We drive home in silence, and that silence feels like a blow.
Thoughts tighten my throat, making it hard to breathe. I feel how the words strain to break free, but I cannot bring myself to speak.
Only the hum of the engine and the distant sounds of the city remind me that the world continues — alien and unfairly calm. Everything around seems to be on pause, and reality has compressed, crashing down on the two of us, leaving an empty space filled with tension.
When we enter the apartment, the silence is deafening. It seems to compress the air around, making everything inside me freeze.
I sit down on the couch, and at that moment, the world becomes something alien, unrecognizable. Thoughts crowd my head like animals squeezed in a cage, and each of them darts about in search of an exit, but finds none.
I do not know what happened, and this feeling of uncertainty tears me apart from within, as if a part of me stayed there, in that moment, while another continues to try to find answers.
Katrin does not let me find peace. She seems to live in another world, where there is no place for calm or solutions. Her movements are sharp, nervous; her fingers restlessly glide over objects, as if she is looking for something. But what?
I do not understand, and it unnerves me. Her eyes sparkle with a hidden fire; there is something dangerous in them — like a trap ready to snap shut. My patience is wearing thin, but I still try to understand what she is doing — but her intentions remain like smoke: vague, elusive.
Then she freezes. In her hands are my things. At that moment, reality compresses into a single roar of realization — she has decided something, but I am not ready for it. I do not hear words, but her gaze is so bright that it fills the entire room.
I try to stand up, but I am not fast enough. The girl suddenly throws my things at me, and I instinctively dodge, feeling how adrenaline immediately fills my veins. Everything inside mixes: rage and confusion fight with each other. It is strange, painful, and frightening. What should I do? Why does everything feel so... alien and unpredictable?
"Take your things and get out of here. The fun is over, there will be no continuation."
I stand up, stunned, unable to believe what is happening. These words do not seem to be about us. Not about her and me. It is like a storm that comes unexpectedly and carries away everything that was once important.
Rebel Girl is kicking me out? Is this the end? It is as if a cup full of hopes and promises has been overturned, and now I am standing in its shards. We built such grand plans, thinking these nine days would become something important.
Nine days that were supposed to be ours, for everything we once shared. And now... now it all turns to dust.
Why so sudden? Why doesn't she want to give me a chance, even though we have been through so much? Katrin does not look at me. Her gaze is empty, indifferent.
Where is that spark that once burned between us? Where is that fire that I so desperately try to preserve, at least in the depths of my heart? Why do her eyes no longer reflect the warmth that used to warm us both?
I try to find meaning in her words, looking for the slightest hint that this is not the end. Maybe I am wrong? Maybe I misunderstood her? I cannot find anything but the certainty that she has made her decision and is not going to back down.
Rebel Girl turns and takes a step toward her room, her steps quick. This is not just determination — it is her way of hiding from everything that causes her pain. She closes herself off from me as if I were the cause of this pain. I cannot just stand and watch this. How can I leave? How can I leave her, even if she wanted me to? I cannot.
I rush after her, without hesitation, and despite her attempt to close the door, I am faster. My hands grab the door handle, and I feel the girl resisting, but I do not let her go. I suddenly enter the room and lock the door — not because I want to lock her in, but because I cannot allow myself to let go. Not now.
We are left alone. I do not know what will happen next, but everything I feel tears me apart — fear and hope, pain and despair.
"What did I do wrong that you decided to take such measures against me?" my voice is full of despair. I do not understand what happened, how she suddenly became so alien and cold.
"Are you deaf?" the girl does not even try to choose her words. "I said for you to take your stuff and get out of my sight."
Taking a step forward, I try to approach, but she recoils, as if I am something dirty that she would not want to even touch. And then, looking me straight in the eyes, the girl shouts:
"Stop! Don't come near! Get out! Get out of my life!"
I do not know what to do. Everything I once knew about us is collapsing before my eyes. She is not right. This is not only her life. We have been through too much together to just throw me away like a kitten onto the street. We were together, we were "us," and now it is like something has shattered, and I do not know how to collect all the shards. I will not be able to leave so easily.
"What happened?"
"Go, I beg you..." her voice is already barely audible, full of pain and fatigue. I see how her eyes become moist with tears, and I do not know what I should do. She starts to cry more and more, and I feel how her pain finds a response in me.
"What exactly hurt you? Everything was fine between us, and suddenly you changed. Did I do something wrong?" I stand before her, head lowered.
"No... yes... I mean, it is not important what you did, just go..."
To leave now meant for me to lose her forever, and I cannot allow that. I know that if I take this step, I will no longer be able to return us to the level we were on. I will lose her. Inside me arises a battle — I want to keep her, but I do not know how. Everything in me screams not to leave, to stay and fight.
I start to slowly, almost invisibly, approach her. Katrin is crying so hard that she does not even notice my steps, lost in her grief. When I finally end up close, I cannot restrain myself any longer.
I reach out, embracing my Rebel Girl, and feel her coldness — her body is like ice, as if the whole world has disappeared for her, and only I remain to support her. With every touch, I try to somehow soothe her pain.
Rebel Girl presses against me with her whole body, as if searching for salvation in this single embrace, and I feel how her trembling hands grip me, as if trying not to vanish, not to fall apart.
