Girl on the Bridge

The assignment was to write about something that would be hard for me to share with other people. 

“You, bitch, you get used to people rushing around you and doing whatever “Miss Princess” would wish! But here you sit where I will tell you and do what I will tell you to do! Understand?”  I did not see his deep green eyes that I loved so much, but I knew how full of fury and despair they became in such times.  

I was lying face down on a grey, shabby coach in our small room of the communal apartment where we lived with two other families. I was not even sobbing any more. My world had just fallen apart everything had become pointless. That was the evening when he raised his hand against me. He did not hurt me physically; it was just a blanket that he hit me with, but he did hit me with anger and this was frightening and extremely humiliating. I knew that this was too much and I had to leave, but I could not. I loved him.

I met Andrew during New Year vacations that I was spending with my best friend in Koroljov, a small, industrial city, 45 minutes from Moscow by train. She lived there with her parents and invited me to escape from noisy and dirty Moscow and to enjoy the beautiful, snowy and frosty days of the early January in her quite city. Andrew was her best friend; he also lived in Koroljov, and she decided that we could have a lot of fun if he joined us.

I remember my first impression of him very well; he definitely was not my type of man. I liked dark, athletic-looking, and tall boys with big brown eyes. He was skinny and only a little taller than me and had light-brown hair and green eyes. He also wore glasses, and at that time, I considered all boys with glasses to be bores. But he was extremely charming, energetic and cheerful.

The whole next month after my return to Moscow was composed of Andrew courting me while I doubted and pondered. It was incredibly romantic and beautiful. He brought me delicate single roses and huge, bright bunches of flowers as varied as rainbow every time we had a date. He bought me my favorite brands of chocolate and candies even though I mentioned them only once. He invited me to great concerts and plays because I told him that I liked music and theater. He saw me off and met me at the train station every time I left Moscow to visit my parents or my grandmother who lived in other parts of Russia. He was always around when I needed help - from problems with my computer to carrying heavy bags home from the supermarket.

At the end of January, I had two weeks of winter break from my university and I went to visit my grandmother in a small village in the south of Russia. Andrew was very upset about not seeing me for ten days, but I told him that I needed that time to stay alone and to think about us, to make a decision whether I wanted to be with him or not. He did not let me think, he called me every evening and texted “good morning, pretty girl” every day. When I was coming back to Moscow on the eve of Valentine’s Day, I was missing him terribly.

Andrew went to the kitchen to smoke. He always stayed there for a long time chatting to one of our apartment neighbors. To the right from our room lived a taxi driver who would work two days in a row and then went on a drinking bender for the next two days. But he assured us he never drove drunk. That’s why he always remained at home during his two-day “weekends” listening to deafening Deep Purple or repeatedly asking Andrew to drink with him. He was very nice to me and often brought me pieces of cake from supermarket to apologize for his behavior days in advance.

To the left from us lived a young couple. He was a builder; she worked as administrator in a small casino. They were very nice people too, especially when they did not curse so much. The builder liked soccer and beer and Andrew often joined him in front of their loud TV while I attempted to study in our room. That evening was no exception.

Later on that horrible night when Andrew finally came to bed, he turned his back to me and fell asleep right away. I felt completely crushed. I could not sleep, so I sat on the floor, leaning against the bed and embraced myself trying to convince my mind that this night was not real, that this evening just did not exist and that tomorrow I would wake up and this nightmare would be over. Andrew was awoke and asked me with displeasure, “What’s up?” I guess, at that moment, I really wanted him to feel the depth of my despair, so I answered, “I do not know. I cannot stand it anymore! I want to die…”

“What? Seriously, I am fed up with this shit! You wanna die? Then go, jump of the bridge or whatever else you can do! But, please, do it sooner because I cannot bear your crap anymore!” I do not remember what happened after that; most likely, I just grabbed my coat and my boots and stormed out of the apartment. I came to on the street because of piercing January cold.

The previous spring we had been incredibly happy together. We did not notice anyone around; we saw each other almost every day. I knew where he was and what he was doing almost every minute because we texted and called each other ten times a day. During a boring lecture at the university I was writing small letters to him in my notebook and at the end of the day when we finally met, we exchanged our letters. In March, I met his parents. In April, we went to my hometown to spend time with my parents and Andrew officially asked them for my hand. My parents were a little shocked but they loved me and wanted to see me happy so they said “yes”. Since then, we both always wore our engagement rings.

In the fall, we moved in together. It was not an ideal place to live, but we did not have any other options – renting apartments in Moscow cost an arm and a leg for even to tiniest shack. I had classes at the university six days a week and I worked every Sunday, basically living without weekends. It took me an hour and a half to get to my university or work from Koroljov, meaning every day I left home early in the morning and returned when it was already dark. I had to give up dancing; I did not go to work parties anymore. But it was an adult life, I had my own family, and I was proud of us. Andrew worked five days a week till 5 pm so he often cooked delicious dinners and waited for me at home. I felt that I became a woman, not just some carefree student girl. Also I loved Andrew; I had no doubts about our happy future life together. Andrew became the whole world for me; I wanted to spend all my life with him. I wanted us to have children and I knew he would be a wonderful father as he adored kids.

In fact, I never figured out completely how we came to this point when I was standing on this icy bridge somewhere in deserted, sleeping Koroljov and was replaying his words in my mind again and again. “Go kill yourself”, “I’m fed up with your crap”, “you are always like that”, “what do you want from me?” It was three in the morning, and there was no one around: only me and a freezing, dark river under the bridge. And there was this eternal question in my mind “what if I do it?” I came to short white guardrails and looked down into the abyss. Standing on the precipice, I could not see my way out of that situation -- he meant more than life for me, but I could not come back to him. I was stranded in this hellish nightmare.

Perhaps, we were just very different-we were brought up in different types of families, with different values and interests. In my family, we were always trying to educate ourselves in our free time, we read books, went to theaters and concerts, traveled, watched movies and drank good wine. His family used to spend weekends vegetating in front of the TV, his mother often cursed in scolding his five-year-old sister and they considered people who spend money on museums and theaters to be snobs.

While he tried to win my attention, he pretended to like the same things as I did. But once he realized that I was not going to leave him - once we moved a level up and started living together - he wanted "his life" back. He wanted to drink beer with his friends and play video games, he wanted to watch soccer and hockey in the evenings and spend weekends at home or at his parents’ apartment. I did not like his family and his friends enough to spend every weekend with them and I hated beer and video games. There was nothing dramatic about our relationship. We became everything for each other, but day after day, we were stepping farther and farther from each other.

I did not jump of the bridge that evening. I did the best thing I could do in that situation – I called my sister, the closest person in my life. We talked for about an hour and she found right words to calm me down and to let me know that Andrew was not the only one who cared about me. I do not remember what exactly she told me, but I came home and went to sleep right away.

A week later, Andrew and I broke up.  It was really hard. I was bawling and telling him that I could not imagine my life without him. He was stroking my hair and explaining to  me that I was a pretty and bright 19-year-old girl, and I would have dozens of wonderful boyfriends in the future, that I would be happy again.

He was absolutely right. I was only 19, there was a long, happy life in front of me jam packed with romantic adventures, beautiful, new places, charming people and great achievements.

Sometimes the bridge just needs to be crossed.