Page 84 of Eternal

AZRA

“Brother” by Kodaline

Present

I ’ve always thought that when you break something, no matter how hard you try to put it back together, it will never be the same.

The pieces don’t fit right anymore.

The edges are too sharp, too strange, and no matter how much you try to smooth them down, the cracks will always show. Even if it’s not broken anymore, it’s still changed forever.

One small thing can change you forever, and maybe that’s worse,because brokenness doesn’t just leave cracks, it takes away the freedom to remain whole, to be what you once were.

I used to think loneliness was what stole that freedom from me.

But then I’d watch the petals of my favorite irises, torn from their stems, drifting in the wind, scattered, weightless, still beautiful, still free, even when they’re alone.

Maybe that’s why they never seemed sad to me, because once, when I was younger, I felt that way too.

Maybe, deep down, I recognized their freedom, I was free too.

Free in the way only children can be, free to be happy, to run, to smile without thinking about why. Free to laugh without knowing what it meant to lose. Free to cry without feeling weak.

I was free to exist.

Then I grew up, if we can call it that, and I realized freedom isn’t what I thought it was.

It isn’t something you have, it’s something you lose, piece by piece.

First, I wanted to be free from my mother’s pain, then, free from the pain, from the grief, then from the bruises and scars, from the hands that hurt me when they were supposed to protect me, then from the drugs, the alcohol, the numbness.

And now… now I just want to be free from being a weapon, from being a monster. I want to be seen as something more than what I’ve done, I want to be seen as a woman, as a person.

I wanted to be seen by him the most, because I thought he was capable of it.

For a small instant I thought that maybe someone would understand. But the reality is so different.

I trusted a man, and he lied.

I should’ve known better, should’ve seen it coming. People don’t just walk into my life smiling and laughing with me. They don’t stay, they disappear as soon as they see a tiny real part of me.

But he didn’t leave, he held on, he kissed my scars, braided my hair and caressed my skin.

He looked at me like I was something worth keeping and worth looking at.

And the whole time, he was waiting for the right moment to end me.

I keep going over it in my head, trying to figure out the exact second I lost.

Was it the first time he touched me?

The first time he whispered my name like it meant everything to him while telling me he was lying all that time?

Or was I doomed the moment I let myself believe I could have something that wasn’t pain?

I hate him for it, I hate him for proving me right.

You trusted him…

Trust is just another way to destroy yourself. A slow, painful death, one you walk into willingly, smiling, convinced it won’t happen to you, but it always does.

My mom drowned herself in alcohol because of it, because of the trust she had in justice, in good things, in the system and in her own power to change the world.

But it was an illusion.

She drowned in that alcohol, in pills, in everything she used to keep the truth at bay. And it consumed her, rotted her from the inside out.

Trust is a poison disguised as a promise, and I was stupid enough to drink it.

I drank and drank until it made me sick, until I wanted to kill him, until I tried. But it’s not just him, it’s not just this, it’s me.

Because maybe, beneath the abuse and the trauma, some stupid part of me still thought she could find something real. That she could find a man who wouldn’t hurt me, who wouldn’t feel like pain, someone who could maybe, just maybe, love me one day.

I was wrong.

I don’t think I’m capable of love, not the way people talk about it, not the way they write songs and poetry, setting themselves on fire just to feel it. I don’t have that in me, I don’t know if I ever did.

Love has always felt like a lie, a dream, a pretty one, a warm one. But one that asks too much of me, that demands a softness I no longer have. Maybe I did, once, maybe before the blood, before the loss, before the war inside my own skin.

And even if I could love, would I deserve it? Would I even know what to do with it?

I don’t know how to be vulnerable without expecting a knife in my back. I don’t know how to let someone touch me without bracing for pain, how to love without waiting for the betrayal.

And that’s not love at all, that’s just another kind of lost freedom.

So, I kissed him, touched him, gave him my body and soul, after almost killing him. He welcomed it, kissed me back and worshiped my body for what felt like an eternity, and I left him there, alone.

Because I hated him for it, and I missed him for the exact same reasons.

The night is cold today.

I cried and destroyed my house before almost fucking the man who put me in that state.

Says a lot about me, desperate for love… fucking pathetic.

I came here because I needed to see the irises, I needed to see them.

Viktor opened without even asking what’s happening and hugged me before letting me go to the garden.

I sat on the small steps, where the dogs were playing nearby. Mischka looked at me like she knew I wasn’t doing well, she tilted her head quietly and started licking my hands, Notch just sat next to me, they felt it maybe…

They were always the one thing that felt real, like something that couldn’t be broken or taken away. My fingers absently stroked their soft fur, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to push the thoughts away, but they kept coming back.

I just… I just want this to change, everything.

I want to fall asleep without nightmares.

I want to wake up and not hyper fixate on covering every scar I had on me.

I want to hear someone say they love me without hearing it come with a price.

I want a beach house, my dogs, and the kind of life where you’re not constantly looking over your shoulder for the next betrayal.

I want normal .

And then, I felt the warmth of a blanket draped over my shoulders. Viktor sat beside me, stretching his long legs out, leaning back on his elbows. “You look like shit,” he said.

“So kind,” I muttered.

“It's cold tonight,” his voice came, comforting. “Why the hell are you out here by yourself?”

I didn’t answer, I just stared at the dogs, my fingers curling tighter into the blanket as I let out a shaky breath. Viktor sat beside me, not questioning, not trying to know more. He knew better than anyone that sometimes, silence was all I needed.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I said, “I’m fine.”

“You sure?” he replied, “Cause if you were fine, you’d be in bed, sleeping like a normal person, not out here, freezing your ass off.”

