Chapter 1
Katya
I wore a black dress to the cemetery. My Russian grandmother, my babushka, hadn’t wanted a viewing or a reception – she said she just wanted to be able to rest in peace once she was finally done. I don’t think that either of us thought it would be this soon. I knew it was irrational, but I couldn’t help but feel like she had abandoned me. She had been the only family I’d ever had growing up, and her absence left an empty hole in my heart.
The doctor that signed her death certificate told me that she had a brain aneurysm that caused a hemorrhagic stroke. He stated there was nothing I could’ve done to save her, but that didn’t ease my guilty conscience. Babulya had complained of a headache that morning, but I’d brushed it aside and rushed out the door as I shouted a goodbye. What if I had stayed home with her that day?
Logic told me that the doctor was right. Even if I had been home with her, I still wouldn’t have been able to change anything. My heart was a different matter. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was my fault she died alone. It didn’t matter that the only warning sign that something was wrong was a headache that could have been explained by a million other things. I hated that she’d died alone, and I was devastated that I hadn’t taken the time to tell her I loved her that morning. I should have treasured every last second that I had with her, but now she was gone forever.
Today it was just me, Ryan, and his parents standing at the side of Babulya’s grave as we said our final goodbyes. The weather was warm now that summer was drawing near, but I just felt cold on the inside. The sky was hazy with clouds blocking out the brightest rays of the sun, but I wanted it to be dark and rainy to match my grief. Babulya had been my entire life, the only parent I’d ever known. My mother had considered me to be an unwanted pregnancy, and she’d only carried me until birth because she didn’t realize she was pregnant until she was over four months in - and my babushka had bribed her.
My dear mother abandoned me in the NICU sixteen years ago and never looked back. Babulya waited by my incubator for weeks until the doctor had finally given her the okay to pick me up and hold me in her arms. She told me that at the moment that she looked in my big blue eyes, she knew she could never let anyone take me from her. I was hers in every sense of the word.
My babushka had been tough, and she hadn’t shown it very often, but I knew she had loved me with all of her heart. I was lucky to have her in my life for as long as I did. Without her, I probably would have ended up in the foster care system. The numbness that I’d felt from the moment of her death was slowly wearing off, and I was starting to realize that Babulya was never coming home. The past few days, I had been telling myself that she was waiting at home for me while I stayed at Ryan’s apartment, but looking down at her casket was a cold slap of reality.
She was gone.
I wanted to scream and cry and rage at whatever power had taken her away from me. Instead, I just stood there silently, holding all of that emotion deep inside of me, hiding it from the world.
“Honey?” Mrs. Logan said softly. “Do you want to say anything?”
I just shook my head, unable to even form words. Ryan tossed a lily down on the shiny black surface of the coffin, and I stared as it slowly slid off the side and into the dirt. As the petals of the flower were slowly covered by the crumbling soil on the side of the grave, something broke inside of me. Whatever dam had been holding back all of my emotions finally gave out under the pressure. It was a simple flower that pushed me over the edge.
I threw my flower in the direction of the grave, but my eyes were so blurred with tears that I couldn’t tell if it made it. My shoulders shook as I sobbed, and Ryan wrapped his strong arms around me. Ryan and I had been inseparable since we had taken a ballet class together when we were six years old. I just walked up to the little boy with warm brown eyes and asked if he wanted to be my best friend. He accepted right away, and now we were going on ten years of friendship.
Ryan rubbed my back as I cried out all of the anguish and despair that I’d been holding back for the last couple of days. Mr. and Mrs. Logan stood silently by, probably unsure of what to do about a teenage girl having a mental breakdown in the middle of the cemetery. Babulya assigned them as my legal guardians in her will, and they had done the same with her as Ryan’s guardian. The random thought of how Ryan didn’t have a back-up parent anymore just made me cry harder. Days of pent-up grief came pouring out in an unstoppable flood.
Once I started to wind down, I heard Mr. Logan clear his throat, but it was Mrs. Logan who spoke.
“Why don’t we get you back home?” she asked cautiously.
I hesitated to answer. Once again, I was walking away from my babushka, but this time I was leaving her alone in the cold
