Ivan stood watching Lydia, her sobs echoing faintly down the empty corridor. She was still curled on the floor, broken, trembling, lost in grief. His heart ached. Every sound she made cut straight into him.
All he could think about in that moment was that day at the riverbank.
The memory replayed itself in his mind again and again, as though life wanted to punish him. He saw her clearly — soaked from head to toe, her clothes clinging to her skin, her face streaked with tears. She had been crying so hard her shoulders shook, her body trembling under the weight of her sorrow. And he had just stood there, a few steps away, watching her. Watching the woman he loved fall apart, yet unable to move.
He had told himself it was his fault. All of it. That he had no right to go to her. That maybe she would be better off if he stayed away. But even as he tried to convince himself, something inside him screamed to move, to go to her, to comfort her.
