The glass slips through my grip as if my fingers have forgotten how to work. It hits the tile and shatters with a crack that snaps through the silence.
Water sprays cold against my shins.
Shards skitter across the floor.
I'm down on my knees before the sound finishes echoing, hands already reaching, grabbing, trying to undo the failure.
A piece bites into my palm. Another catches the side of my finger. I don't stop. I keep scooping, quick and reckless, trying to gather every fragment into my hands as if I can fix the glass through sheer force of will.
"I'll replace it," I say. My voice is flat. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
Blood beads and runs.
It mixes with the water, thinning out, streaking the grout lines pink. I see it, and my brain tries to file it away as irrelevant data.
I pick up another shard.
My fingers shake.
Not the controlled tremor after a fight. This is worse. This is structural failure.
"Maksim."
Ivan's voice cuts through the fog.
I keep going. There are still glints on the tile. I need to get them.
"Maksim. Stop."
His hand clamps around my wrist.
Warm. Solid. A grip that anchors me so hard my breath catches. I freeze with a shard caught between my bleeding fingers, the edge pressed into the cut it has already made.
I look up.
Ivan is standing over me. His face is tight, jaw set. It looks like anger until you're close enough to hear what's beneath it.
"Leave it," he says, voice low. "Sit down."
The order should slide into me clean and easy.
Instead, something in my chest jerks. I want to argue. I want to finish the job. I want to prove I can still do the basic things I was built to do.
My legs feel wrong. My hands are bleeding. The tile is cold against my trousers. My mouth tastes like copper.
I let him pull me up.
He guides me to the stool at the island, his hand at my elbow as if he doesn't trust my balance. He pushes his own plate aside to make space.
I sit there, staring at my hands.
The cuts don't look dramatic—small tears, raw and stinging. Blood smears where I tried to wipe it away with my thumb. Bandages would fix it. It's nothing.
It doesn't feel like nothing.
Ivan moves around the kitchen. Water runs. A cabinet opens. Something shuts with a click. I hear the soft beep of the microwave.
I try to remember the last time I ate.
