My plan is flying to hell. It unravels, collapsing like a house of cards built with trembling hands in a draft. Everything I have carefully thought out, outlined in my mind minute by minute — is falling apart. Scattering like ashes from an old letter you threw out the window hoping to forget, but it still settles in the corners of your memory. No. I can't live through this week with him as if everything is fine. As if this is not a farce.
Maxim sees right through me. To the bone, to the scars, to the very essence. His gaze burns as if he knows even the things I am hiding from myself. I feel my behavior throws him off balance. Every word I say, every step, every look — is a test. He doesn't know what to do with me. And I… I slip through his fingers like water, like smoke, like an elusive shadow. He reaches for me, tries to bring me back, hold me, but I drift further away even when I am near.
I behave like that on purpose. To push him away. To anger him. Deliberately. It is my way to make him let go. So he will leave. So it will be easier for both of us. So the pain in my chest will quiet down a little, even if at first it is unbearable.
About Ivan and everything else — I lie. Cynically, cold-bloodedly, though my heart tears with every word I speak. No one. No one means as much to me as he does. Max… he is the dearest. The closest. The one you can't deceive. The one you can't lose. And I do both — with my own hands.
And the worst — I hurt him consciously. On purpose. Then I watch how he, unwillingly, hurts me back. We become like two bare wires — reaching for each other, but when we touch, only shocking each other.
It is painful, trembling to shame, when he throws me on the bed. Not physically — no, I barely feel his hands. But I see his eyes. And in them — fear. Shock. He doesn't expect he is capable of that. He is scared of who he becomes next to me. And that tears me apart inside.
I cry. But not from the pain in my hand, not from fear, not because he is rough. I cry because I know — I have to leave. Forever. And he… he will suffer. For a long time. Deeply. And all because of me.
But… he will forget over time. It will pass. I will become no one to him. The past. A shadow. A smile in a half-forgotten dream. A false hope he will let go.
Where do I go? To Grandpa Vi. To the one who knew me back then, the old me. I need to talk. To someone. At least a drop of warmth in this icy hell. And more… he has to help me finish what I started. I would never have gone to that bastard who once tore us apart. Who caused so much pain that the echoes still resonate in every cell of mine. But that's exactly what I do. To make Max angry. To make him hate me. And he falls for it. Am I hurt then? No. He presses me gently to the wall, almost tenderly. His hands are on my throat — but not with rage, with despair. He doesn't choke me. He holds me so he doesn't break himself. And I look into his eyes, and they scream louder than any words.
Later I call Vi. He says he will take me in. No questions asked. His voice on the phone is like an island of calm in a raging ocean. He lives with his new wife — Vera. A calm, bright woman with kind eyes. I barely enter the apartment when she immediately hugs me.
"My girl, hello. Come in, don't freeze," she whispers, holding me close. That warmth… it is almost maternal. So rare, almost forgotten.
I go to the kitchen. There at the table sits Vi — big, strong, just as I remember him. His presence is like an anchor in this storm, like a point of support to cling to even for a minute.
"Hi, Grandpa Vi," I exhale, barely holding back a sob. My voice betrays me, trembling as if about to break.
He stands up, steps toward me, and hugs me so tightly it gets easier for a second. My body relaxes in that embrace as if it gives itself a command: "You can breathe here."
"Hi, Katrinka," his voice is warm like a blanket you wrap yourself in on a cold night. His eyes carefully study my face, warm but with a hint of worry and some quiet fatherly pain. "What's wrong with you? And where's Max?"
Tears run down my cheeks again, traitorous. Damn pregnancy. Every day I become more vulnerable. Like an open wound being sprinkled with salt.
"What's wrong?" Vera asks, putting a cup of tea in front of me, as if she knows I need this warm, familiar ritual right now.
"I don't know, darling."
Vi frowns, still not taking his eyes off me. He looks at me like one looks at a lost girl who had to grow up too soon. I take a deep breath as if gathering courage before jumping into an abyss.
"I need to talk to you. And please — don't try to talk me out of it. It's important. You have to help me."
"You know… Viktor and I will always help you, Katrin. You're like family to us," Vera's voice is soft like the rustle of leaves on a windless night.
I lower my eyes into the cup. Stare at the tea as if I could find an answer there. Silently. Trying to hold back the trembling in my fingers and heart.
"I'm leaving," I finally say.
Silence falls instantly, like an avalanche knocking you off your feet. Even the tea seems to cool at that moment.
"Does Max know?" Vi's voice is barely audible, but in this silence it sounds like thunder. Taut, like a string ready to snap.
