Plastika

«Morning, beautiful,» he went to hug her, but she mechanically dodged, pretending to adjust the belt on her silk robe.

«Smells like coffee. Thanks.»

She walked to the sofa, sat down, tucking her legs under her, and took a cup. Her movements were sharp, angular. Denis felt the invisible string of misunderstanding tighten between them again. He sat down next to her, but not too close, giving her space.

«Sleep okay?» he asked, pouring her coffee.

«Fine,» she answered monosyllabically, staring out the window at the linden trees turning gold in the sun.

«Look at that sunshine. Maybe we can go to the park later,» he suggested, trying to steer things back to their usual, peaceful course. «Get some air. Take your mind off things.»

She just nodded, breaking off a tiny piece of croissant but not eating it. The silence stretched, becoming oppressive. Denis felt he had to say something, do something, break down this wall. He remembered last night’s tears, the album, her trembling shoulders.

«Sveta… about yesterday…» he began cautiously. «Don’t you want to talk? It might help.»

She slowly turned her head toward him. In her eyes, he saw not pain, but something else. An impenetrable, cold veil.

«What is there to talk about, Denis? That I was teased in school? It’s banal and stupid. Everyone has their baggage.»

«But it clearly still bothers you,» he insisted gently. «If something hurts, you should talk about it. Especially with the person closest to you.»

She pushed her cup away sharply, almost irritably.

«You’re right. It does hurt. And you know what hurts the most? That it’s still going on. That I, a grown, supposedly intelligent woman, let some stupid, ancient jokes ruin my life. That’s what’s truly humiliating.»

She stood up and walked to the window, her back to him. Denis saw how tense her shoulders were under the thin silk.

«Sveta, darling,» he came up behind her and, this time not letting her evade, hugged her, pressing his lips to her hair, still damp from the shower. «No one cares about any of that. You are beautiful. You are smart, talented, you… you’re perfect just as you are. And for me…» he paused for a second, choosing words that might reach her. "…For me, everything about you is perfect.»

He felt her freeze in his embrace. He turned her to face him, looked into her eyes, full of unshed tears and a strange, incomprehensible anguish. He leaned down and kissed her tenderly, almost reverently. First on the lips, then on the cheeks, on the eyelids, and then his lips moved lower and touched that very spot – the bridge of her nose, the slight, barely noticeable hump that he now understood was the source of all her pain.

«You see,» he whispered, kissing her again and again, «your little quirk. My favorite part.»

And in that very moment, that very second, when his lips touched her skin with such tenderness and adoration, he felt her whole body go rigid, painfully tense. Not with pleasure, but with something else. With rejection. She didn’t relax in his arms, didn’t respond to his caress; instead, she became hard as stone.

She pulled away. Her eyes, filled with anguish just a second before, now looked at him with something like… disappointment. No, not that. With pity. Pity for him because he «just didn’t understand.»

«You don’t understand,» she said quietly, and the words sounded like a verdict. An impassable chasm between them.

«What don’t I understand?» he asked, genuinely surprised, still trying to hold her hands. «I understand that you are the most beautiful woman in the world. To me. Isn’t that enough?»

She slowly, with infinite weariness, shook her head.

«This isn’t about you, Denis. Believe me. It’s not about you at all. It’s about me. You love me, so you’re blind. You don’t see what I see. You don’t feel what I feel, every time I catch my reflection in a store window or on a black phone screen. For you, it’s a ’quirk.» For me, it’s… a brand. A reminder. A constant whisper from the past telling me I’m not right. That I’m unfinished. Defective.»

He looked at her, and his heart broke from helplessness. He saw her pain, he believed in her sincerity, but he couldn’t penetrate to the core of this feeling. For him, her nose was a part of her. A part of the whole he had fallen head over heels in love with. He loved every feature, every freckle, every curve. And the fact that she hated in herself what he so adored was a tormenting mystery to him.

«But, Sveta…» he tried to find words, any words, that could heal this wound. «It’s part of your story. Your face. Without it, it wouldn’t be you anymore.»

She gave a bitter smile.

«Exactly. I want to stop being who I was. I want to finally become myself. The real me. Free.»

