Chapter 28 Empty Eyes

• Kosta listened to the doctor's words, so distant, so unreal. For a moment, he had the impression that all of this was happening to someone else, or that he was in a terrible nightmare from which he would soon wake up.
• The pain was deep, incessant. The weight of guilt stood within him like a cruel executioner unwilling to release his victim. He thought about Natalia during the years they were apart, about all her sufferings, about the miserable life she had to live, about her sacrifices. The more he thought, the more he felt his heart bleeding.
• He buried his head in his hands. The weight of his conscience for what he had caused Natalia was too painful. It felt like daggers being plunged deep into his heart without any anesthesia. It wasn't easy to realize that he had spent fifteen years nurturing unjustified hatred, that the woman he forced himself to hate was never the monster he imagined. Instead, she gave everything, stood in front of him to shield him from the blows, while she received them one by one, no matter how each thrust inflicted a mortal wound.