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The soft, golden glow of early-morning sun painted streaks of light over the city, filtering away the night’s warm darkness as the day drew closer. A gentle, tickling breeze glided through the air, pulling playfully at lines of washing hanging between balconies and fences in the streets below; streets not yet bustling with the usual buzzing liveliness of the Summer months. Tourists and giddy children had not yet taken to littering the streets, the shops hadn’t opened their doors.
The only sounds that could be heard was the sing-song trill of lazy birds on top of the apartment buildings, and the distant rumbling of engines from Kyiv’s city centre a little way away.
The peace of the city was soon altered minutely, as a girl walked out of her apartment to stand on the balcony; her phone releasing a soft, classical melody that melded perfectly with that cosy, tired Summer morning feeling.
Talia leaned on her balcony railing, poking idly at the winding, emerald ivy that trailed along the cool metal. She could feel her white nightie fluttering lightly at her ankles as the breeze picked it up on its way past her home. Sighing comfortably, she closed her eyes, basking in the subtle warmth from the sunlight. Her hair was still down and tousled from sleep, and her shoulders were wrapped in a loose, silk robe.
She dipped her head as the intricate melody she was listening to melted into nothingness, her phone falling silent for a moment. She listened to the sounds of her city - her home. Taking in the feeling and the sounds and the smells of her favourite place on earth with a small smile tugging at her lips.
But when a new sound met Talia’s ears, one much harsher than the previous songs on her playlist, she opened her eyes. Turning to look at her phone, resting open on her little outdoor table, her eyes landed on the song’s title, the unnecessarily screeching sounds of airhorns and dolphin noises piercing the atmosphere.
“’WAKE UP BITCH ITS A GOOD DAY’ by BADDEGG”
Talia exhaled a small, bewildered laugh as the sound of her lover’s silly, exaggerated rapping began – over-autotuned words almost intelligible amongst the awful sound effects. She had forgotten she’d added this one to her morning playlist.
With a fond smile and a warmth in her chest, she reached for her phone, gazing at the photo of him on the song’s name. He had a cap placed precariously on its side atop his head, and he wore huge sunglasses with a quite clearly fake microphone pressed to his mouth as he appeared to be shouting into it.
"You look ridiculous, my love," she whispered in Ukrainian, delicately tracing the lines of his face with her finger as she beamed at him. But the contact of her skin on the screen dragged her lock screen down, and her phone opened.
Her smile fell as her phone opened to the last app she had been using since she had put it down to sleep last night. A few drops of that icy sadness trickled into her gut: it was her messages with her lover, usually so full of care and depth and tenderness that just reading them made her feel as if she wanted to giggle and kick her feet like a child. So full of love that she could almost imagine him with her in person, his hand over hers as he spoke to her with his beautiful voice.
But this time, her eyes didn’t gloss over their messages at all. They instead latched onto the little note on the top of the screen.
Mischa Bachinski last seen 14th of September 6:17pm.
Her heart twisted bitterly in her throat. She felt her shoulders droop like a flower in the shade. Her eyes were already prickling with that familiar, cruel stinging of tears.
Quickly, she shook her head and wiped at her eyes, closing her messages and skipping the song. The sound of her usual classical melodies wafted through the air once more as she took a deep breath in, the sounds of airhorns and dolphins vanishing as if nothing had ever happened. Talia closed her eyes and tried to pretend like that was the case.
It had been months after all. She had last spoken to Mischa in September, and it was now June. You’d really think that, after so long, she would have gotten over their apparent, unspoken separation. That she would stop falling asleep at night with tears rolling down her cheeks and feeling as if a stake had been driven through her heart. That maybe she would have moved on and found a new boyfriend – she was certainly desired enough around her small neighbourhood that it wouldn’t have been a difficult endeavour.
But she still missed him, every single day. It was almost as if she forgot they didn’t speak anymore. Every time she found a funny video on YouTube, she would laugh and click the link to send it to him. Every time she did a new photoshoot, she would blush at the idea of sending it to him and listening to his enamoured voice showering her with the gorgeous compliments and praise she loved so much.
But he had stopped messaging her. That much was obvious - she still often wondered what it was she had done to make him ghost her like that, but a part of her didn’t want to know. She just wanted so desperately to move on – she hadn’t even looked at one of his ludicrously bad videos online since his abrupt silence.
She just wished that they could go back to the way things were. She wanted her beloved, dorky, adorably sweet, handsome, wonderful fiancé back. She wanted him back so badly it hurt.
But, by the looks of it, she had been too quick to grow attached again. She had been played, by the one person she thought she would love and trust for the rest of her life.
In her shattered heart, she knew. He was never coming back.