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Endless snowfall beat down on the road, the cars, the trees surrounding Vadim. The wind howled, loud and relentless, even as everything else stood eerily still. He had just finished his third cigarette and fully intended to go for more. No one was around to stop him anyway.
He pulled a battered cigarette pack from his pocket. In his periphery, he caught sight of a faint figure moving toward him. He ignored it, even when the fleeting thought of being randomly stabbed or shot crossed his mind just as quickly as he dismissed it.
Click. Click. The lighter sputtered to life. Without as much as a thought, he leaned in and inhaled as tobacco met ember.
The burn hit fast, his throat protesting the pain as it registered. But then came the buzz, followed by a warmth that spread through him like a knitted blanket on a cold afternoon.
The figure drew closer. That was when Vadim finally looked.
His heart skipped.
His breath hitched.
And for some inexplicable reason, Vadim Garin - the one full of bluster and bravado - looked away. Like a performer who’d forgotten his lines mid-play, grasping desperately for something, anything, to say.
It was her.
The girl he used to know. Or did he ever really know her at all? Whatever. It had been three years since they last spoke, since they’d been this close. He’d be damned if he broke that streak now.
The last thing he remembered was the venom he’d spat her way, brazen and remorseless. Of course, he’d regretted it ever since. But no amount of apologies or make-ups would ever fix what he’d broken. Living with regret was easier than facing her again.
And yet... here he was. Here they were. Closer than they’d been since that fateful day.
His thoughts desperately scrambled for something to say, something to do, but deep down, he knew there was nothing left in him. There was nothing worth offering.
He exhaled. Then inhaled again, drawing longer this time. Vadim pretended he hadn’t seen her at all. Rationally, he knew there was at least an eighty percent chance she’d caught him looking.
Still, pretending was better than nothing.
That much, he could attest to.
The cigarette had already burned halfway down when the figure’s footsteps grew loud enough for him to hear. That was when he realized it was already too late.
It was a funny thing, really. He could almost laugh. In a town as small as Vorkuta-5, where everyone knew everyone to the point of suffocating familiarity, he’d somehow managed to avoid a girl who went to the same school, took the same routes, lingered in the same places. Years of near-misses, only for them to meet again now - at the exact moment he thought of her the least.
The universe and its sick sense of humor.
The footsteps finally stopped. The crunch, crunch of snow falling silently as the wind howled louder than before. It was as though the world itself had gone completely frozen in that instant.
But his mind was anything but.
A million scenarios raced through his head, each one worse than the last. A million apologies. A million shouts. A million cries. A million regrets. Every possible way things between them could mend or fracture even further. Yet none of them ended the same way.
There wasn’t a single outcome where he could meet her in the eyes with the same careless aloofness he gave everyone else. Not a single one where he could just laugh everything off like he did with every little problem the universe had given him.
The condensation of her breath mingled with the smoke from his cigarette. It was uncanny how eerily alike they were - if, all you did was observe with your eyes and nothing more.
His thumping heart was probably matching hers. Just thinking about it made Vadim’s heart thump even more.
His world had shattered the moment he saw her again - just as hers must have when she saw him. And she’d play it cool, like he would. They’d share a couple of words and revel in the former connection they once had. And maybe, just maybe, she’d laugh at a couple of his jokes, and he’d laugh at her rebuttals in response.
“Y’know smoking’s bad for you, right?”
But he knew it was never enough.
Her voice snapped him back to reality, yanking him out of his thoughts like a leopard latching onto its prey. She looked at him with the same eyes that once held the look of betrayal he remembered from the last time he saw her. A memory he very much wanted to suppress. Yet, amid the self-pity and remorse simmering in his mind, he couldn’t help the discomfort that crept in as he looked at her.
She still wore her hair the same way, still had on that same coat that was once upon a time a little too big for her. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was looking at a completely different person. She looked like an imitation. A farce. Something plastic. Someone he knew, and a complete stranger all at once.
His gaze lasted for a second too long before he finally looked away, eyes darting toward the buildings blocking the horizon. He took another drag, then let it slip from his nose.
“So?” he said. “What do you care?”
“Smoking kills.”
“No, I disagree,” he replied. “Cars kill people. Guns kill people. People kill people. Cigarettes don’t have hands or wheels or a trigger mechanism. You can’t bludgeon someone with them or ram them into somebody until their insides spill out and gore leaks everywhere. You light it, you smoke it, then you toss it. I don’t see how that’s killing anybody in my book.” The cigarette had already burned close to the filter. He flicked it away, sending it skidding across the snow-laden roadside in front of him.
