Intertwined Fates

I gradually began to get used to her accent. She sat relaxed in a high chair upholstered in white leather, but you should not be deceived by her mood – at any second she could change her mercy to anger and bring it down on us or any other person. Her strong figure, dressed in a heavy dark jacket, literally pressed with authority. Her long blond hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, a few strands had come loose and fallen over her glasses. Her brown eyes were studying us tenaciously from behind round lenses.

After her question, a timid discussion of the developments began – everyone was afraid to say something wrong and displease her, bringing down on themselves a hot portion of criticism.

She listened silently and took notes, when suddenly she raised her head, and her gaze stopped on me. I tried my best to become invisible and merge with the furniture, although I understood that it was too late.

– I looked at Kira’s blog here…

I froze and stopped breathing, hearing the rapid beating of her heart echoing in my ears. I felt like a helpless doll under her sharp gaze. – And I suggest that she teach a module on psychology in our project, – she finished her remark and sat back in her chair with satisfaction.

I perked up and exhaled sharply. A smile spread across my face in surprise.

«My knowledge was noticed and appreciated! They believe in me!» – flashed through my head like an arrow. I tore myself away from the back of the chair, which seemed to have grown to me, and straightened my shoulders.

«With pleasure! I won’t let you down!» I blurted out joyfully.

I couldn’t even imagine that a hobby – blogging on philosophical and psychological topics, where I have been sharing my thoughts and discoveries for five years now – would give such a boost to my career. How wonderful it is when hobbies and work intertwine!

It was as if I had a second wind, and a visit to that very «scary office» of Eva Schwein, which my colleagues sometimes scared me with, turned out to be a new hope for me. When I got home, without undressing, I greedily pounced on my books and notes on psychology – I was too inspired, and in one evening I sketched out the skeleton of a lecture in which I tried to put all my knowledge. This lecture seemed to me an important step on the path to something more – as it turned out later, for good reason.

Since childhood, I noticed that as soon as I thought about something and wanted it very much, it literally immediately came to life. At first, this happened beyond my control, but soon I caught the pattern and began to try to manage this process.

About a year of conscious training passed, and I began to deliberately use this gift. And this time, as soon as I came to the company, I realized that I did not want to do routine work. But how can I tell my superiors about this, having neither the skills nor the experience? And I just started to think about how much I wanted to be given a more important task and given the opportunity to show myself to my colleagues and share my knowledge with them. My intuition told me that this would happen very soon, but I stubbornly continued to think about the picture in my head of me standing in front of rows of employees, and they listening to me attentively.

And then reality gave in – and the picture in my head became reality, albeit not as quickly as it usually happened with my smaller desires. Does such a gift make life easier? Yes, but it is not just a tool, but a way of living, for which the universe imposes special responsibility – after all, reality and the lives of other people largely depended on my thoughts.

I understood the gravity of my role, and I was not drawn to doing something that would harm others. But there was one «but». I could not stop thinking about Lev. Trying to distract myself, doing household or work chores, I mentally slipped into bright and warm pictures every now and then: here we are spinning in a dance to a song on the radio, here we are performing together in front of an audience, and here we are drinking coffee in peace and quiet, or looking at the pond from the window of a cozy house… «What nonsense, stop it!» I pulled myself up every time, but the thoughts stubbornly escaped the control of the grip of control, and I stopped trying to hold them. For some reason, Lev seemed strangely familiar and close to me, and I desperately wanted to see him nearby, but I did not understand how this could be. The subconscious knew something that I did not. A couple of days later, my colleagues and I, as usual, laughing heartily and discussing the latest news from the company and the space industry, went to the cafeteria for lunch. «I’ll have rice with chicken, thank you,» I nodded at the counter, putting my plate on the tray.

Our line at the counter in the room filled with noise and hubbub of people was already coming to an end. I reached for the cutlery. And suddenly I felt a heavy, insistent gaze on me.

I turned around and saw brown eyes staring up at me, filled with… anger, fear, rejection? It was as if the woman was trying to poison me with her gaze, to put into it all the destructive power that a person can have inside, but as if she knew in advance that she was not capable of it. Behind that gaze was hiding a small wounded child, trying to convince me through intimidation that he himself was not afraid. He was broken by my suddenly appearing cold indifference.

Having carefully examined her face, I turned away, took the tray and silently walked to the other end of the canteen.