She turned back to the window. The sun illuminated her profile, and Denis, with an ache in his soul, looked at that very line that evoked such hatred in her. He saw only beauty. Strength. Character. He saw the woman he loved.

«I don’t know what to say,» he admitted honestly, dropping his hands. «I don’t know how to help you. I can only repeat that I love you. All of you. The you with ribbons in her hair at sixteen, and the you standing here now, talking to me in a language I don’t understand.»

She turned around. In her eyes was no longer pity, but a new, desperate tenderness.

«You are helping. Just… be here. And don’t ask any questions. Okay?»

She came over and hugged him herself, pressed herself against his chest as if seeking protection from herself. He held her, feeling how fragile and defenseless her body was. He kissed the top of her head, whispered words of comfort, but in his soul, he felt anxious and empty. He felt he was losing her. Not physically, but in some other way. That she was going into some dark depth where he was forbidden to go. That her pain was building an invisible but sturdy wall between them.

They finished breakfast almost in silence. Then Svetlana said she had work to do and went to the study. Denis was left alone. He cleared the table, washed the dishes, his movements automatic. His thoughts were far away.

He remembered their first meeting. A vernissage of a young sculptor, a colleague of his. She was standing by one of his works, not the most successful in his opinion, saying something to her companion. And he caught a fragment of a phrase: "…lacks courage in the lines, see? He’s afraid of his own idea.» He was struck by the accuracy of her remark. Then they got talking. He looked at her, at her animated, intelligent face, at those radiant eyes, the stubborn chin, that very hump that gave her face extraordinary expressiveness, and thought he had never seen anyone more beautiful. He fell in love immediately, recklessly, forever.

And now that very feature he adored threatened to destroy everything they had. Not the feature itself, but her perception of it. His love, his adoration, had not been enough. His assurances of her perfection were not enough. She needed something else. Something he couldn’t give.

He approached the closed study door. Listened. Not a sound came from within. No clicking of a keyboard. She wasn’t working. She was just sitting in there. Alone. With her demons.

He raised his hand to knock, to go in, to try again to get through to her, to convince, to beg… but let it drop. She had asked him not to ask. She had asked him just to be there. So be it.

He went to his workshop, located in a far room. Here it smelled of wood, wax, creativity. Here was his world. Understandable, simple, yielding to his will. He approached an unfinished sculpture – he was carving the figure of a dancing woman from a single block of walnut. So far, it was only hints of form, the outline of movement. But grace and strength were already discernible.

He picked up a chisel, ran his fingers over the rough, still unworked surface. And with terrible, piercing clarity, he realized who he was trying to sculpt. It was her. Svetlana. In her most intimate, most true manifestation. The way he saw her.

And now he was afraid. Afraid that the woman he saw and loved, and the one who lived inside Svetlana and whom she hated, were different people. And he didn’t know if he could love the one that might emerge from under the surgeon’s scalpel. Not physically, but inwardly. Would something change in her very essence, in her soul, if she forcibly changed her shell?

He gripped the chisel tightly in his hand. The cold metal was calming. He had to believe. Believe in her. In their love. Trust her and her choice, even if he didn’t understand it. Just be there. As she had asked.

But deep down, in the most secret corner of his heart, lived a cold, tenacious fear. The fear that by changing her face, she would forever change something between them. And that his love might not be enough to accept this new, unfamiliar woman. The one who would no longer wear his beloved «quirk.» The one who, it seemed to him, was trying to destroy a part of herself. And with it – a part of his love.

He never touched the wood with the chisel. He just sat in his chair, looked at the unfinished sculpture, and listened to the silence of the apartment, broken into two parts: his quiet, anxious workshop, and her tomblike silence behind the study door. And between these two worlds yawned a chasm that no bridge could yet fill. Not even a bridge made of the strongest love.

Chapter 4: The Breaking Point

The week that followed the party and the night spent over the school album stretched into an endless series of grey, tense days. Svetlana functioned on autopilot. She answered calls, held meetings, edited contracts, but her thoughts were somewhere far away, in a parallel reality where only clinics, surgeons’ websites, and «before and after» galleries existed. She caught herself re-reading the same paragraphs in documents multiple times, unable to grasp the meaning. Her usually impeccable concentration had failed.

