true? How come he’s got my photo?”
“So how long have you been dating? You can spill the beans; it’s not a secret anymore,” Tanya was about to plead.
“You know, Aunt Ann’s calling me – let’s have a talk later. See you.”
“See you,” Tanya mouthed with disappointment on hearing long beeps in the receiver.
And Lika perched herself on her bed; her fingers grabbed a mattress’s edge. She did not have a slightest idea of what had just happened.
“Just a hoax. A prank,” she concluded. “Rita must be up to this. That’s why she neither calls nor answers my calls.”
No matter how hard Lika had tried to hide her feelings toward Vlad, Rita might have guessed the point and made up her mind to support Lika in such an odd way. It was like her. She had always been up to incredible things to raise one’s spirits. And this time she succeeded as well. The very thought that Vlad had her photo warmed Lika’s heart.
Lika instantly urged to have a talk with her friend to tell the truth about her feelings towards Vlad at last as though the chat with Tanya had torn the chains off her heart, and the feelings she had been suppressing came flooding her all over.
She dialed Rita’s number but the number appeared to be disabled, and it was too late to try her home phone number. Having dropped the phone on her bed, she glanced at her own reflection in a mirror. She was smiling. It was a sincere smile coming out of her very heart which also made some tears come down from her eyes.
They say you cannot feel joy and pain simultaneously. In fact, you can only when you are in love.
Chapter 2
Butterflies
The next week Lika failed to get through to Rita – the number was either not available or engaged and sometimes Rita’s mother replied that Rita was not at home but promised she would call Lika back. Still Rita never did.
Lika calmed herself down by supposing that her friend was preparing to enroll the university, getting her documents and certificates ready and passing a medical examination. After all, she was doing the same things.
Finally, Lika made up her mind to visit Rita as soon as the doing with the documents was over, and they were sure to have a farewell party. Rita was going to continue study in St. Petersburg. Actually, she did not like the idea; her parents insisted she would get decent education at a prestigious university. Lika was saddened by that fact; it deeply hurt her to part with the dear friend. But what hurt her more was the coming Vlad’s departure – he had enrolled the American University in Bulgaria. That was the way she was going to lose the two people she loved most. The thoughts of future parting haunted her in the daytime and at night, clothed in robes of vague and sad images, they enlaced her with dreams. None of those thoughts left her a single drop of hope for future happiness. Nobody had ever taught her to stand for her rejoice. She had only been taught to take her fate as it was. And if the fate was bound to split her up with the loved one, she considered it to be the only possible way to go.
The chat with Tanya made her perceive the coming parting with a particularly poignant pain. The preposterous talk it had been. It embarrassed and confused her a lot. If only she could get to know the truth!
Lika decided to invite Vlad to a farewell party. “I’ll ask him to come by all means!” that’s what she said to a hairbrush in her hand having finished brushing her long beautiful hair. She put the hairbrush on the cabinet at the mirror and added “You’ll see.”
Lika turned off the light and got under the blanket. She took a deep breath, and permeated with oxygen an innocent phantasy came flowing into her brain. Holding hands with Vlad, glancing at each other, they were walking through the park. He gave her one of his sweet smiles and unspeakable tenderness filled her heart. Her soul awoke with the song by the thought they were together. It seemed the whole world went pouring with sunlight and some kind of bewitching and angelic music. “The same music must be heard up there in paradise,” Lika had thought before the sunbeams began to decay into pieces which turned into huge white butterflies. Their superfine patterned wings fluttered to the music. They were persistently growing in number, and Lika was encircled by them pretty soon. The butterflies were so close to her that they were continually brushing her face with their wings. Lika stood frozen with either delight or fear of the possibility for the beautiful vision being breathed away. First she thought the butterflies were flying around her, but in a while she understood they were moving to the rhythm in a particular order. Their movements started to remind dancing which mesmerized and fascinated her. Having spread her arms, Lika saw the butterflies flying straight through her body as if she had not got one. Besides, her body got slightly transparent and so light that it seemed to start soaring just on a thought of flight. The flight without wings encouraged just by an urge was her precious dream that could fill her insides with real happiness. She tiptoed ready to start, but a wind blow appeared from nowhere; with a single swing it broke the beauty of the butterflies’ dance and swept away the wish of flight. It had a dance of its own, powerful and furious. Its might did not raise any doubts. It caught the fragile butterflies into its wild whirl and took the lot into falling darkness. Then there came the second swing and then there was the third one and so on. The wind was growing stronger; it was getting colder, and impenetrable darkness fell from nowhere. Lika looked around in search of a shelter. She spotted a distant light and embarked to it with all speed.
The light appeared to be a flame of a burning candle standing alone on a table surrounded by the darkness. The flame was hypnotizing her. She felt drowsy and she was about to close her eyes hovering between a dream and reality when she heard a subtle whisper. “Help me,” it was. “Who’s here?” she asked, and at the same moment she noticed a big cube of ice on the table. It had started melting and a trickle of water was coming down from the table forming a puddle at her feet. Lika took a closer look and recognized one of those white dancing butterflies. The poor thing was trying to move its wings, but icy fetters were insuperable.
Lika looked over a dozen of variants of how to rescue the butterfly, but all of them were of no use. As soon as she thought of holding the cube over the candle’s flame, the candle disappeared. As she grabbed the icy thing in order to split it off against the corner of the table, the table immediately vanished.
“What else can I do?” panic embraced her, and her heart gave a leap at the thought that she would not have time to rescue the beautiful white butterfly.
“Please, help me. Don’t leave me here,” she heard. There was so much of a plea in the voice that Lika began to cry. She felt she was short of time; the ice was melting too slowly even though she was clenching it tightly. Her hands got frozen quite soon; she almost seized feeling them. Therefore, she pressed the ice to her chest; struggling goose bumps, she still cheered to a trickle of melted water running down to the neckline. It was getting colder and in several minutes chills covered her. Lika was about to give up. She put down her hand, and at the moment she heard “Thanks!” The butterfly hardly touched her cheek; the sway of white wings, and it flew away.
Lika opened her eyes but did not understand at once that it had been a dream. One of the cats was sitting at her head. It may have been Coco. It awkwardly touched Lika’s face.
“What?” Lika wondered and finally realized that her face was wet with tears. “Oh, dear! Are you sweeping away my tears? Oh, you, my heedful kitty!”
Lika petted the cat for a while and then remembered
