Chapter Text
Ivan is utterly broken. Broken in a way that falls deeper than bone, an ilk of broken that goes beyond the soul; it caresses the body with a certain kind of hatred that burns.
The sinking feeling in his gut has succumbed to a maddening sense of emptiness that cannot be filled.
There is no concoction of words he can muster to express his own mistakes, his own misery, to fix what he has damaged.
Mistakes he would never live down. Mistakes he is not even able to fathom.
Mistakes he cannot learn from.
He knows one thing, however, and it is that he is sorry. God, is he sorry.
Though, for him, it is a challenge to answer the question of who he feels sorry for.
He knows who he should feel sorry for, and that is what makes him feel miserably disgraceful.
Because he feels all the more remorse for himself. A guttural, desperate sorrow for himself that he has crawled under.
He knows it’s selfish. He knows there should be no amount of sorrow left for him; there should be no scraps under the table left for the stray dog lest it comes back for more.
But somehow, of course, he can muster it. The agonizing sorrow for what his life has become. And, with every grueling day, the sorrow only doubles; the stray dog comes back as anticipated.
The burning shame of his selfishness is a sensation he lies in as the bed he has made for himself erupts in flames.
He could almost call it comfortable, wallowing in misery alone.
After all, it is always easier to fall into pessimism than to ascend to optimism. It’s why depression is so common; the absence of feeling becomes a comfort.
Of course, he would certainly know. His fiery hatred and resentment was easier to fall into rather than the idea of forgiveness.
However, there was really nothing to forgive, was there? At the end of it, Ivan knows that. He caused the damage, the destruction. His downfall is simply his own.
But, again, it’s always easier to blame others than to face the truth. It’s why discrimination is so common; dishonesty, in paradox, is the only real constant in life.
Again, after all, Ivan would know.
But to admit that he was wrong meant defeat. It meant vulnerability in a way he couldn’t stand.
But he was. He was entirely, irrevocably wrong.
In the back of the mind that invented any and every sort of excuse for his actions, it screamed the truth it tried to hide.
It prodded at him in a way he could no longer ignore, and he was suddenly overcome with an immense, likely irrational desire.
He is going to mend this. He will fix what he has done beyond a measly bandage. He will surgically remove the tumor that is constantly festering between he and the one person he knows he is indebted to.
And if that means he truly has to learn how to perform said surgery, so be it.
He will fix everything, he will learn to be better, and there’s only one way to start.
Find Andrew.