Page 58 of The Darkness is Calling

“Ok! Ok!”

She wets a small towel and, glancing quickly in the mirror, begins wiping away the traces of blood. My body tenses when I see the small grimaces she makes whenever she touches patches of skin that will surely be purple by tomorrow.

Fuck my voices and the madness I almost failed to stop in time.

Not even an entire lifetime would have been enough for me to forgive myself for my weakness in that moment, and I don’t know how long she will need to forgive me.

When her skin is clean and she looks carefully in the mirror, I come up behind her to have a better view. My stomach tightens, and that strange pressure in my chest grows stronger.

“I...”

I stop.

I don’t know what to say, but I take Katya by

the shoulders and turn her to face me immediately, studying the marks that are far more visible than I expected.

Fuck.

I don’t want her to suffer.

She should never suffer, especially not because of me.

“I’m sorry, Katya...” I whisper, my voice strangled.

Her gaze lifts immediately.

“That is the first time you’ve called me that.”

I know it too, but this is not the moment to discuss my desire to use an endearment for her.

I take a cream from the cabinet, one Polina got me for similar wounds, though I have never used it. With a little cream on the tip of my index finger, I carefully apply it over the reddened skin, then around the small cut.

“Does it hurt?” My voice is low.

“Only if I press harded.”

“If I touch you like this, does it hurt?” “No.”

After I finish with the cream, I bend and kiss her skin as gently as I am capable of.

My inner agony becomes torture.

“I’m sorry, dusha moya...”

I want to give her little space, but she cups my face in her palms and stops me.

“Why do you call me that?”

There is torment in her voice, pain, but also a warm note, almost affectionate.

Every night, she has asked me this, and every time I avoided the answer.

But now, it seems I am following the advice I received this evening, and I am accepting my reality.

“Because that is what I feel.”

“But you called me like that from the first day we met.”