that now fit into one small bag. Yet, somewhere deep inside, a strange thought began to form: maybe everything happened exactly as it was meant to.

Andrey hailed a taxi, giving the address of a friend. In the rear-view mirror he saw the windows of their former apartment—warm, glowing, but now completely unfamiliar.

The car started moving. He didn’t look back—why should he? The past was gone, and the future lay before him like an endless void. Frightening, yet full of possibilities, like a blank sheet of paper on which a new story could be written.

Max’s apartment greeted him with a mix of coffee and cigarette scents. His unkempt, clearly sleep-deprived friend opened the door, giving a quick glance at the suitcase.

“So, it’s really serious?”

“Yes, it is,” Andrey said as he stepped inside and sank onto the sofa. “I still can’t believe it.”

Max sat down beside him and fell silent for a moment.

“Will you tell me?”

And Andrey began to speak—about everything: the woman in their apartment, the documents, Sergey. Max listened attentively without interrupting, occasionally shaking his head.

“You know, I warned you about this,” Max said when Andrey finished.

“About what?” Andrey asked hoarsely.

“That you were too absorbed in work. Remember your birthday a year ago? Olya threw a party, invited all your friends, baked a cake… and you spent the entire evening on your phone. Work, work…”

Andrey frowned. Now the memory of that evening stood out vividly. Olya had indeed made an effort, gathering all her loved ones, while he had been busy replying to work emails. At the time, it seemed that these matters couldn’t be postponed.

“The worst part is, I can’t really blame her,” he sighed, staring at the ceiling. “She’s right. I really stopped noticing her.”

“And what now?” Max asked cautiously.

“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know.”

The days that followed merged into one endless stream. Andrey continued going to work, yet everything around him felt alien and unreal. Tasks slipped through his fingers, and his thoughts were occupied by entirely different things. At the office, everyone already knew—news spreads fast, especially in a small town.

One day, he inadvertently glanced at the photographs on his work desk. They were from a vacation with Olya three years ago— their last trip together. In the photo she was smiling, holding his hand. When was the last time they had touched each other with such warmth and love?

At that moment, his phone vibrated—a message from an unknown number.

“If you want to know my opinion, start small. Look at what’s happening around you. At the people who are in your life right now.”

Irina. He wanted to respond sharply, maybe even delete the message, but instead he saved the number.

That evening, back at Max’s, he asked unexpectedly:

“And how is your Marina? Has she finished her studies yet?”

“Of course,” Max smiled. “Now she works as a teacher at a school. The kids absolutely adore her!”

Andrey was surprised. He had been a witness at their wedding, yet he had never been interested in how Marina was doing with her studies. How many people around him were living their lives while he failed to notice?

The next day he dropped by the accounting office without any particular purpose—just to see how Nina Petrovna was doing, as she had been ill recently. The woman was initially confused, but then she blossomed into a smile and spent a full half-hour talking about her grandchildren.

Now, on his way back to Max’s, he chose a different route—past the house where he once lived with Olya. Sometimes the lights were on there, sometimes it was dark. One day he noticed Irina leaving the building in a tracksuit with a yoga mat. She saw him and gave a brief nod.

A week later, he decided to write to Irina:

“You were right. I truly was missing too much.”

Her reply came almost immediately:

“Better to realize it late than never.”

“Do you know what I realized?” Andrey said to Max one evening, sitting in his apartment. “All these years I was obsessed with the future: saving money, growing the business, making plans. And the present moment just slipped away.”

“And now? What has changed?”

“Now I want to learn to live in the here and now. Simply to be.”

He began to notice the things he had previously overlooked: the aroma of fresh pastries from the street café in the morning, the whistle of the janitor during cleaning, the laughter of children on their way to school. Before, he had missed all of that, glued to his phone or lost in work.

A month later, Andrey moved into a new apartment—a small studio in a newly built area. He packed his things and thanked his friend for his hospitality.

“Will you stay for dinner?” Max asked. “Marina baked an excellent pie today.”

“Of course I will,” Andrey smiled. “Now I have time.”

That evening, he once again reached out to Irina:

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For making me think. Weren’t those words you said back then meant to make me see things?”

“Maybe,” she replied mysteriously.

In the new apartment, there was a silence—entirely different from before. There were no familiar sounds of Olya’s footsteps, the rustle of her book pages, or the clatter of dishes in the kitchen. Yet this silence was special, like a blank sheet of paper ready to receive new colors.

He took out an old photo album—the only connection to the past that he had taken with him. The first date, the seaside trip, the housewarming… so many moments he had once taken for granted. How could he not have appreciated them?

A few months later, Irina sent him a short message:

“Olya now lives in St. Petersburg.”

“How is she?”

“Happy. Studying to be a designer. It was always her dream.”

“I had no idea.”

“Now you know.”

Andrey closed the album and walked over to the window. Outside, life in the new district unfolded—different sounds, scents, people. Somewhere out there, in another city, Olya was realizing her long-held dream. And him? He was learning once again to see the world around him. Learning to notice the details, to feel the moments.

Deep inside, he understood—this was just the beginning of a long journey. A journey toward his true self, capable not only of planning the future but also of living the present. Toward someone who knows how to love, feel, and notice.

And while he watched the first snowy waltz outside the window—for the first time in a long while he truly saw every snowflake, every pattern on the glass. Like in his childhood, when the whole world seemed so wondrous and magical.

Perhaps this is where a new life begins—by being able to marvel at the simple things. With the opportunity to stop and simply be. Here and now.