Denis felt this tension and tried not to disturb her. He was quieter than water, lower than grass. He cooked her favorite meals, held her hand in silence when they watched movies, asked no questions. His care was a shield he tried to put between her and her demons. But Svetlana felt this care as pressure. Every tender touch, every understanding look was a silent reproach and a reminder: «I love you as you are, why change anything?» His love, so sincere and all-encompassing, had become another stone on her path to the coveted decision, another proof that her pain was invisible and incomprehensible to anyone, even the person closest to her.

And this pain, awakened by the reopening of the old wound, now lived its own life, fed by the smallest events of the day. It seemed the universe itself had turned against her, providing new and new confirmations of her imperfection.

Wednesday morning began with rain. Cold, nasty, drizzly rain, covering the sky with a dirty grey sheet. Of course, there were no taxis, so she had to go down into the metro. The crush in the carriage was hellish. People, irritated by the weather and the need to go somewhere, angry, wet, jostled and hissed at each other.

Svetlana pressed herself into a corner, trying to take up as little space as possible. She buried herself in her phone, pretending to read something important, just to avoid accidental glances. But she couldn’t avoid it. Right in front of her, on the seat, sat a young guy, about twenty, with headphones. His gaze, absent and uninterested, slid over her, over her face, and suddenly… lingered. Not on her eyes, not on her lips. But right there. On the bridge of her nose. His eyebrows crept up almost imperceptibly, something flickered in his eyes… not quite judgment, no. Rather, a fleeting, instantaneous curiosity. A slight, almost unnoticeable interest of an anatomist in a non-standard detail.

For anyone else, that glance would have meant nothing. The guy was probably just lost in thought, and his eyes focused on something random. But for Svetlana, with her psyche heated to the limit, that glance was a verdict. It was like a laser beam burning through her. She felt like everyone in the carriage was staring at her, at her deformity, whispering, pointing fingers. Her breath caught, her vision darkened. She shrank even more, feeling goosebumps of shame and humiliation running down her back.

At the very next station, she jumped out of the carriage, unable to bear it any longer. She came up to the street and, ignoring the rain, walked, breathing heavily, trying to force back the panic rising in her throat. It’s paranoia, she tried to persuade herself. He just had nowhere else to look. He didn’t mean anything. But she couldn’t convince herself. That random, meaningless glance on the metro etched itself into her memory like a knife wound.

At the office, a mountain of work awaited her. She urgently needed to prepare materials for foreign partners. Her assistant brought her files and, among other things, asked her to sign some documents for the report on the corporate event – that fateful party. And she attached a disk with professional photographs.

The workday came to an end, the tasks were finished. Colleagues gradually dispersed. Svetlana remained alone in her office. The rain drummed against the glass. She sat and looked at that very disk lying on the table. She didn’t want to look at it. But some dark, masochistic force made her insert the disk into the computer.

The photos were beautiful. The photographer’s skillful hands had captured the brightest moments of the evening: laughter, the sparkle of glasses, joyful faces. Here she was with Simona, here with the young author, radiant with happiness. Here was a general view of the hall – successful, beautiful people in a beautiful interior.

And then she found herself. Several large portraits of her. The photographer had caught her in moments of conversation, smiling, thoughtful. She looked at her reflection through the lens of a stranger’s camera – as the whole world saw her. And again – the same thing. She didn’t see a successful woman, her style, her smile. She saw only one thing. That damned curve, which, it seemed to her, screamed from every frame, disfiguring her entire face, making it asymmetrical, ugly, strange.

She opened one of the best photos, in her opinion – where she was looking slightly away, lost in thought. And decided to take a selfie. Not a selfie for social media, no. She wanted to photograph herself now, in the dimly lit office, without makeup, tired, and compare. Compare herself with that happy, confident woman from the photo.

