She raised her hand, but not to hit him.
No.
Elina would never hit Mark. Not even now, when everything inside her chest was boiling, as if her heart had turned into a burning stone. She raised her hand because she did not know what else to do with her anger. Her fingers trembled near her face, her voice broke, and behind her Manhattan glowed in the evening light — beautiful, calm, indifferent.
The water between them and the city shimmered with soft gold. A ferry moved slowly across the bay. Tourists took photos by the railing. Somewhere, children were laughing. Someone was selling coffee from a little cart.
And only the two of them stood in the middle of all that beauty as if the whole world had shrunk down to one old wound.
“You’re silent again,” Elina said. “That’s exactly who you are, Mark. When you need to speak, you stay silent. When you need to be there, you disappear. When you need to choose, you vanish.”
Mark stood by the metal railing, gripping the strap of his backpack. His face looked tired. Not angry. Not indifferent. Just exhausted.
“I don’t disappear,” he said quietly.
“Really?” She gave a bitter laugh. “Then where were you that day?”
He looked away.
Elina understood immediately. Again. Once again he would hide behind that look. Behind silence. Behind his eternal habit of not explaining, not defending himself, not apologizing in time.
“Where were you, Mark?” she repeated, quieter now. “When my father was dying and I called you seven times?”
He closed his eyes.
Seven times.
That number had lived between them for eight months.
Seven missed calls.
Seven small blows that destroyed everything they had built over five years.
Before that day, they had been almost happy. Not perfectly — no one is perfectly happy. They argued over small things: who forgot to buy milk, who set the alarm too loud, why Mark had left a cup on the windowsill again. But they laughed after fights. They made up in the kitchen. They fell asleep holding hands.
And then her father died.
And Mark was not there.
He appeared only in the evening, when everything was already over. He walked into the hospital hallway pale, with wet hair, holding some kind of bag in his hand, and said:
“Elina…”
She looked at him then as if she were looking at a stranger.
“Not now.”
And from that day on, “not now” became their life.
They tried to talk, but their conversations turned into accusations. They tried to stay silent, but the silence was even heavier. They tried to move on, but that hospital hallway always stood between them — those seven calls and the emptiness in her phone.
Today they were supposed to say goodbye for good.
Elina had asked to meet by the water because this was where Mark had once proposed to her.
It had been an evening just like this. The sky blushed pink over the city. Ferries passed by. He was nervous, stumbled over his words, then took out a ring and said:
“I can’t promise I’ll never make mistakes. But I promise I’ll come back. Always.”
Back then, she had cried from happiness.
Today, she was crying from anger.
“I came to give this back,” she said, pulling a small velvet box from her bag.
Mark looked at it, and something in his face broke.
“Elina…”
“Don’t,” she snapped. “Don’t say my name like it still changes anything.”
She held out the box.
He did not take it.
“Take it.”
“No.”
“Mark.”
“I said no.”
“You don’t have the right to refuse,” her voice trembled. “You don’t have the right to keep me suspended like this. I’m tired. I’m tired of hating you and missing you at the same time.”
He clenched his jaw.
“You think this is easy for me?”
“Was it hard for you then?” she shot back. “That day? When I was sitting beside my father, holding his hand? When he was trying to say something and I couldn’t understand him? When I needed you, the only person I wanted beside me?”
“I was on my way to you.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I was.”
“Seven calls, Mark! Seven! You didn’t even text!”
He turned sharply toward her.
“Because my phone was smashed!”
She froze.
The words hung in the air.
Mark instantly regretted shouting them like that. He dragged a hand over his face and turned back toward the water.
“What?” Elina asked quietly.
He said nothing.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“No. Now you speak.”
He let out a bitter laugh.
“Now?”
“Mark.”
He looked at her. For the first time in a long time, he truly looked at her.
“That day, when you were calling me, I was in Brooklyn. I was picking something up for your father.”
“For my father?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
Mark slipped the backpack off his shoulder, but he did not open it. He only held it in front of him, as if there were something dangerous inside.
“He called me a week before the hospital,” Mark said. “He asked me not to tell you. He said he wanted to give you a gift. Not for your birthday. Not for the wedding. Just… while he still could.”