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Silence.

Then slowly, very slowly, a tiny dark head peeks around Sergei’s side. Chocolate smeared across his mouth.

Sergei’s shoulders shake with restrained laughter beside him, immediately giving away his tiny partner-in-crime.

“Dad said one spoon.” Kian whispers accusingly.

“I said small spoon.” Sergei corrects with a grin.

“You used the big one first!”

I stare at both of them in disbelief while Sergei finally loses the battle against his amusement and laughs openly.

I know I wanted Kian, long before I learned about my pregnancy.

The love came first; it came easily. Fierce and intensifying and terrifying in equal measure.

But even now, there are nights where fear still creeps beneath my skin—the fear that one day I’ll hurt my son unintentionally, pass down the same wounds carved into me.

And then there’s Sergei.

Sergei, who loves Kian so naturally it almost leaves me breathless.

As if he was always meant to be a father. As if some wounded part of him spent his entire life dreaming of giving a child the kind of love he never received himself.

Sometimes I catch him doing the smallest things, letting Kian “help” him cook while making an absolute mess, carrying him asleep against his chest long after he could’ve put him to bed, buying ridiculous toys just because our son looked at them for two seconds too long.

And now, watching him attempt to sneak chocolate with Kian in the middle of the night, I feel warmth bloom painfully inside my chest.

Because I think I’m watching Sergei live through the childhood he was denied.

Only this time, it’s soft. This time there’s laughter in the kitchen instead of fear. This time there’s a little boy growing up adored beyond measure.

He waited for me while I finished my studies.

Every night, Sergei came home drenched in someone else’s blood with that familiar smile on his face. Only now, it no longer looked cruel or sadistic. It looked satisfied.

He told me he was cleaning the world piece by piece, removing every trace of filth from it so I could finally breathe fresh air without fear poisoning my lungs.

Maybe it would sound insane to anyone else. Maybe it is insane.

But love has always looked strange in our hands.

We went to therapy and while it was slow, it was effective too.

The urges to purge no longer consume me whole. The catharsis that once ruled every corner of my life isn’t the driving force behind my existence anymore.

And the strangest part is…I didn’t stop because I was scared Sergei would destroy himself if I disappeared.

I stopped because I wanted to stay.

For the first time in forever, life didn’t feel like a punishment.

I started noticing beautiful things again. The way sunsets pour gold across the castle windows in the evenings. The smell of dinner filling the house while Sergei cooks in the background with classical music playing softly through the speakers.

It feels surreal.

I always wondered what the other side looked like. I think it looks like this.