17

After dinner I suggested that Ann take a walk along the river embankment, and she gladly agreed. Being next to this girl and just talking to her made me feel like some lovestruck schoolboy trying to impress a girl. I joked a lot, acted like a clown, and bent over backward so she would keep smiling and looking at me with shining eyes.

Spotting a street vendor, I quickly bought a long rose and gave it to the brunette.

“You know,” Ann sighs bitterly, “I look at you and I just can’t understand how someone could leave you, and with children too?” the beauty frowns in confusion, then immediately grows embarrassed by her own question. “Sorry, that’s not my business…”

“Why not?” I smile casually. “I’ve already burned through it, so it doesn’t hurt that much anymore when the topic comes up.”

“You have three children. You must have loved her very much…” Ann lowers her eyes, in which I manage to notice regret and some kind of resentment.

“Madly,” I sigh theatrically. Looks like the time for my heartbreaking story has come. “I was ready to do anything for her and I did a lot. We created a family, had children, and I was insanely happy. But apparently she didn’t share my happiness.”

We stop near a high parapet and direct our gazes toward the water surface where the reflections of the moon play across it. But Ann only glances at the water briefly; all her attention is focused on me.

“Family life weighed heavily on my wife. It became especially noticeable after Soli was born,” I sigh heavily. “She often left the kids with our nanny while she disappeared somewhere with friends. Only later did I find out those ‘friends’ had dicks. On one of our worst crisis days she told me she couldn’t live like that anymore, that this wasn’t the life she imagined and she wanted to change something. I didn’t pay much attention to her words at the time. So when I came home from work and let the nanny go, I was very surprised when my wife didn’t come home that night or the next days. Her phone was off, and a couple of days later I only got a message saying, ‘I’m sorry. I’m not coming back.’ Through acquaintances I found out she had gone to Malta to live with one of her lovers.”

“That’s horrible,” Ann looks at me with tears welling up in her eyes. “I don’t understand how someone could abandon their children. They’re such good kids… And what was she missing in you?” the brunette asks in confusion.

“It’s been a year now that I’ve been trying to replace their mother,” I smirk bitterly. “Sometimes I manage, sometimes I fail completely. But I’m really trying. The boys accepted our new reality more calmly because they were with the nanny almost all the time anyway. Solomiya had the hardest time. She used to cry at night calling for her mom, and I tried to be there, even though my own soul was tearing apart for the kids.”

I see Ann completely melt from my story, tears falling down her cheeks, and I don’t need that. The evening is only just beginning, and spending it drowning in tears is not my goal.

“But let’s not talk about sad things. This is our first date, and I don’t want to darken it with ghosts of the past,” I step closer to the girl and wipe a tear from her beautiful cheek with my finger. God, how I want to kiss her… and not only that. I wrap an arm around her waist and feel her tremble slightly. “You’re cold…”

I pull back and take off my jacket, placing it over her shoulders. She looks at me strangely.

“Nazar… hug me,” the beauty whispers pitifully.