I knew who it was. Christina. Lev’s wife. I didn’t ask myself then what could be the reason for her angry look, but I caught something vaguely familiar in it. But why would she look like that? Could she have a premonition of something, or simply see me as a potential rival? It’s stupid – the company is full of beautiful young girls. She can’t see right through my thoughts about her husband, can she? Apparently, it’s not for nothing that they talk about the power of women’s intuition.

«She probably knows and feels something too. Her look is like the look of an animal trying to drive away a threat, having seen it from afar. So early? Does she know something?» I worriedly noted to myself, feeling that the mysterious situation was only gaining momentum. There was a distinct feeling in the air that something was about to happen, like the calm before a storm.

And a week later, Eva Schwein announced to us the updated lineup of speakers for our project. Among the names that were still unfamiliar to me, I noticed the very same one – Lev Aleksandrovich. This was not surprising, considering that he is involved in almost all projects. But a wave of goosebumps ran down my spine from the realization that a face-to-face meeting was inevitable.

I practically heard how reality creaked, changing direction and giving in to my thoughts about him, which involuntarily swirled around in my head every day. From the premonition of imminent changes, my legs began to buckle slightly.

There were so many things I wanted to do when I met him face to face: talk, casually, about everything in the world – but at the same time, I wanted to hide, turn away and have nothing to do with him. Just in case. So as not to get burned again. When you get hurt – neither psychology nor magic can save you.

– Oh, I’m a little worried. I don’t even know how I’ll look Lev in the eye when we work on the same project, – I shared with a colleague, with whom we had already become friends, when we were leaving the checkpoint and walking along a dense row of cars in the parking lot, enjoying the fresh November air and the crimson sunset sky.

– How? Until now? – she smiled in surprise.

Until now. It turned out that a month and a half is not a period at all, it’s a short moment. And I will look him in the eye boldly, with a challenge, with pleasure, tenderness, passion – but not now. And when? I knew that these moments would come, but I couldn’t say how soon.

«I can’t explain to you why, but my intuition tells me that our story with him is just beginning. You know, sometimes I see the future,» I admitted to her with a soft, almost apologetic smile. «The only question is how soon it will happen. Even before moving to St. Petersburg, I had the same vague picture before my eyes – I meet my man at work, when we are working together on some project. He is bent over a piece of paper and is writing something intently. He is wearing a white coat, he has dark hair and glasses. Only it’s all so blurry…

I stopped mid-sentence, fell silent in fear, worried that I had blurted out too much. This was my reality and picture of the world, but a rather specific one, and the people I work with could misunderstand me.

Maybe that same man from the vision is Leo? There was still a fresh, painful scar in my soul from how we had played this game with glances and smiles, fleeting jokes for so long, and then he had simply ignored me and my attempt to make a real step towards rapprochement, never answering my letter.

«So I will ignore him too, no more strange glances!» I told myself sternly, realizing that I would change my mind as soon as we came face to face.

When that day came, I tried to look unperturbed. Usually this was not a difficult task, but next to Lev something thawed in me, and I did not recognize myself. That morning, when the first meeting of the project participants was to take place, I sat for a couple of minutes in silence, collecting my thoughts. Then, with slightly trembling hands, I took the notebook and slowly headed towards our spacious conference room with a long glass table, from which a postcard view of the long rows of rusty St. Petersburg roofs stretching beyond the horizon opened up.

Anticipating the meeting, from which my solar plexus was slightly twisted, I put on an elegant black dress, adorned my fingers with neat rings with pearls. My colleague made two tight braids, slightly pressing on her head – but these inconveniences seemed nonsense.

I went into the conference room, timidly sat down opposite Lev at the long glass table and involuntarily glanced at him. «How handsome he is today in his business suit, how sincerely and brightly he smiles on this dark November morning! But I can no longer show my sympathy,» I thought, barely tearing my eyes away from him.

But somewhere nearby, along these corridors, his wife is walking, already sensing danger, recognizing in me the figure of a long-forgotten enemy and incinerating me with her gaze. How can this be?

I shook my head slightly, driving away the memories of the look in her eyes, the same brown as mine. And as if by chance, I turned away, showing Lev an elegant profile, which one artist several years ago compared to an antique statue. I pretended that I was absorbed in discussing the project and that I didn’t care about anyone. And yet I felt how he was stealthily looking at me with an interested gaze, naively and openly.