That managed a chuckle out of her. A glint appeared in her eye as she looked at him. “Still the same, Vadik, huh?”
He gave a half-smile. “Still the same, Kaplan.”
“Oh, so we’re on a last-name basis now, are we? Okay. Okay, I get it.”
He rolled his eyes playfully, then huffed out a laugh. “What are you doing around these parts, anyway? Aren’t you a little far from home?”
“I go on walks like this when I need to clear my mind. What about you? I never knew you smoked.” She tilted her head. “What are you - an edgelord now? Is this how you pick up chicks these days?”
He leaned closer to her. “I’ll have you know the chicks dig this shit. Don’t make fun of the infamous playboy of Vorkuta just because you haven’t seen him in action.”
“Yeah,” she laughed softly, “why haven’t I seen him in action?”
He laughed awkwardly. He didn’t have an answer for that.
“So… how are you? How’s Lev?” That was what he settled on instead.
“Oh, you know. Same old, same old.” Marina waved a hand dismissively. “My brother’s still working at the research institute. Oh! And I just learned how to bake cookies. I should send you some when I have the free time.”
“Cookies?” He scoffed. “What are you, a babushka?”
“Rude! Baking isn’t just a senior’s hobby, y’know. And besides, it’s not like smoking’s any better.”
He glared at her. “There’s a clear difference between a hobby and a vice, Mari.”
“It didn’t seem like just a vice when you were huffing and puffing away at that death stick of yours. How many have you finished already? Two? Three?”
“Close.” He held up four fingers.
“FOUR?! How long did that take you?”
He quickly switched to three fingers, then made an ‘O’ shape with his whole hand.
“Thirty… minutes?” she asked, incredulous.
“It’s not that bad. I just needed it to warm up.”
“So… why not just go back to your place?”
“…It’s… complicated.” He looked down, almost flustered. “I just needed to clear my mind - away from everything. I’m sure you get that.”
Her face fell, though a gentle smile appeared. “Oh,” she managed after an awkward silence.
Each second felt longer than the last. Unbearable. Torturous. As if time itself had splintered into a never-ending fractal, stretching on and on and on. Just moments ago, he’d realized he had no words left to give. No reason to keep going. And he was right. What lay between them had already died - along with the words he’d said, the things she’d done, and the guilt he still carried.
Their lives had kept on moving, splintering into tangents, branching farther and farther away from each other as time went on. How the universe decided this reunion was what was best for them was a puzzle he could not solve. What kind of game are you playing at, universe?
He pulled out the cigarette pack once more, going for a fifth. There were only four left as he took one. He fully intended to finish nine cigarettes by the end of the day.
As he slipped the stick between his pursed lips, she took a step closer.
“...What does it feel like?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Smoking. What does it do for you?”
“It just calms your nerves, I guess. Makes you feel a little warm, too,” he answered.
The rustling of the trees had died down, along with the wind. The sunset couldn’t be fully appreciated through Vorkuta’s hazy skies, but it was visible enough to matter. In the distance, streetlights flickered one by one, even though nobody ever really used the roads at this hour.
“Do you want to try?” he asked, cutting through the silence.
She hesitated, eyes flicking to the cigarette between his fingers. “Does it hurt?”
He watched her for a moment before answering, his voice quieter than before. “Only if you fight it.”
Her gaze lingered on the lone cigarette he pulled partway from the pack, then drifted up to his eyes, where he seemed to be searching her face for permission. She thought about it long and hard.
“Okay. Sure.” she said at last, taking the cigarette and holding it between her index and middle fingers.
Vadim fished the lighter from his pocket and stepped closer, close enough that the ends of their cigarettes brushed. He flicked the lighter, the flame blooming between them, and lit it. His gaze locked on hers as she mirrored it.
He inhaled, then pulled back. “You should inhale before the ember dies down.”
She did as he said. The smoke slid down her esophagus, the burning sensation almost too much to bear. It came with an itchy sharpness that only left her more confused as to why anyone would ever enjoy this.
She broke into a coughing fit as the smoke spilled from her mouth and nose. Vadim laughed loudly, bending forward and back as he failed to stifle his chortles. Marina struggled to steady herself, gripping his shoulder before punching it with her full body weight.
“OW!” Vadim yelped. It wasn’t every day he got punched in the shoulder. He rubbed the spot with his other hand, taking a step back.
