Chapter Text
the hardest part of it all was losing her dog.
It’s not like she didn’t see it coming. Fanny was old, well-loved, and so calm on her last day. she was asleep on the drive to the vet, asleep as Yelena picked her up and carried her the short walk from her car to the clinic. She had only opened her eyes once through the whole process, pushing her head against Yelena as she was silently crying.
Yelena said her goodbyes. Fanny was gone.
She took the long way back home, driving irrationally fast, ignoring people blowing their horns around her. Get out of the left lane, fuckers, if I’m about to crash into you you’re probably driving too slow.
The apartment felt empty when she entered it. Black and white furniture, well lit by rows of unforgiving florescent. She always imagined how it could better suit a career-focused couple, the kind that pays someone to cook for their kids. A soon-to-be divorced couple type.
Maybe that kind of couple (Max and Nora? Those seem like appropriate names for people who choose a color palette for their home) could move into the apartment once the police finish cleaning off her mess.
Not that she planned to wreak havoc all around. God no, nothing like that. She had a sensible sense of empathy for whoever was gonna have to deal with her case. Also, the floor was wood. She can’t leave stains on wood. She’s not a monster.
She was about to go peacefully, with the two packs of painkillers that had been waiting patiently on her living room table for the past week, ever since she realized Fanny’s last days were nearing. That was one of the problems of being so alone. wanting to have this bad dream over with, and simultaneously, not being able to help yourself out because you have no one to entrust your dog with.
Nevermind.
It was time. Yelena could feel it tingling all around her skin, rushing through her veins.
She took a few breaths and picked up her phone. Opened her notes and deleted them all, well aware that they would be looked through. She opened a new one. The line of actions felt so mechanic, like someone else was doing it for her.
She left the phone on the table next to the pills and got up to fill herself a cup of water.
The note was still open when she came back. This is not meant to be that hard. Everything else was already cleared.
She started typing.
dear
…
And that was it. That’s all she’s got.
What?
She can’t have…
The realization that settled upon her made her feel, for the first time in months, terrified. She had no setbacks since deciding she was through a few months back. everything was blissfully numb.
but -
No one? Really? She had no name to put down. The cops will enter her house and deliver it to who? Well, to no one, because apparently, her whole pulled-together act was nothing but a cover for how pathetic she really was.
Fuck.
Fuck.
She should really stop punching the wall now.
Fuck.
The table upside down. The pills scattered all around. This was such a mess. this was not meant to be a mess. She was never meant to be crying; why is she crying? Why is the floor so cold, why do her hands hurt so much?
When Yelena woke up it was hours later. She was covered in sweat, her whole body tense, her reflection in the bathroom mirror making her flinch. Her hair was still damp when she got out of the shower, dripping over the chaos that used to be her living space, tiny drops of water meeting small fragments of glass. She took her phone, immediately looking away and blindly getting out of the notes app.
She wasn’t going out like a loser.
Yelena Bolova’s journey to make friends was starting.
And her first stop: downloading Tinder.