I deliberately did not greet him and diligently pretended not to notice his presence. Although my heart was pounding 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, I do!» – Lev’s words echoed in my head, spoken with such readiness that they warmed my heart. I felt a huge surge of inspiration and strength, a desire to put my soul into this project and make it a symbol of our tandem – intellectual, and perhaps something more. With tripled strength, I began to study books and courses on the topic of psychology.

I was inspired by the pictures that arose before my inner eye. I clearly knew that this was a premonition, not a fantasy, although it was sometimes difficult to distinguish between them. I saw a long, bright laboratory with equipment, a row of narrow windows under the ceiling, and a separate office for the director in the left corner: and in it, Lev and I were sitting and slowly discussing materials on the project and psychology in general, but behind these conversations a feeling of mutual human warmth was growing. And here is another vision, which appeared before my inner eye in brief episodes in broad daylight – he throws a robe over my shoulders and leads me around the laboratory, shows me the equipment, explains how it works, gives me some details to examine – there is a mixture of pleasure, pride and tenderness on his face, he is happy to tell a girl who does not understand anything about it about his favorite business, and his colleagues look at each other in confusion and shrug their shoulders. It is strange, where do such clear pictures come from in reality? After all, I have never been to his laboratories. But just a little bit more – and I will see everything with my own eyes. I wish it would be sooner, sooner… However, one thing bothered me. All my colleagues, speakers of other modules, had long ago held meetings to discuss their projects. Lev stubbornly did not contact me. Day after day, I glanced at my work phone, expecting to see the three cherished digits of his extension number and hear that hoarse, slightly high-pitched voice – and every time someone called me, I pretended to roll my eyes and declared: «Not him again!», which caused good-natured laughter among my colleagues. But neither humor nor serious anticipation brought the cherished event closer. Other speakers were already discussing their materials, and anxiety stirred in me, the fear of falling behind the others, of not making it on time.

«I shouldn’t write to him first again. I need to have pride. He is responsible for the module, I am just his assistant,» flashed through my thoughts. But impatience, the desire to get down to business as soon as possible, and excessive responsibility in work matters began to take over.

Finally giving in, I opened the email window and put my fingers on the keyboard. «Lev, good morning! This is Kira, we are doing a project in psychology together. How would you like to get together and discuss a common work plan?»

The letter was sent.

«Well, I didn’t write first, well done,» I thought ironically. I introduced myself to everyone by my first and last name, but now I deliberately took a step forward to establish trust by offering to call me only by my first name.

To my surprise, the answer came immediately: «Kira, hi! Yes, come to our department on Wednesday so as not to occupy the conference room in the administration.» I read his «Kira, hi!» several times with delight, and something clicked inside, spreading warmth throughout my body.

***

The long-awaited Wednesday has arrived. I spent a long time choosing an outfit in the morning so that I would look tasteful and elegant at this important moment, our first meeting. Although we had seen each other from afar before, today our personal communication would begin, and I would not have a second chance to make a first impression. I settled on a coffee-colored turtleneck, bought back in school, a black pencil skirt and high-heeled boots. The final touches were playfully curled locks framing my face and giving the whole image a romantic flair. «Are you going somewhere after work?» Angela asked ingratiatingly, watching me fix my hair in front of the mirror. «No, not after work, I’m leaving in half an hour,» I winked at her.

My body reacted to the upcoming meeting in a very strange way: a slight tremor and sweat ran through me, and my stomach was slightly twisted with excitement. Throwing on a light-colored faux fur coat, I stepped out into the crisp, frosty November air and set off, passing old brick buildings of industrial workshops, entered an inconspicuous door at the end, and moved along a bright labyrinth of corridors.

Here was the coveted blue door. Overcoming my trembling, I reached out and pressed the doorbell. A friendly, black-haired girl opened the door for me.

– Hello, I’m here to see Lev, – I nodded briefly.

– Come in, sit down, he’ll be right there, – she led me into a cramped room filled with cabinets and chairs, and pointed to a worn black leather sofa.

«A great start, I’m late for the meeting, and he’s in no hurry himself,» I noted sarcastically. Finally, he came into the office and, without offering me any tea or coffee (which, from my point of view, would have been a sign of hospitality and respect, even in a work environment), collapsed on the sofa next to me. I looked closely into his large expressive brown eyes, which were now closer than ever, and I was again overcome by the feeling that I had known this man for a very long time. So this long-awaited face-to-face meeting had happened!