"No… and he will find out only when I disappear from his life," I still don't raise my eyes. I look into the cup like a small mirror. And see emptiness.
"Why are you doing this to him?" Vi looks at me with pain. With the sadness old people have when they see young ones tearing apart their own happiness.
"It's better for him this way," I try to say firmly, but my voice falters. This phrase is like a lump in my throat — I have swallowed it hundreds of times already. Like a mantra. Like a lie I desperately want to believe.
"You're grown-up, Katrin, but I think you're making a mistake," Vera says cautiously. There is no reproach or judgment in her voice — only worry, warm and sincere.
"I can't do otherwise," I shake my head. "It's decided. All of it. No way back."
"Will you tell us where you're running off to?" Vi seems to already know. He just wants to hear it from me. For real.
"I'm going to live with my grandmother. I…" I take his hand, like a child seeking protection. "You have to promise me something."
"Let me guess. Not to tell him?" He understands even before I open my mouth.
"Yes. Please, Vi. He must never know. Never."
He looks at me for a long time. Deeply. Penetrating to the very core. Then he nods.
"It's not my secret, so… I won't tell," he exhales.
And I exhale with him, as if I have been holding my breath half my life.
"That's not all, is it?" The man looks at me intently, as if trying to see through layers of my pain to the very essence hidden behind my mask of indifference. "Is there something else you want to ask us?"
I nod. My chest tightens as if someone has shoved a cold stone into my lungs.
"I'm selling the apartment."
"What? Why? You know how good it is. Come back in a couple of years — you'll have your own place."
"I can't live there anymore," my voice becomes barely audible, thin like a thread about to snap its last stitch. "It reminds me of him, like this whole city. I don't want to come back here anymore."
Vi is silent, his gaze softens, and worry grows in his voice.
"What should I do?"
"Sell it. I'll sign the papers. I just need the money now, and they'll give a lot for it."
"How much? I'll give it to you. You know what I can do," Vi says with such warmth that I barely hold back tears. His care is so strong, but now I am too broken to accept help.
"No. I won't take it. I barely accepted the car then, only because it was a birthday gift."
My words sound dry, hopeless, as if I already know no one could understand what is going on inside me. I turn to Vera, but her eyes are full of doubt, and it hurts that I cannot explain everything fully.
"You'll sell the apartment, get the money, leave… And then?" Vera frowns, her look full of confusion as if trying to find an answer to a question I cannot explain. Her face radiates uncertainty, and my heart tightens at the thought that I cannot be honest, cannot reveal the whole truth. "What's next, Katrin?"
I feel that shadow of pain slipping through me, like a slow, unbearable realization that leaving solves nothing. But what choice do I have? Leave or destroy him?
"I'll live with my grandmother."
I try to hide that everything I say makes no sense at all. Grandma… She is my only refuge from the whole world. But it is not a solution, only temporary salvation.
"Zero logic. Or we don't know everything?" Vera tilts her head, her intuition demanding an answer. She knows I am hiding something. I cannot hide it from her.
"Tell the truth."
Her gaze is sharp as a knife, and I feel it penetrating my very existence. But I cannot. In her eyes I see fear, concern, and I don't want to disappoint her.
"I can't. If I say — you might tell him. And I don't want that. No way."
My voice breaks, and I feel myself tearing apart. If only Vera could understand. If only she could imagine what I feel when I think of him, when I remember his look, full of love and fear for me at the same time.
"Why are you leaving him? Did he do something terrible?"
The woman keeps insisting, but the more I try to explain, the harder it becomes. Everything I say sounds absurd, even to myself. But the words I am about to say are necessary, even if they sound like the end.
"Remember the floors?" I lift my eyes, and all my pain freezes in them like an invisible wave ready to crash down. Everything inside me contracts as if I am looking at the world for the last time, seeing his face for the last time. I don't want Vera to know how hard my fight is. "I don't want to destroy his floor with what he wants to build with mine."
"What nonsense?" Vera looks confused at us. She cannot understand, cannot grasp those subtle nuances. Vi and I speak in metaphors, in symbols she doesn't know. But her words feel like gunfire, making me realize I have gone too far. "What floors?"
"I love him," I whisper, that quiet whisper like the last, broken breath. It seems the whole world freezes, and those words become my farewell. I cannot say anything else. "But we… our relationship almost kills him. And he… he deserves light, not pain. And I… I only bring suffering and tears. This can't go on."
My words hang in the air, heavy and inevitable. I know leaving is the only way to give him a chance. A chance at life without me, at the light I cannot give him. But my heart breaks at the thought that I will never get back what I lost, and never be close to him the way I want.