In 2003, a boy- though only half of that heritage was a true Russian at heart - would sing to a girl:

Gori, gori, moya zvezda
Zvezda lyubvi privetnaya
Ti u menya odna zavetnaya
Drugoi ne budet nikogda…

(“Shine on, shine, my only star,
my star of love eternally,
You are my sole and chosen one,
There’ll be no other one for me…”)

But the girl was at conflict with her own self and would not be able to return his love: his obsession, when she could not love herself.

And that was his only fault; that he loved her too deeply. It was a love that was doomed because of its youth and its infinite possibilities. And so she forced herself to say goodbye and walk away from what scared her deeply.

Four years later, she wonders if perhaps she should have taken a chance on that past possibility but it is too late and all that lingers is the faint memory that she was once worthy of love. The only words that come to mind are ironically from him:

Tak zhivya, bez radosti/bez muki/pomniu ya ushedshiye goda
(So I live – remembering with sadness all the happy years gone by)

She wonders how in all his overwhelming passion, did he let his pragmatism overrule him and allow him to let her go and she remembers that the true Russian that he is, his happy ending is in finding out the reason for his suffering.

In the present, she sits in the balcony of her empty apartment at 5.24a.m and watches for a sun that will not rise for another two hours. Cigarette after cigarette she lights and inhales. The cold numbs her but still she waits. Black puffed jacket over pink Hello Kitty pajamas that are incongruent with the melancholy mood that cloaks her. And she borrows her own philosophy from a cheesy movie toast:

Here’s to the men we love
And here’s to the men who love us
Here’s to the men we love but don’t love us
F*ck Them All
So, here’s to us!