Part 4 — When My Girlfriend Told Me That Women Leave Men Like Me, a Message in Her Phone Stunned Me Several Days Later

For several seconds after the lawyer’s words I could not say anything.

“How can it be in my name if I did not sign it?”

“That is exactly what we are going to find out.”

That same night Nina called me eleven times.

The first call was angry.

“Pick up the phone, Levan. You must stop this nonsense.”

On the second call her voice had changed.

“Please, just talk to me.”

The third call did not end at all. For several seconds I could only hear her breathing.

“That man left,” she finally said. “He told me that he had nothing more in common with me.”

“Nina, I did not do this.”

“You took everything away from me.”

“No. I only took my name back.”

The next morning we went to the bank.

The air in the branch was cold, and the air conditioner made such a noise as if someone were clenching their teeth. Nina sat beside me and intertwined her fingers. Her expensive watch touched the table with every movement.

The bank manager opened the folder.

“Here is a new credit application that was submitted four months ago.”

I looked at the paper.

The name was mine.

The signature was not.

“I did not fill out this document,” I said.

Nina lowered her head.

“Perhaps they used an old copy.”

“Who used it?” I asked.

She answered nothing.

The manager turned the computer screen toward us.

“The application was sent from the same email address that Ms. Nina used for the company.”

Nina’s face became gray.

“I did not send it.”

“But you knew the password,” I told her.

“Do you want them to blame everything on me?”

“I want the truth to come out.”

As we were leaving the bank, Nina stopped me by the car.

“If you take this all the way, I may end up in prison.”

“I do not want to punish you.”

“Then why are you not stopping?”

“Because stopping means that I will pay the price of your choice again.”

That day we went to the police. Not as enemies, but as two people who had finally understood that in one house, for a long time, only one of them had slept peacefully.

The recording was officially entered into the case. The bank handed the false application over to the investigation. The financial audit showed that Nina’s new partner was not only her lover — he was hiding money from her and covering his own obligations from the company accounts.

Nina first lost control when her lawyer stood up and told her:

“I can no longer represent your interests. You hid facts from me.”

“But you told me Levan would settle everything!” Nina shouted.

Everyone in the room heard these words.

Including Nina.

She fell silent. It was as if she heard her own voice from the outside for the first time. She realized that all this time she had been speaking about me not as a person, but as a wallet, a signature, and a safe exit.

Several weeks later her studio was empty.

Only straight strips of dust remained on the shelves. A photograph hung on the wall in which we were both smiling at the presentation of the first product. Nina did not take the photograph.

But I took the small wooden box.

Inside it there were no longer loan receipts. I left only one sheet of paper — the lawyer’s letter that my obligations had been canceled.

The box no longer looked heavy in my hand.

Three months passed.

The city had changed. I moved into a small apartment near the river and returned to the work I had almost abandoned because of Nina. Every morning I made coffee myself, opened the window, and listened to the noise of the street.

One evening my niece, Mariam, came to visit me. She was nine years old and said everything directly.

“Levan, are you happy now?”

We were sitting at the kitchen table. She drew a house on a sheet of paper that had two doors.

“Why does the house have two doors?” I asked.

“One is for the person who chooses to stay. The other is for the person who decides to leave.”

I laughed.

“And which door are you standing at?”

“In the middle,” she answered. “So that no one blames me for closing one of the doors.”

That night Nina sent me her last message.

“Could we start over? Now I know what I lost.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Earlier I would have answered such a message immediately. I would have explained. I would have calmed her down. I would have tried once again to save her.

Now I wrote only one sentence:

“I wish that one day you can live peacefully with your own choice, but my life is not going back.”

After sending it, I put the phone on the table.

I did not block Nina out of revenge. I simply no longer needed to control her existence.

The next morning I put the small wooden box on the windowsill. I placed Mariam’s drawing inside it. Two doors. One way outside, the other — home.

The first snow came that same evening.

Snowflakes fell against the glass, and I touched the box and realized that for the first time in more than three years I was no longer keeping someone else’s future.

My future was no longer empty.

It was simply mine.