A month has passed.
A month since I returned to my old life—though it no longer feels entirely old, and I can't quite call it new either. A month in which everything should be pink and quiet and settled, and yet inside me there's a restlessness that won't let me breathe all the way in. It feels as if I'm living inside a beautiful photograph—one that's slightly blurred around the edges.
Elena and I live in a small but welcoming apartment in a modern complex where the elevator doesn't squeal and the neighbors don't scream through the night. It's ours for as long as we need it, offered with a generosity that still weighs on my chest. I know it might be foolish of me to have accepted. I know pride should have howled, refused, slammed the door. But pride doesn't pay rent, and it doesn't offer safety to a sixteen-year-old girl who deserves a real shot at life—Elena.
People like me, born as if destined to fall, have to cling to any opportunity life extends. Even when it comes from the hand of someone who once broke your heart.
I know nothing about my mother and father.
And that's perfectly fine.
This silence is a gift.
Elena, on the other hand, is blooming. I see it every day—the way color returns to her, the way she slowly unfreezes from fear, the way she's beginning to believe the world isn't just a place where you hide. She arranges her room with a care that moves me—posters on the walls, a bedspread scattered with tiny flowers, her books lined up alphabetically as if that might bring order to our lives as well.
She goes to school without glancing over her shoulder at every step. She already has two friends she meets for coffee after classes, and she comes home telling small, ordinary stories. It's that very ordinariness that lets me breathe easier. She laughs more. Sleeps better. No longer flinches at every sound.
Every morning she tells me it's going to be okay.
And I'm starting to believe her.
Only I still can't seem to adapt.
Life is clean now—but inside, I feel like I'm still stained.
Today is another day I leave the house in search of work. I've tried everything. I've handed in résumés for sales positions at a mall clothing store for teenage girls, at a cosmetics stand where they told me "a smile sells." I interviewed as a general helper in a hardware store where I would have had to haul cement bags and explain the difference between two kinds of screws. I applied for courier jobs, for reception at a dental clinic, at a neighborhood café where they said I didn't have enough experience with a professional espresso machine, at a call center for phone sales, at a warehouse packing parcels.
Anything.
Anything—just not to return to that world of nightclubs that slowly drains your life without you noticing, until one day you look in the mirror and don't recognize yourself anymore.
But today, I broke.
And I'm going to a job interview at a nightclub.
No, it's nothing like the landfill that was Asan and his blackened soul. There's no filth here, no desperation balanced on too-high heels. This is a club in the city center—respectable, well-known—where beautiful, perfumed, well-dressed people come to be seen. A normal club. No striptease. No dark basement rooms.
They pay well. And I desperately need to start earning money.
I hope I get the waitress position.
It's the beginning of the night when I leave the apartment. This city never truly sleeps—it just changes its rhythm. Lights flicker on one by one. Terraces fill. Cars stream down the boulevards like metallic snakes. There's a frenzy in the air that slips beneath your skin, that makes you feel young and invincible for a few fleeting minutes.
I take the bus almost to the center, pressed against the window, watching the gray apartment blocks give way to elegant buildings, illuminated storefronts, people moving with purpose and certainty. Then I get off and walk the last few streets.
My heels strike the pavement in a steady rhythm, and I keep my back straight.
The club rises before me like a promise. It's beautiful—dark and mysterious—with a discreet sign and a line already forming at the entrance. The doorman sizes me up, but when I tell him I'm there for a trial shift, he lets me pass without a word.
Inside, it smells like money and power. An intoxicating blend of expensive perfume, fine alcohol, and ambition. A scent that drops straight into your stomach and reminds you that people don't come here to forget who they are—they come to confirm they are exactly who they believe themselves to be.
The lights are low. The music pulses softly, gathering itself, preparing to explode later.
Behind the bar stand a boy and a girl, both dressed in perfectly pressed black shirts, their hair impeccably styled. They look like people who know exactly what they're doing.
I step closer and clear my throat.
"Hi, I'm Alla. I'm here for the waitress trial."
The girl sizes me up from head to toe for a second, then her eyes light up.
"Yesss, you made it!" she says, almost squealing. "And judging by how you look, that's very good news."
I freeze for a heartbeat, then smile.
Maybe, for the first time in a month, something is actually starting to fall into place.
Maybe my life isn't only about what I've lost anymore.
Maybe it's about what I'm about to build.
The girl reaches her hand over the bar.
"I'm Emma. And the grumpy specimen next to me is Alex."
