Катя

Глава I

Her head was spinning. Walking back into the overcrowded house from the cold of winter was like being thrown into a sauna. The hot air from the heater and the fireplace fell upon her like a weighted blanket.

“She said yes!” Maks yelled to the room full of people. Her eyes snapped into focus. It was suddenly silent and everyone turned to look. Her heart stopped beneath their gaze. He held her left hand in the air, a huge smile plastered across his face. Cameras seemed to appear from thin air as the silence was shattered by excited proclamations and exclamations. Katya felt like she couldn't breath. She smiled anyway. She turned to face her fiancé and kissed him, letting her left hand linger on his cheek while she grinned up at him. The light glinted off of the diamond on her finger.

It felt like the right thing to do- like it fit the moment. That is what engaged couples did, right? Kissed and posed for pictures? Was this what it felt like to get engaged?

“Beautiful!” Her friend, Adelina, exclaimed. “Look at this. Look at how beautiful this is.” She flipped the camera so that Katya could see the picture she had just snapped. “You are such a beautiful couple.”

“Thank you,” Katya replied, reaching her hand out to hers and giving it a small squeeze. Max nuzzled her neck.

“Let's go sit down,” he whispered in her ear. She nodded and he let his hand slide down to the small of her back. They navigated through the crowd and into his kitchen. There was a small table by the window with a place to sit. Sunlight was pouring through, casting a glow upon the people that sat around it. Everything felt surreal. It seemed like she was watching a movie or looking through snapshots of someone else's life. Watching someone's home video. It hardly felt like reality- and even less so her own.

“I'm going to go get a drink. Would you like anything?”

“Maybe a glass of champagne,” she said. It felt like a celebratory drink. It seemed like the right choice.

“Alright,” he said, kissing her forehead. “I’ll be back soon.”

So there she sat, waiting as people took their turns coming up to her, congratulating her. There were too many people around. She needed a moment of silence and Max was taking such a long time. Katya looked around the room for him. He was still by the drink table, talking, with a whiskey on the rocks in his right hand and a glass of champagne in his left. At least he had poured it. It had not been forgotten in its entirety- just in its delivery.

Katya made her excuses to the people who sat beside her and slipped around the corner and up the stairs. His door was slightly ajar. She peered into the dim, quiet room where the slight breeze of the spinning fan on the ceiling brought a comforting and refreshing peace. Quietly, so as not to disrupt the stillness of the room, she stepped inside, threw herself onto his bed, and looked up at the ceiling. The fan whirled in circles above her head and she just laid there, watching it spin around and around and around until she slipped off into sleep.