I turned my head to meet his eyes, but there was nothing to say. He knew, even without words, he always did, he knew what it was like to wear the guilt of it all, the loss, the pain, the scars.

“Men are shitty,” I added after a while.

“Do I need to kill Damir?” he asked without hesitation.

I let out a sharp breath, something like a laugh. “Tried. But he’s immortal.”

Viktor huffed, pulling me against his side. “I’ll find a way.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“Always, Kroshka ,” he said, pulling me a little closer, like he was tethering me to something that wasn’t so broken. “Besides, killing is a part of my job.”

I chuckled softly at that, and I looked at him, searching for something, a sign that he felt the same ache, the same guilt I carried. “Do you ever get tired of it?” I asked quietly. “Tired of… all of it?”

Are you tired of being so alone, so in pain?

He was quiet for a moment, his gaze on a long lost point in front of us as if he was calculating his answer, but then he looked back at me again, and I saw it, the tiredness, the same one I felt, the one that never really went away.

“I’m tired of seeing you like this,” he said softly. “Sometimes I get tired too. But then I remember I got you, Kat, the dogs. We’re still here. We’re still us. No matter if the world is still spinning around us.”

“Me too, I’m tired of being like this,” I whispered, more to myself than him, but I knew he heard it.

“I can’t help you as much as I would want to,” he said. “But I’ll stay here, sitting on these shitty steps and talk to you. I’ll always stay here.”

Viktor was always warmth and comfort to me. Family . I missed this comfort, I missed feeling safe.

“You can’t just run away, Kroshka ,” he murmured. “Not when the person you want to run from the most is yourself.”

His words sat heavy in my chest.

I hated that he was right. I hated that no matter where I went, no matter how much I tried to outrun the past, I always ended up right back here, drowning in the same memories, the same ache, the same fucking disgust inside me.

I leaned into him, just a little. Not enough to admit defeat, but enough to say I needed this.

He squeezed my shoulder. “But if you ever do run, at least let me drive the car.”

A small, tired laugh escaped me. “You’d crash it.”

“And you’d still get in anyway.”

“Yeah,” I breathed. “I probably would.”

“Stop being afraid of yourself,” Vik said quietly.

I let out a dry laugh, shaking my head. “How can someone not be afraid of their own self?” My voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried all the weight of the truth.

“She can’t stop being angry, Vik. She's crying inside my head, screaming how much she hates it here. She’s always in need of more.

And the worst part?” I turned to meet his gaze, shadows flickering in my eyes.

“She feels powerful after letting it all out.”

“You think that makes you a monster?” he asked, voice steady, like he already knew my answer.

I huffed out something between a laugh and a scoff. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. “Doesn’t it?”

He tilted his head, studying me with that same annoying patience. “Monsters don’t sit on cold steps in the middle of the night, wishing they could run away from themselves.”

I clenched my jaw, looking away. “Doesn’t change what I am.”

“No,” he agreed, tightening his grip around my shoulder. “But it changes who you are to me .”

He grew serious again, the humor draining from his face as he turned to me, his hand resting gently on me. “You’re Azra. You’ve always been Azra, my Kroshka . And nothing’s gonna change that. You’ll figure it out, just don’t forget that.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, his words didn’t fix anything, but they gave me a sliver of hope, a thread of something to hold on to.

Vik paused for a moment, then added, with a slight smirk, “And no matter what, I’ll always pick you up. Even if you end up getting yourself caught in a goddamn field of roses. You’re always my iris. The prettiest flower. Okay?”

The dogs settle around us, Vik exhales, rubbing slow circles on my arm like he used to when I was a kid with scraped knees.

I close my eyes. “You would still pick me up?”

He huffs a quiet laugh. “Who else if not me?”

A lump rises in my throat. I don’t answer.

I let out a shaky laugh, my head leaning against his shoulder as he pulled me into a tight hug. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to remind me that I wasn’t alone.

The dogs ran circles around us, their barks filling the silence between us, but at that moment, I didn’t care about anything else. All I needed was this, my family, my brother. Even in the cold and darkness, we were still here.

I could see the irises in the distance. Maybe my mom is seeing them too. Maybe she saw it all and regrets how she left me because of her own pain.

Kat came out a few moments later, the sound of her footsteps soft. “I brought you another blanket,” she said quietly, laying it across my legs.

“Thanks, Kat,” I murmured, feeling her warmth as she sat beside me, wrapping herself in the blanket too. She leaned her head against mine, the three of us sitting in comfortable silence, Mischka and Notch snuggling at our feet.

“I’m really sorry,” I said after a while, my voice small and filled with guilt. “For everything. For bringing this to you.”

Vik’s voice was soft, reassuring. “Don’t apologize for shit. You’re family. No matter what.”

And in that moment, I felt like maybe I wasn’t as broken as I thought. Maybe the darkness was still there, but I wasn’t alone in it anymore.

“We’ll always stay together, right?” Kat’s voice is small.

Vik presses a kiss to the top of my head. “For eternity.”

“Then why is Azra sad tonight?” she asks, tightening her grip on my arm.

“Because flowers can’t run,” Vik replies, warming my hands in his.

And I smile, for the first time tonight, I truly smile.

Because it’s true… Flowers can’t run.

Not when their roots are still buried in the same garden, no matter how cruel the soil becomes, not even when they’re stepped on.

They just stay right where they were planted, even when the ground goes cold, even when it hurts to bloom. They can’t move, they can’t leave, they just keep growing anyway.

I close my eyes and whisper it to myself: “ Flowers can’t cry either. ”

Maybe just for tonight, I can believe that lie.