Gray History.

Another day in Lena's life could be described as a disaster.

From scalding herself with boiling water early in the morning while trying to make a strong coffee, to a runaway bus, to losing her wallet with her still-valid tram card.

A true fate!

It had been weighing on her for over 20 years, from the moment she was born.

And since even the smallest human affliction is often exploited, even from a very young age, the blame for every slightest transgression or other wrongdoing fell on her.

And so: as a child, she didn't understand why everyone was yelling at her because her mother had lost her ring, but she took the blame entirely, just to make them stop.

A little later, she began to rebel, scream, and start huge arguments, only to finally come to terms with this fact, and what's more... even begin to think of herself as a necessary evil.

"And I have to finish all this by tomorrow..." she thought, spreading the mass

of notes from the last lecture on her desk and, with a quiet sigh, settling down to study.

Somewhere, through the cloud of gray memories, she remembered that she once dreamed of a great career.

Whether in sports, music, painting, or something else... because, to compensate for her bad luck, God had gifted her with great talent in many different areas of life.

To fully succeed in each of them, she lacked only a shred of self-confidence, which she always described as "none."

She remembers once winning the Junior Swimming Championships and being immediately offered the opportunity to continue training at her dream club.

Unfortunately, she had to politely decline due to the heavy workload carefully planned by her parents.

She remembers that she also once had her own rock band.

She also remembers that they were supposedly quite good and played at several major events....

Her first straight A in high school effectively brought her back down to earth.

And so, willingly or unwillingly, she sold her guitar, burned her novels, threw away her paintings, and became a first-year law student, just like her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother had been before her.

It didn't matter that she saw absolutely no point in being a notary.

The important thing was that it brought real benefits and offered a chance for a decent living.

Or at least that's what she told herself every time

she looked with disgust at all the papers and stacks of hundreds-page books, usually scattered chaotically on the floor.

She finished her fourth cup of coffee that evening, closed the enormous Penal Code, yawned, and stretched out on her wide bed.

She didn't sleep.

She didn't want to fall asleep, knowing that she lost control during sleep, and that memories, dreams, and the fears that came with them tended

to surface. And questions she'd spent her life trying to avoid.

Night after night, she tried to occupy herself with something useful, and when she felt completely exhausted, she'd take a handful of strong sleeping pills, which would send her spiraling into a black abyss.

No dreams, no memories, no questions.

That night, however, the pill box proved empty, and her eyelids were too heavy to lift for even a moment.

She fell asleep.

And suddenly, she saw a laughing blond girl running away from a boy chasing her with a bottle of ice water.

"But that's... that's me," she thought in her sleep. "And that's... that's Krystian..."

Krystian—the boy with whom she'd gone through every stage of her life.

From diapers, through sandboxes, the craze for worn-out jeans and rolled-up sneakers, to her own band...

The boy who was always there for her, even though she tried desperately to escape him, to reject him, in panicky fear of her own feelings.

She remembers clearly that just before their last, farewell concert, Krystian tried to help her once again.

And that he asked her so many questions she didn't want to answer, questions she then spent her entire life trying to kill.

Always, with the same, miserable results.

He hugged her then, and she dug her nails into her palm as hard as she could – just to keep from crying.

The next day, his mother called, her voice trembling, announcing that her son had committed suicide the previous night.

She didn't cry.

She simply withdrew from the world for many, many days, falling into complete apathy and aversion to everything.

And then, suddenly, the gray Lena returned, having only briefly succumbed to youthful rebellion.

Gray Lena, exactly as we know her now.

Resigned to her fate, hounded by her family, aimless, hopeless.

"A LETTER!" she whispered, suddenly opening her eyes.

The letter Krystian had written her just before his death.

A letter she had never opened.

She didn't even know why... perhaps out of fear?

Or perhaps Gray Lena had simply forgotten her old friend?

Or perhaps she didn't want to remember him...?

She hastily turned on the bedside lamp and began searching through all the drawers.

For the first time in several long years, she let herself be carried away by emotion. "

There it is," she whispered, pulling out the white envelope with its carefully calligraphed diminutive.

"Lennyk... well, that's what he always called me."

With controlled movements, she opened the envelope, from which fell a ring attached with a silver string to a card inside.

If I were alive... Would you marry me?

she read, disbelieving her eyes.

So he loved her.

Just as she loved him.

And she didn't have to be afraid.

She didn't have to run.

And she ruined everything again.

The rush of her thoughts was drowned out by only one sentence: "Would you marry me?"

"Yes..." she whispered. "Yes..." she repeated with trembling hands, putting on the ring.

For some reason, she had the impression he had heard her.

That he was right behind her again, watching her every step.

From under the pillow, she pulled a small black box from which she removed the blade of his razor, stained with dried blood.

The razor she had stolen from him on her last trip because the razor blades were now too dull.

She pulled up the sleeve of her pajama, exposing her forearm, which had been mangled beyond endurance.

Red and brown lines overlapped, obscuring the scars, now visible here and there, already bruised.

Today, however, she would cut them all.

Today's cut would surely be the last.

She examined her hand once more – a diary of the suffering she had so desperately wanted to escape from. Then she placed the knife against her skin and, with a steady movement, traced the blue-violet vein.

It didn't hurt.

It didn't hurt so much that, until she saw the blood, she wasn't sure if she had done it at all, or if it was just a continuation of that unwanted dream.

She closed her eyes, listening to the silence around her.

And suddenly, Krystian appeared in the darkness, reaching out to her.

A hand with a single, thin, pale pink scar visible.

He was smiling.

He smiled just as he had on her 15th birthday, when he'd given her her dream guitar.

Without hesitation, she took his warm hand, gazing trustingly into his green eyes.

As green as the last time she looked at them, biting her lip to avoid answering.

And they set off together, toward the rising sun.

***

The grayness of Lena's room was only broken by the dying bedside lamp, casting tragic shadows on the girl's body, lying limp in the middle of the bloody carpet.

The fingers of one hand clutched the paw of a white stuffed animal, while a thin silver knife gleamed delicately in the other, open palm.

A glimmer of hope could be seen in her glassy, ​​already dead eyes.

And she smiled.

As if she had finally met a long-forgotten friend.