“No. No.” My mother shakes her head quickly. “My husband is fine. He made it through surgery, and the doctors said he’ll be good as new in a few weeks’ time.” She tries to sound upbeat, but the tremble in her voice betrays her.
“Can I… Can I talk to Stella?” Kirill asks, voice quiet, anxious. Like if he doesn’t touch me soon, something in him might break.
“That’s up to Stella,” my mother answers gently. She turns my face toward hers, searching my eyes. “Do you want to talk to Mr. Petrov?”
“Please, Selene,” he interjects. “Call me Kill.”
“Excuse me if I refrain from using such a nickname today, all things considered.”
He swallows hard. “Yes. Of course. Kirill then.”
“I’m okay now,Mammá,” I manage to say, though my voice is barely a whisper. “Let me talk to him.”
“Are you sure?” She keeps my face cupped in her palms, unwilling to let go until she’s certain.
“I’m sure.”
My mother presses a kiss to my temple, slow and lingering, before releasing me. She gets up from the bench, smoothing my hair with one last stroke.
“If you need me, I’ll be right inside,” she promises, her eyes still glossy with worry.
I give her the softest, smallest smile I can manage and watch as she walks back toward the hospital entrance.
She looks over her shoulder twice, maybe three times, checking to make sure I truly am alright.
But I’m not. I never will be again.
Kirill’s leg bounces with anxiety as he watches my mother slip back inside the hospital. And the second the doors slide shut behind her, he’s on me. He lifts me into his lap like I weigh nothing, his hands desperate, his mouth everywhere. My cheeks, my forehead, the corner of my lips, anywhere his lips can touch, as if kissing me is the only way he knows how to breathe again.
“I was so worried. So fucking worried,” he rasps, the words scraping out of him. His fingers thread into my hair, holding me against him. “Why didn’t you answer my calls? My texts? I’ve been going out of my mind, Stella.”
I don’t answer.
I can’t.
A cold, creeping numbness starts in my toes and moves slowly, mercilessly upward, freezing me from the inside out.
“I can’t do this anymore,” I whisper, barely recognizing my own voice. It sounds hollow. Detached. Like someone else is speaking through me.
“What?” He pulls back just enough to look at me, confused, still trying to kiss the corners of my mouth, my jaw, anything he can reach.
“I said…” My throat tightens, my chest feels like it’s collapsing in on itself. “I can’t do this anymore.” But my words are swallowed by another kiss, forcing me to repeat them. “I can’t do this anymore,” I say, the words flat and empty, falling out of me like glass.
Kirill freezes in place, his tender kiss no longer warming my face.
For a heartbeat, he doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t blink. His hands are still tangled in my hair, his forehead pressed to my cheek as if he didn’t hear me right.
Then his grip tightens.
“What do you mean?” His voice cracks. Actually cracks. “Milaya… look at me.”
I don’t.
I can’t.
The numbness is spreading, turning everything inside me to cold stone.
“I can’t do this anymore,” I say again, staring past him at nothing. “I’m done.”
