Intertwined Fates. Ariana Bazhenova

fast, stubbornly knocking against my ribs, forcing me to breathe deeply and often. Those same strange heat and hunger, which had previously been silent for a month and a half, stirred in my soul again. He chatted freely with my colleagues, laughed loudly and every now and then inserted comments and jokes on the edge of what was permitted by etiquette. At thirty-two, he sometimes behaved too childishly – I wonder how he manages to maintain such lightness and youth of spirit?

      – So, dear speakers, we have identified the areas of our modules in the training program, – Eva Schwein listened to our discussion and confidently intercepted the initiative. – And now let’s divide up. Who wants to teach what?

      – I want to take psychology in a team! – Lev, who had just been chatting with a colleague sitting next to him, immediately blurted out loudly. I couldn’t hide my pleasant surprise and cast a quick glance at him, full of approval. So he’s interested in psychology too? People don’t just become interested in such things – usually they are those whose inquisitive minds try to penetrate deeper than simple everyday interactions, to see their essence and cause-and-effect relationships, to reach the core of what makes a person human. Alas, in my experience, many people of science limited themselves to purely professional knowledge, not wanting to look deeper. I would like to believe that this says a lot about Leo.

      Soon the modules were distributed among the speakers. Schwein glanced sharply at the participants seated along the long conference table and abruptly stopped her gaze on me. A shadow of a sly smile flashed across her face, and I, already anticipating her words, relaxed and leaned forward with interest.

      «Leo, I have an assistant for you,» she said ingratiatingly.

      Although I was prepared for this, my vision suddenly dimmed slightly and my head almost started spinning. Time stood still, and something inside me turned over from a tearing premonition. Thunder was about to strike.

      – Kira will help you, she is well versed in psychology.

      In addition to the dizziness, I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks – oh, how red I must be now! In addition to everything, I felt the gaze of a couple of my colleagues from the department, initiated into my secret about sympathy for him. I tried my best to show pride and break off all ghostly contacts with him, demonstratively ignoring the entire meeting.

      But Schwein pushed us face to face. I wonder if she did it on purpose? It seemed to me so. The story of Marina Voikova came back to mind – how Eva Schwein built her family happiness with her married colleague with her own hands.

      For some reason, I had a strange feeling that she was the only one who understood me and knew what I needed. All the pictures that I stubbornly played out in my head and which I did not tell anyone about were becoming reality thanks to her. On her part, this act seemed like an exploratory interest – to see if a chemical reaction would flare up between us, because she saw right through people and definitely felt that it was more than possible. Straightening my back and trying to regain my composure, I looked at her and nodded eagerly.

      – So, Leo, are you taking Kira as your assistant? – she asked with a sly smile.

      My breath caught in my throat, despite all my attempts to show composure and purely businesslike interest.

      – Of course, I’ll do! – he blurted out eagerly and turned to me.

      With these words, our story began.

      Something fell down in my stomach. Our gazes met again, and we both carefully and slowly nodded to each other, as we did before. As if now securing our silent agreement about the beginning of something new and accepting the inevitability of the events that were happening. I lowered my head again and began to busily make sketches in my notebook, patiently waiting for him to offer to discuss the format of work on the project and methods of communication – my pen was ready to write my phone number. I did not want to be the first to make contact now – I had enough from that September day and the situation with the letter. But then the meeting ended. I hopelessly watched as he silently and hurriedly jumped up from his seat and disappeared into the oak doors of the conference room, without saying a word to me.

      «It’s okay, he will contact me later, he will definitely call me back, now we are in the same boat,» I reassured myself, brushing aside the disappointment that had begun to stir and the slight anxiety that everything would happen again. I did not want to think about the fact that he would most likely ignore me until the last, even though we now had a common cause. For me, waiting for a dialogue with Lev seemed like an eternity, and there was a feeling that fate was dozing. And now it decided to make up for lost time, picked up speed and entered a sharp turn, pushing us face to face. And now she, acting with the hands of Eva Schwein, watched us with interest and laughed at the interesting beginning of another tragicomedy, of which millions have happened throughout the history of mankind. On the other hand, I knew that everything was happening at the right time. Now Lev would begin communicating with me as a professional with whom he was put into a common project under the patronage of Schwein. But it is unknown in what light he would have viewed me earlier. So everything is going as it should – it was only worth letting go of the idea of getting closer to him and focusing on my own development.

      When everyone left the room, we were left alone with a colleague – a sunny, bright and kind-hearted girl. She winked slyly at me, stretching her lips into a wide smile:

      – Well, Kira, dreams come true, huh?

      – Oh yeah… I can’t believe it! – I smiled and whispered, afraid that someone might overhear our conversation. – I even felt a little dizzy.

      – Should I walk you to the office, help you get there? – she asked worriedly and took my arm.

      – Let’s go, – I thawed out a little, and we went out into a spacious, bright corridor.

      Walking past a large glass frame, I glanced at it – under it was a photograph of Lev, engrossed in his work in a laboratory with a complex device, much more powerful than an ordinary computer. «He looks like a modern magician, an alchemist. «He’s conjuring in his corner of science, and he doesn’t need anything else,» I thought tenderly, and we slowly descended the slippery marble stairs into the office. The colleagues sitting there, surprisingly, already knew about everything that was happening.

      – So, Kira, are your dreams coming true? – Angela asked with a joyful gleam in her eyes, as if deliberately repeating her colleague’s words, and winked, hinting at our conversation in her car in September.

      – Yes, – that’s all I could squeeze out of myself, and my face again became covered in a thick blush.

      I felt that after this episode, the respect of the team for me increased. Now I was not just a newcomer, now I stood on par with the leading minds of the corporation.

      – Soon everyone will know your name, Kira, because you work in tandem with the star of the company – Lev! – the boss once said at one of the planning meetings, smiling cheerfully, and I remembered our common secret, because I had risked sharing my secret crush with her on my birthday.

      In the back of my mind, I realized that my sincerity could have played a cruel joke. I had openly shared the secret with my colleagues, and if the information had reached the top management in an unsightly form, I could have been fired with a scandal. But, fortunately, I immediately felt that these girls could be trusted, and now my dangerous passion had turned into just a reason for good-natured jokes.

      I kept replaying in my head the moment when Eva Schwein united Lev and me, and tried to convince myself that what was happening was real. For several days, I was glowing with happiness, and getting up in the mornings became much easier, as if there was no thick darkness and howling cold wind outside the window.

      «Of course,