Sunshine Through a Screen

Six months is enough time to get used to new boundaries. Kristina got used to them. "Sunshine" returned, but it was a little different—safer, slightly more formal. They discussed books, music, fanfiction again, but Kristina no longer touched her truly painful spots. It was as if she'd put up a glass partition between the part of her that lived in the real world and the part that resided in her correspondence with Sima. It wasn't betrayal; it was protection. Both sides remained intact. And the real world, strangely enough, took a turn for the better. After Lyosha and her own painful confession, which Sima had tactfully but firmly deflected, Kristina seemed to give herself an inner permission. Permission to want more. To search. And possibly, to find. Valeria appeared suddenly, like a character from a different novel. Thirty years old, an architect, with a short haircut and calm, all-understanding eyes. They met at a lecture on adaptive design, which Kristina had wandered into out of curiosity. Valeria noticed her, noticed her tense posture and how she painstakingly wrote something in a notebook with crooked letters. After the lecture, she approached and asked not about the lecture, but about the pen—a vintage "Parker" Kristina's grandfather had given her long ago. It was a key, unlocking the door to a normal, adult conversation. Valeria was tender. That was the most astonishing thing. She made no allowances, but she didn't pressure either. She simply… saw. And accepted. On their first date, they walked along the embankment, and Valeria bought two cups of ice cream. "You should always have a special expression when you eat ice cream," she said, and Kristina understood it was a compliment. They talked about architecture, music, how strangely doors in old houses were designed. No feigned enthusiasm, no condescension. An equal dialogue. For their second date, Valeria invited her home. Not to a café, but to her apartment. It smelled of coffee and wood, with architectural models and books on the shelves. There was champagne, not for intoxication, but for celebration. And there was tenderness. Slow, questioning, attentive. Valeria touched her as if reading Braille, absorbing information through her skin. And when Kristina, trapped by years of shame and awkwardness, tried to turn away, Valeria gently turned her face back: "No. Look at me. You're beautiful. And I want to see how this beautiful thing reacts." It wasn't just intimacy. It was the restoration of dignity. The very dignity Sima had written about. Everything happened as it should—in warmth, in safety, on clean sheets. Without pain, without humiliation. With a tenderness that wasn't babying, but deep respect for the other's boundaries and desires. In the morning, Kristina woke with a strange feeling of lightness. As if a heavy, invisible cloak she'd worn for years had been lifted. She reached for the phone on the nightstand. Instinctively. Her first thought was to share. To tell the one who would understand. The one who knew the value of this victory. She carefully slipped out from under Valeria's arm, threw on a robe, and stepped out onto the balcony. The morning was fresh, the city just waking up. She opened Telegram and wrote to Serafima. Not details, of course. But the essence. > **Kristina:** Sima, hi. I'm… really good. Unbelievably good. I met someone. A woman. Her name is Valeria. And yesterday… it was like you described. Warm. Safe. Respectful. I didn't think it could be like that. Thank you. For those words back then. They helped me a lot. She sent it and lit a cigarette, allowing herself this weakness for the first time in a long while. She waited. Waited for that same stream of delight, support, those "suns" and "clever girls." Waited for Sima to share this victory with her, as she had shared all their small joys. The reply came twenty minutes later. Not immediately. And it was… sparse. > **Sima:** Hello, Kristina. > > I'm glad you're doing well. And that you feel… respected. That's the main thing. > > Valeria, you say? Sounds… serious. That was all. Not a single heart. Not a single exclamation point. No hint of the emotional involvement that used to overflow. Kristina reread the message several times. "Sounds… serious." That was all she got for her revelation about the first truly happy experience in her life. Dry politeness. As if she'd reported not a breakthrough, but a change in the weather. Her joy deflated like a balloon pricked by a pin. Instead of warmth, a chill of bewilderment and hurt settled inside. She stubbed out the cigarette sharply, as if she could stub out this unpleasant feeling too. Valeria came out onto the balcony, hugging her from behind, pressing her cheek to Kristina's shoulder. — Everything okay? — Her voice was hoarse from sleep, but warm. — Yeah, — Kristina answered too quickly. — Just… texting a friend. — Uh-huh, — Valeria didn't press. She just stood there, breathing against her back, watching the city wake up. Kristina closed the chat with Sima. With painful clarity, she suddenly understood what she'd been trying not to notice for the past six months. Their friendship was only possible within certain, strictly defined boundaries. Boundaries where Kristina was the older friend, the mentor, slightly unfortunate, a little lost, just as lonely as Sima. What bound them was shared unsettledness. A shared need for sunshine. But now Kristina had stepped outside those boundaries. She'd found what Sima didn't have and perhaps never would: adult, equal, realized relationships. Tenderness in the flesh, not in text. And that… created distance. Sima couldn't share this victory because for her it wasn't a shared triumph, but a reminder of the chasm between them. That Kristina was moving into a world Sima had no access to. Ever. And her restrained reply wasn't condemnation. It was protection. A quiet, polite way of saying: "I can't be part of this. Please don't make me." Kristina turned and buried her forehead in Valeria's shoulder. — Let's have some coffee? — she asked, and her voice trembled not from a spasm, but from surging emotion. — Of course, — Valeria took her hand. Her palm was firm and reliable. They went to the kitchen. And the phone on the balcony, with its darkened screen, lay silent. As if something small but very bright had died inside it. A sunshine that couldn't shine in Kristina's new, adult sky.