She raised her phone, pointed the camera at her face. The screen became a merciless mirror. She saw pupils dilated with fatigue, traces of tension around her lips, a disobedient strand of hair on her forehead. And again – this. The same thing. Nothing had changed. No success, no love, no amount of money could change the simple fact: her face was what it was. And it caused her unbearable physical pain.

She tossed the phone away in disgust. It fell on the carpet with a dull thud. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to banish the obsessive images. But they didn’t go away. Instead, another face surfaced in her memory. The face of her rival colleague.

Kristina. The one with whom she constantly competed for the most promising authors. Kristina was dazzlingly beautiful. Perfect features, flawless skin, and… yes, that very small, neat, straight nose that Svetlana mentally considered the ideal. Kristina was always confident, always won, always got what she wanted. And Svetlana, in her darkest moments, was sure it wasn’t just Kristina’s professionalism, but her appearance. Her impeccable, cold, doll-like beauty that disarmed clients and bosses from the first second.

The thought of Kristina was the last straw. Envy, bitter and acrid, rose in her throat. Why could she have everything? Talent, recognition, and beauty? Why should she, Svetlana, be lacking something? Why did she have to carry this brand, this mark of an outcast from the most difficult time of her life on her face for years?

She stood up abruptly and walked to the window. Outside, it was already dark; the rain was intensifying, turning into a downpour. The drops lashed against the glass, washing away the dust, distorting the city lights. It seemed to her that her life was similarly distorted, ruined by a single detail. And that this downpour would wash away everything – her success, her confidence, Denis’s love – exposing the bare, unseemly truth about herself.

She felt something tearing inside her. Patience, long, agonizing, stretched over two decades, had snapped. The breaking point had been reached. She no longer had the strength to fight, to convince herself it was nonsense, that there were more important things. She no longer had the strength to hide behind work, behind money, behind the love of a man who «just didn’t understand.»

She was a naked, lonely, and unhappy girl facing the whole world. And this world was ruthlessly rubbing her nose in her flaw. The glance of a stranger on the metro. The photographs. Her own reflection in the selfie. The image of the perfect rival. Everything came together into a single, undeniable picture.

She had to stop it. Immediately. Finally. Once and for all.

Her hands no longer trembled. Her breathing evened out. A strange, icy emptiness settled inside her – the calm that comes after making the hardest, but inevitable decision.

She returned to the desk, picked up her phone. The screen was still spattered with raindrops. She wiped it with her jacket sleeve. Her fingers were cold and damp, but her movements were firm and precise.

She didn’t search for websites, didn’t reread reviews. She already knew where she would call. She went to her contacts and found the number saved that night, after the album. The number for the «Esteticus» clinic.

She dialed it. Her heart wasn’t pounding; her throat wasn’t dry. There was only absolute, indifferent clarity. She listened to the long rings, looking at her reflection in the black monitor screen. She could no longer see herself, only the vague outlines of a silhouette. It was for the best.

«Hello? Esteticus clinic, good evening,» a polite, slightly tired female voice sounded.

Svetlana took a deep breath. Her own voice sounded surprisingly even, calm, and businesslike. The voice of Svetlana Orlova, successful negotiator.

«Good evening. My name is Svetlana Orlova. I would like to make an appointment for a consultation with Dr. Ignatov. Regarding rhinoplasty.»

«One moment, I’ll check his schedule,» clicks of a keyboard were heard. «Dr. Ignatov is booked three weeks in advance. I can offer you…»

«No,» Svetlana interrupted her softly but inflexibly. «Only him. I’m willing to wait. And I’m willing to pay a double fee for urgency if a ’window’ appears.»

Surprise was audible in the secretary’s voice. Such clients were always valued.

«Alright, I’ll put you on the waiting list. For now, let’s set a date. The earliest availability… is the twenty-seventh, at eleven a.m. Does that work?»

The twenty-seventh. In three weeks. An eternity.

«Yes,» Svetlana answered without hesitation. «That works.»

She dictated her details, listened to the instructions for preparing for the consultation, and hung up. It was over. Or it was just beginning.

She sat in the complete silence of her office, and only the drumming of rain against the window broke the silence. The waiting was over. The doubts had evaporated. Now she had a goal. A date in the calendar. A time by which she had to prepare herself mentally and physically.