"I'm not grumpy. I'm selective," the boy mutters without lifting his eyes from the shaker.
I study them more closely, and if she hadn't said what comes next, I would've sworn they had nothing to do with each other. Emma is a brunette with long, straight hair pulled into a flawless ponytail, green eyes that laugh before her mouth does. Alex is blond, cropped short, with sharper features and a blue gaze—calm, almost bored.
"We're twins," Emma says, as if she's read my thoughts.
I look from one to the other.
"You're kidding."
"Unfortunately not," Alex sighs. "We share DNA and childhood trauma."
"He turned out like this because he stole all the seriousness in the womb," Emma adds. "I was left with the energy."
"She turned out like this because she stole all the common sense," he replies dryly.
I can't help it—I laugh. A real laugh, from the belly, unforced. The sound startles me. It feels like I haven't heard it from myself in a very long time.
"Alright, Alla," Emma says, clapping her hands. "The trial is simple. We'll give you three tables in our section. You smile, take the orders, don't spill anything, and don't let yourself get intimidated. If you survive, you're ours."
"That sounds almost too easy," I say.
"Don't worry. Any minute now someone will ask for still water at the exact temperature of Everest," Alex mutters.
She ties a black apron around my waist, and as I step toward my first tables, my heart begins to beat differently. Adrenaline floods my veins until they feel too full for my skin.
The first orders flow easily. A gin and tonic. Two glasses of prosecco. A neat whiskey. People look at me—but not like merchandise. Not like something that can be bought with a crooked smile and a dirty tip. They look at me normally. Like I'm a waitress.
And God, what a difference that is.
A flawlessly dressed man says "thank you" and smiles politely. A woman in a red dress compliments my shoes. No one tries to touch me. No one whispers filth in my ear. No one weighs me with their eyes as if calculating how much it would cost to lay me on my back.
As the night unfolds, I move more confidently between the tables. The music swells, the lights begin to pulse, and without realizing it, I start keeping rhythm with everything around me. Emma winks at me every time I pass the bar.
"See?" she whispers at one point. "Nobody bites. Usually."
"Give it time," Alex grumbles, though the corner of his mouth lifts.
I like the atmosphere. I like my colleagues. I like that the energy here is about fun, not survival. It's about people who want to dance, to drink something good, to forget a hard day—not about men who come to buy pieces of you.
At one point, Emma leans against the bar and studies me.
"If you didn't lie on your résumé and you really can count change properly, I'd say you're staying."
"I can count," I say. "Life taught me."
Alex hands me a receipt.
"Then prove it."
And I do.
When I step outside for a second—just long enough to draw a deep breath and clear my head—I feel the city vibrating around me like a living organism, warm and impatient. The noise of cars, laughter shattering against the pavement, and the music spilling out through the club doors blend into a rhythm that enchants me.
The night is alive—but not threatening. It isn't baring its teeth. It isn't lurking for me in the shadows. It's electric, young, full of promise, as if whispering that I still have time to become something other than what I've been.
For the first time in a long while, I don't feel like a girl running from her past, glancing over her shoulder, holding her breath in fear of being caught.
Instead, I feel like a girl who is slowly, steadily beginning to walk forward on her own feet—no longer waiting to be saved or pushed—like every step, no matter how small, belongs to her and her alone.
I should have known.
I should have known that after how well this night had gone—after how easily I laughed, after how natural I felt among the tables and lights and music—this kind of happiness could never be meant for me. Good things don't stay with me. They pause just long enough for me to taste them, then they leave without looking back.
People like me, born without real chances, raised among slamming doors and broken promises, aren't made for simple, clean stories. We're the kind who fight for every mouthful of air—and just when we start believing we've reached the surface, we feel the water closing over our heads again.
I walk back into the club with a smile still resting on my lips.
At the bar, Emma is laughing, her head thrown back, her laughter rising clear and light above the music. In front of her stands a young man, impeccably dressed, who looks like he knows exactly how to say the right things at the right moment. Alex wipes a glass with more force than necessary, but I don't pay it much attention. After all, what brother wants to see his sister being picked up at the bar by a man a little too sure of himself?
I tell myself it's normal.
I tell myself it's nothing.
I take a few steps toward them, ready to slip behind the bar and pick up the next order, and in that moment the man turns slightly—probably drawn by my movement.
And everything collapses into my stomach.
The man in front of me is not a stranger.
It's Nikolai.
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