“And what can you answer here?” – thought our heroine, – “What is she right? That the dusty archive of the central library has replaced my personal life? Who needs me. People first pay attention to appearance, and only then look inside. Not that Lena was scary, she just had absolutely nothing special – calm brown eyes, framed by unremarkable eyelashes and eyebrows, a straight, slightly snub nose, lips with a bow. The usual figure, the usual hairstyle on unpainted brown hair … too ordinary to compete for the handsome and smart.

The tablet quietly squeaked, announcing the message that had arrived again. Lena had an irresistible desire to roll her eyes. Except for my mother, hardly anyone could write. Well, of course…

“You abandoned yourself! Has ceased to take care of herself! You dress like a gray mouse, immediately run home from work, and again rummage through the damn papers! It s time to find yourself a normal guy! By the way, sex, from the point of view of health, is inalienable … ”

The girl sighed and closed the browser. She stared into the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. Mom was right about everything. After several unsuccessful attempts to find herself a gentleman, she closed herself off and stopped trying, and also stopped painting, dressing normally and began to slouch.

Previously, she was invited to parties where there were a lot of guys, but, unfortunately, they were only interested in the curvaceous forms of her girlfriends and their silly drunken laughter. Clever girls frightened off “clubbers”, besides, Lena did not use intoxicants, therefore, to her, a sober and boring “gray mouse”, all these events were, to put it mildly, disgusting.

Over time, both events and girlfriends have sunk into oblivion. In principle, there was no male in the library, and the one that was, did not come to flirt.

She did not know how to make acquaintances on the streets. For one single time, I decided to talk to the guy I liked at the bus stop. He looked at her with a timid smile, but for some reason he did not come up. Lena decided: “I was – I wasn’t”, straightened her soft chestnut curl and had already taken a step towards the meeting, when a pretty blonde emerged next to the candidate and threw herself on his neck. After that, the desire to meet on the streets disappeared.

Lena sighed heavily and went to bed. She dreamed that she had grown old and was sitting in a wheelchair, surrounded by a bunch of meowing cats, and calling for help … knowing that no one would come, that she had no one. Life stretched out in a gray strip of gloomy loneliness, in which there was no salutary warmth of human feelings, there were only at once disgusted books, suffocating dusty archival documents and dead silence …

She woke up, sitting up jerkily on the bed, feeling her heart beating wildly, giving off a discordant rumble to her whiskey. “Damn my mom with her advice for the coming sleep!” – Cursing angrily, Lena walked into the kitchen, shivering from the coolness of the night. It was still dark outside the window.

Pouring hot tea, she slowly turned on her laptop and opened a browser, deciding to distract herself by reading some not too abstruse article on rare books. Books were her passion and her life.

“And how could they get disgusted? A stupid dream, a stupid one, ”she persuaded herself like a little child, but the feeling of horror from the coming loneliness in the company of the feline did not let her go. “Well, what is twenty-seven years? Nonsense, I ll have time yet! Surely not only I am still alone among the graduates. We ought to check. ”

“Odnoklassniki” happily squeaked two unread ones. Mom wrote that it was time to pull myself together and open up towards new adventures: “Dating sites have long been invented for such timid girls like you. On loverating.ru you will find a list of all the decent services. Register and find yourself the same bibliophile. Love books together! And I will finally nurse my grandchildren! ”

Lena chuckled. Based on my mother’s tone, there’s no choice. We ll either have to look for a groom, or go to the ends of the world from her reproaches. But sites
dating? She, a candidate of literary sciences, to look for a guy on the Internet?

Odnoklassniki gave sad statistics – absolutely all of her school friends had families, posted bright photos of happily smiling children hugging friendly mums and dads.

Lena took in more air in her lungs and clicked on the first dating service in the rating list. Having chosen the desired age and profession of the partner, she suddenly saw him. The guy I wanted to approach at the bus stop! Apparently, the pretty blonde did not stay in his life, but he turned out to be the same “bibliophile” – an employee of one of the largest publishing houses in Russia. With a shaking hand, she clicked the write message icon. And hovered over the keyboard.

“And what will I write to him? Hey, did we see each other at the bus stop six months ago? Oh, are you a bookworm too? Crap. Well, why did I even go to this site? ” – Irritably slamming the lid of the laptop, Lena went to bed, not even finishing her tea.

This time the phone vibrated. Half asleep, she grabbed him and, closing one eye, looked at the display. Received a notification about successful registration and … about a new message! Excitedly throwing off the blanket, the girl jerkily grabbed the smartphone more comfortably. It was a message from the same guy, Kirill. “This is a dream! I’m probably dreaming! ”- flashed through my brain.

“Hello! It seems to me that we have already met somewhere … I just can t remember where. Maybe at some conference on literature? ” It instantly dawned on her that the profile picture had been taken the very day they crossed paths in this big city. “Accidents are not accidental” – Lena smiled and convulsively tapped on the phone screen.

They talked all night long, endlessly discussing books, poets, writers, switching to their own interests, stories about themselves, about the world around them. He was not only cute and smart, but also understood her perfectly. After parting in order to get ready for work, Lena fluttered to the mirror and found herself not slouching anymore. There were no signs of sleepless nights and fatigue. She was overwhelmed by the absolute
unlimited happiness. Immediately from the forgotten dressing table a box with cosmetics appeared …

“Lena! When will you come to me! Arseny Kirillovich does not know his grandmother at all, but he was born thanks to me! ” Mom unceremoniously woke her up with a vibrating smartphone. Lena got out of the warm embrace of her sleeping husband and smiled happily as she typed in the text: “Thank you, mommy! Wait for us at the weekend. Love you”.