She gathered her things, turned off the light, and left the office. The elevator smoothly carried her down. She looked at her reflections in the shiny walls of the cab – dozens of Svetlanas, with dozens of identical noses. But now this sight evoked neither pain nor disgust. Only a cold, detached curiosity. Soon all this would disappear. Soon she would look in the mirror and see a different person. The one she had always wanted to see.

She stepped outside. The rain had almost stopped, leaving only a light drizzle. She didn’t call a taxi and walked on the wet, shining asphalt. The city air, washed by the rain, was fresh and clean. She walked and felt an unusual lightness. The burden of choice had been lifted. Now all that remained was to follow the chosen path.

She stopped at a flower kiosk and bought a large bouquet of white lilies. Denis loved lilies. She wanted to do something nice for him. Not out of guilt, no. But because she had made the decision, and now she could allow herself to be tender with him again. The wall between them was still there, but now Svetlana knew that on the other side of that wall awaited her liberation. And that gave her strength.

She approached their building, saw the light in their apartment windows. Denis was home. He was waiting for her. She paused for a moment, looking at that light, at the coziness they had created together. And for a moment, her heart constricted with doubt. Would her decision destroy this fragile world? Would Denis leave if she changed? But she immediately dismissed the thought. He loved her. He would have to understand. He would have to accept.

She took the elevator up, opened the door. Familiar sounds and smells came from the kitchen – Denis was cooking dinner.

«It’s me!» she called out, trying to make her voice sound normal.

«In the kitchen!» he called back.

She put the flowers in a vase, hung up her coat, and went to the kitchen. Denis stood at the stove, stirring something in a saucepan. He turned and smiled at her. His smile was so warm, so familiar.

«Hi, beautiful. How was your day?»

She went to him, hugged him from behind, and pressed her cheek against his back.

«Okay,» she said, closing her eyes. «Everything’s okay. Better now.»

She wasn’t lying. It was true. She had made the decision. And it had brought her a long-awaited, albeit shaky, calm. The breaking point was behind her. Ahead lay a long path to a new life. And the first step had been taken.

Chapter 5: The First Consultation

The three weeks of waiting passed in a strange, suspended state. Outwardly, Svetlana’s life went on as usual: work, meetings, evenings with Denis. But inside, everything was different. Each day was a countdown to the appointed hour; every morning she woke with the thought: One day closer today. She began staying late at the office, finding reasons to go out alone on weekends – she needed space for her secret, for her internal preparation for what was to come.

She meticulously followed all the clinic’s prescriptions: she got tests done, underwent examinations. Every injection, every blood draw was for her not a medical procedure, but a step toward purification, a sacrifice on the altar of a new life. She studied forums, read stories, watched videos about recovery. She immersed herself in this new world with the fanaticism of a convert, and the more she learned about the risks, the swelling, the pain, and the possible complications, the more strangely calmed she felt. This was the price, and she was willing to pay it. Any price.

Denis felt her distance but attributed it to fatigue after a successful yet draining project. He tried to surround her with even more care, which only intensified her guilt. She lay at night with her eyes open, listening to his even breathing, and mentally asked his forgiveness for what she was about to do. For the secret. For the distrust. For the fact that his love had not been enough.

And then the morning of the twenty-seventh arrived. Consultation day.

She woke before the alarm, in the pre-dawn greyness of the room. Her heart pounded not with fear, but with impatience, as before a long-awaited date. She carefully slipped out of bed so as not to wake Denis and locked herself in the bathroom.

Today, she didn’t put on much makeup – just a light foundation, a bit of mascara. Let the doctor see the raw «material.» She put on a simple but expensive dark blue suit that emphasized severity and businesslike efficiency. She had to make an impression of a serious, considered woman, not a hysterical girl with invented complexes.

«So early?» Denis mumbled sleepily when she, already dressed, peeked into the bedroom to say goodbye.

«Important negotiations,» she lied, kissing him on the cheek. His lips were warm and soft from sleep. «Don’t wait for me for dinner, I might be late.»

«Good luck,» he smiled at her, completely unaware of where and to whom she was actually going.