Page 44 of Knocked-up Bratva Bride
I felt as though I was going to be sick. Guilt and grief were the worst companions, yet I felt them. This was my fault.
She’d called me to share the good news, hadn’t she? If she didn’t, then she wouldn’t have been distracted, and none of this would have happened.
She’d made me a huge part of her life, and I didn’t even deserve her.
My legs refused to move forward. My heart, though…my heart kept stumbling backward into memories we hadn’t yet finished living.
She looked so small in there. So still. Tubes tangled across her body like a cruel net. Her skin, once warm and glowing,was now pale and marked with bruises that bloomed like wilting violets along her face, arms, and…everywhere.
I wanted to scream—to beg her to wake up, to just look at me. To tell me this was all some sick joke, that she’d jump out of bed and call me a drama queen.
But if wishes were horses….
Tears came slowly at first, then faster, like they had been dammed up for too long. I sank against the wall, unable to carry the burden of all the things I wanted to say to her.
My soft heart, the one she used to tease me about, cracked right down the center.
“You always cry at movies,” she’d say, nudging me with popcorn. “One day, you’re going to break just watching a dog commercial.”
This wasn’t a movie. This was a real nightmare about my best friend fighting for her life, and it awakened more memories I’d rather forget.
Tuesday night. Heavy rain. Nothing out of the ordinary.
“Ms. Harper?” The voice on the other end was too composed, like the calm before the storm. “There’s been…an incident. Your mother collapsed. Paramedics are with her now.”
I couldn’t process the words. They were sounds without meaning.Collapseddidn’t compute. She’d just texted me that morning, a meme. Something about cats and Tuesdays. I’d sent a laughing emoji. That was the last thing I sent her.
I stood up too quickly. My chair toppled over. Voices around me blurred together. My supervisor at work asked me something, but all I could hear was the thick, unbearable pounding in my ears.
Cold. Everything was cold. My hands. My breath. The plastic of the chair I was waiting in. And then the doctor came, holding a clipboard like it was a bomb.
“Your mother has advanced liver disease,” he said gently. “It’s likely been progressing for a while. There are signs of cirrhosis. We need to do more tests, but—”
I don’t remember the rest.
My knees gave out before my tears did.
Time slowed, the way it did when life decided to test you. I found myself slipping into that frozen moment, where everything became clearer and more unbearable all at once.
I sat in that hallway for hours, my eyes dry yet burning, and my chest tight. Guilt crept in through every crack, poking me fervently each time I asked myself, how had I not noticed? My mother always waved things off. Always smiled through the ache. Always told me not to worry.
And I believed her.
Back then, I thought if I loved someone enough, it would save them. But sitting in that hospital, watching machines breathe for her, I learned something brutal.
Sometimes, love doesn’t stop things from breaking.
The memory of Katya’s laughter echoing through my apartment while we drank hot chocolate with Jasper, engaging in conversations on silly PG-13 topics—too excited and too happy to feel too old—came rushing back, and a pang filled my chest.
I wanted more time with her to create more memories.
I felt bitter and disgusted with myself for being so careless and reckless with her father, allowing myself to live in a fantasy that would destroy something more substantial when I should have been focused on being a good friend to her.
Shedidn’t deserve to be there; I should have been the one in her place instead.
Now, all I could do was stand there, drowning in guilt, staring at the fragile shell of the second strongest person I’d ever known.
“Come back to me, Katya. I’m not ready for this world without you in it.”
