The story is written in collaboration with June_julay

It was Friday. It was a harsh windy day of November, imperceptibly turning into an evening, cutting off the last leaves and carrying the remnants of a warm autumn into oblivion. It was the last working day of the week - despite the fact that I usually work on a Saturday, I never considered it a real working day. So, indulgence is one ...

And it was the day of the advance.

As one movie character in an old Soviet film, shot twenty years before my birth, “an advance for a working man is more a holiday than a paycheck: no taxes, no deductions to you ...“ Of course, from taxes and deductions there is no way to go, but they fall on wages, but it will not be soon ... In general, I had a couple of good reasons for a good mood, despite the bad weather.

Anticipating an imminent return home, I was stuck to the ATM nearest me, but the greenish screen told me with a sad “emoticon” that the money had run out of it. Well, the correctness of the Soviet-era cinema hero was confirmed quite unexpectedly in the era of developing capitalism. It remained only to hope that not all people have an advance day holiday - ATMs in our city can be counted on the fingers.

But - whether the people remained the same, despite changes in political sympathies and regimes, or if there was any other reason for the cosmic scale - there was no money in the other two ATMs. My good mood began to turn sharply into its opposite.

However, the Universe finally took pity on me: the next ATM found the necessary amount. And - about happiness! - there was a newly opened cafe nearby, in which one could warm up, and there was a bus stop across the road, where I had to get home in twenty minutes, to a small village near the city. I never liked Paolo Coelho's work, but for some reason, at that moment his signs from the Alchemist were so clearly remembered ...

Having stocked up on shawarma and a couple of French hot dogs - I didn’t have to count on dinner from a loving wife today, like the entire last month, - I ran across the road. When he reached the stop, he took a breath, tried on a shawarma, and only had his mouth opened ...

- Hello. Tell me, please, you are not in Novospasovka by any chance?

I still bit off a piece of shawarma (forgive my adversaries for my impoliteness, but I was hungry) and only then looked in the direction from which the voice came. He walked out of the depths of the stop and belonged to a thin, fair-haired girl, cowering on a cold bench in a far corner and almost merging with the evening darkness. I chewed a piece, mentally thinking with an answer, then said:

- Actually, no ... but in that direction. Why?

- Do not know by chance when the bus will be?

- I know. Twenty minutes later, at half past six.

- Oh, great. - The voice of the little girl was obviously cheerful. - And then I'm here from four o'clock, I do not know the evening schedule. I thought she would be gone ...

- With four? - I mentally whistled: the girl was sitting at the bus stop for about two hours. - So you, probably, were misled: that day flight was canceled six months ago.

- I know. I just didn’t have time to study for the lunch flight ...

She came out of the depths of the stop, replacing total darkness to a more lighted area, and now she stood in front of me - short, on my shoulder, still cringing, in a black bolonium jacket, sneakers, slim jeans. Straight hair fell on the shoulders, covering the ears, but they did not look like a reliable shelter from the wind. The girl's lips were well blue; she kept her hands in her pockets and patted her legs from time to time, trying to keep warm.

- Go to the cafe - I showed across the road. - Warm up though. Is it possible?

The girl shook her head frantically.

- No I do not want. I just...

She jumped onto the road, looked into the distance, then ran back under the roof of the bus stop, without taking her hands out of her pockets.

- Are you afraid to miss the flight? I will call you, do not worry. Go to the cafe, do not suffer, - I continued my persuasion. In response, she again shook her head and glared at the approaching minibus. But it was not ours.

I was eating the shaurma, looked at the girl who was dancing, then every now and then running out onto the road and coming back, and in me the anger boiled. How old was she? - It is difficult to say: another girl looks deceptive, even when she receives a passport. But, no matter how she turned, it was idiocy to go to study today in such clothes that were more suitable for a warm spring day than for a dank autumn evening. “What do these girls think?” - I asked myself. - Who is this force for? I found what to show and when ... And do they ever even think at all? ... ”Boiling anger began to overflow. It was possible to turn away and pretend that everything is going as it should - in the end, the girls and brains should have no one, and not just what the guys usually stare at. But too this girl resembled a homeless puppy so that you could simply turn away ...

- And you do not know how much travel to Novospasovka? - the girl addressed me again. - They said a dozen ...

“I don’t know, really,” I answered her quite sincerely. Novospasovka, which was discussed, was farther away than my village. - And who do you have there, to whom you are going, even if you do not know the prices?

“Yes, my mother is there,” the little girl replied reluctantly.

I grunted incredulously. And then suddenly I was struck like a head on the head: bliiin ... or maybe the girl doesn't have any extra money to go to the same cafe? Maybe they all recently in our area, came from somewhere? Maybe ... but you never know what could be! And here I am the type of reasoning about the brain, all so correct and adult, persuade her to warm ... Damn!

Cursing myself, I again crossed the road. In addition to the front door, the cafe also had a window into the street through which it was possible to make purchases. I knocked on that window and asked the saleswoman to make hot tea - “and the hotter the better, if you can.” Strangely looking at me and traditionally inquiring about the amount of sugar and the need for lemon, she gave me a disposable cup, two-thirds filled with boiling water. I asked to add water, and in response I received another strange look, but the request was fulfilled.

Back I was going a lot more cautiously, holding one hand over a glass in the vain hope of keeping at least a fraction of the heat that was quickly disappearing in the cold wind. In the pocket of the jacket lay as quickly cooled bun. When I got to the bus stop, I walked right up to the girl and, without another word, I handed her tea:

- On. Drink up. Faster is only ...

I myself did not understand how this imperiously rude "you" burst from me. Maybe it was an instinctive reaction to the possibility of another failure; maybe I was angry at my weakness ... Whatever it was, but the girl, who had never stopped dancing, suddenly stopped and looked up at me — the bewildered blue eyes of an angel — and timidly reached for a glass. Our palms touched. It struck me with cold - not surprisingly, her palms were not much different from ice, - and after the cold, an unconscious tenderness, mixed with anger, suddenly rolled. But it was no longer a seething anger at an overgrown-imitation; it was, rather, the brother's anger at the unprofitable sister who tries to live with her mind, but at the first failure she runs to him ...

“Thank you,” the girl said barely audibly and smiled incredulously.

When the glass moved into her hands, I pulled a bun out of my pocket and also rudely handed it to her. She had already tried to give up the bun, but apparently my view was too eloquent because she suddenly stopped short and accepted the loaf. This time her movement was more ... trusting, or something.

She moved into the depths of the stop, ...