The girl cries, sobs break from her chest, and it seems to me that I feel her pain with every cell of my body. I feel how her body trembles, how her tears crash onto me, soaking my shirt. The wet fabric becomes heavy from her grief, but I can do nothing except stand near and hold her. I become her support, although I am just as broken as she is.
These tears — they are not just tears, this is a stream breaking from her soul, and I cannot just stand to the side. I must be near. I must endure everything with her.
We stand like this for a long time, motionless, and I do not know how much time passes. All I know is that I cannot let her go. I stand nearby, supporting her, and, despite everything that is happening, my own tears begin to fall.
I cannot restrain myself any longer. To see her like this is too painful, and I feel how her pain pulls me into its whirlpool. I do not know exactly what was the cause of her tears, but everything around her is so heavy that it is impossible for me to restrain my own feelings. I cry together with her, dissolving in this pain, as if it has become a part of me, and I cannot get out of this closed circle of pain and love.
When the girl pulls away from me slightly, taking a step back, I feel how something inside me snaps. Everything that holds us together suddenly becomes fragile. Katrin slowly walks away, and I do not know what to do now.
In her gaze is something that I cannot understand, but something that says that she is already not the same. With her every movement, I feel how our connection begins to crumble. And at that moment, I understand that, perhaps, she will no longer be that same Rebel Girl whom I knew. She has gone far — and not only physically.
A part of her, perhaps, has left me forever, and I do not know how to return it.
"Shall we sit on the bed?" I suggest, trying to hide the tension in my voice. I hope that this will help to approach the answer at least a little, to find out what is hidden behind her silence.
"Okay."
Katrin wants to sit next to me, but I cannot allow her to simply be to the side. I pull her to me and sit her on my lap. This is not just a gesture, this is a striving to hold her so that she does not run away.
So that she does not hide in her silence. I know that if the girl leaves me now, she will not return. Thus I can at least control the situation a little, not giving her the possibility to turn away.
"And now you can start telling."
"There is nothing that I can tell you," she tries to pull away, to hide, as always when her inner world becomes too heavy for her.
"This is not true, and we both know it."
I take her exhausted face in my hand and with tenderness, but with determination, turn it toward me so that we meet with our eyes. I want her to feel: I am near, here to understand, not to judge.
"We both know that I would never harm you. You said that you trust me. So trust me and tell me what worries you, as I told you about my past."
Rebel Girl is silent, her eyes are full of pain, but I do not insist. I understand that she needs time. Instead, I embrace her and start gently stroking her hair, trying to calm her. This gesture is my only way to tell her that I will not leave her.
"My dad was a professor in my city. Mom was a student and fell in love with him to madness," Katrin starts to tell her story.
This story does not have a direct relation to what happened today, but for me, it is important. I am silent, allowing her to speak, because I know: when a person finally decides to share their past, you must be there, not interrupting, not interfering. You just listen to understand.
"They got married. Then I was born, and the terrible began," Katrin swallows, her eyes fill with a heavy memory that, it seems, still does not let her go. "He drank, beat my mom, and cheated with others. Mom was a naive, lovesick fool and forgave him. Even when he started to use force on me. It reached Mom only when she ended up in the emergency room from the beatings. Grandma arrived and knocked some sense into her, took us with Mom to her place. Mom divorced him. This apartment they bought together, and he, before the divorce, signed it over to me. By law, this is possible, but I could manage the apartment only from sixteen years old, before that time Mom."
"I am very sorry that you had such a dad," I want to comfort her somehow, but I do not know what can alleviate her pain.
"As if you had better parents."
And truly, in this, we are again alike. My parents also were not the best example of love and care. They focused more on their own relations and their own conflicts than on me, and I often felt like an outsider in this circle.
We are both children who did not receive what every person should have: safety, support, and attention.
"And where are they now?" I do not know how to correctly ask this question.
"Dad died. Being drunk, he did not put out his cigarette and burned. And Mom... She found herself another guy and now lives with him in another country. She sends money to me and Grandma sometimes. Grandma raised me, in essence."
"And she raised you not badly, you are a good girl," I know that behind her appearance hides kindness, and behind this mask of Rebel Girl — huge strength and tenderness, which she, perhaps, herself did not yet realize.
"Very funny. A lover of parties. But she does not know about this."
"The less she knows — the stronger her health will be," I smirk, feeling how important it is at this moment to at least a little lighten the atmosphere, to let her feel that she is not alone.
"You described the situation very accurately, I liked it."
Rebel Girl falls silent again, but now the silence is calming. This is not just silence, but agreement, a moment when two people who have survived pain and disappointment find in each other something greater than words.
We lie down on the bed, and I feel how her body becomes lighter, and the tension that I felt for a long time starts to disappear. With every breath of hers, she lets go of a part of fear, and with my touches, I become her support.
She lies on my chest, and although her breathing remains intermittent, I feel how she relaxes, how her fragile body senses safety. Her hair touches my chin, and I, feeling her closeness, understand that this is something greater than just physical presence.
This is about trust, acceptance, and even about forgiveness. She no longer tries to run away — neither from me, nor from her feelings, not hiding behind the mask under which she hid for a long time.