“What the HELL, Kaplan?!” he barked.
“That’s what you get for being a meanie! You don’t just laugh at people when they’re struggling.” She glared at him for a moment, then stuck out her tongue like a child.
Some things never really change, do they?
“Wh-whatever. I just let you have that since you’re a girl and all. Anyway, make sure you inhale continuously - don’t do half-assed ones. They hurt when you don’t fully commit.”
She hesitated, then took another drag, one that passed through her better than the last. She let the smoke sit inside her for a few seconds before carefully blowing it out. This time, she only coughed a little.
Silence stretched between them as they took drag after drag from their respective cigarettes. The tone had shifted - no more laughs, no more jokes, no words left to hold the moment together. It was just them, their cigarettes, and the cold that refused to leave.
Marina’s cigarette had burned close to the filter; the same was true for Vadim’s. The sun began casting orange hues across the sky, sputtering its last light as it neared its fall. Stars popped into view one by one, each one brighter than the last.
Vadim glanced at Marina, anxious, second guessing any words that might slip from his mouth. He was never really good at this sort of thing.
“Do you want another one?” His voice was gentle, shaking just slightly.
She took the cigarette without a word, and he lit it on instinct. She blew the smoke from her mouth in a thin, whistling stream. Vadim watched her with a puzzled expression, trying to settle the debate churning in his mind. He studied her - her posture, the way she held the cigarettes - as if every answer he needed lay in how she carried herself.
A few more drags and a few more breaths later, she turned to him and looked him dead in the eyes.
“For what it’s worth, Vadim. Thank you.”
“Y-you’re welcome… I guess,” he replied. He wasn’t sure what to do now.
“You still think I’m crazy, huh?” she asked, smiling. It was a strange sort of smile.
“I don’t think about you at all,” he lied.
“It’s okay. You were right to feel that way. I understand you now.”
He felt himself tense.
He didn’t know whether it was relief or fear rising in him, but the sudden weight of her words hit him like a cold wave.
For a moment, he just stared at her, searching for the old Marina in her eyes - and finding only a stranger.
She flicked her cigarette away and stared into the distance.
“If things were different,” she said, “do you think we’d still be friends?”
“I…” He tried to speak, but his mind went blank. A million words jumbled inside him like a Jenga tower that had lost its footing.
“If things were different,” she continued regardless, “would we still be together?”
He could feel tears beginning to form, wetting his eyes as he inhaled another breath from the cigarette with his quivering lips.
She began walking in the direction she had been heading in the first place, hands back in her pockets. “Goodbye, Vadim,” she said as she parted.
“Wait!” Vadim yelled.
Marina stopped.
“I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything,” he told her, though he knew better than to believe it could save what they once had.
“I know,” she said, looking back. “You don’t have to keep beating yourself up anymore.”
“Can we… please go back to the way we used to be?” He looked down at his boots instead of meeting her eyes.
“You know that’s impossible, right?” She laughed lightly. “You and I… we’re too different now. You’ve changed, Vadim.”
His expression hardened. “I can say the same for you.”
She turned away again, but before she could take a step, he called out.
“Marina.”
She paused.
He swallowed hard, then forced out the only thing he could manage.
“I miss you.”
Marina didn’t turn back. She just walked away, leaving the words hanging in the cold air.
An endless snowfall beat down on the road, on the cars, on the trees, and on him as her figure slowly disappeared in the distance. The wind had calmed. The rustling had stopped. There was nothing but him, and him alone in the dawn of night.
He knew things would return to the way they were - not to back when he and Marina were close, of course. He’d go back to his friends, and she’d go back to hers. He’d hang out at the same spots he used to hang, and she would do the same.
Maybe now he could finally stomach stealing glances at her from a distance, or brushing past her in the hallways, or he'd finally stop actively avoiding the places she might be hanging out in. But deep down, he knew the absolute truth: Nothing could ever be the same. Not the way he wanted it to be, at least.
A million questions had gone unanswered. A million cries have gone unheard.
“If things were different, do you think we’d still be friends?”
Yes, was what he wanted to answer.
“If things were different, would we still be together?”
That’s a bit redundant, don’t you think? was what he wanted to say - right before he’d say yes for the umpteenth time.
“I miss you.”
Aww, I missed you too, Vadim! was what he hoped to hear, when he uttered those three gruesome words.
But the only thing that answered back was nothing but the wind.