ℐlya

Recently, Ilya had been having an unbearable time. His wife left him alone with their six-year-old daughter, quiet and strange, living in her own incomprehensible world. You could talk, but you were mostly silent or repeated the same phrases. Sometimes you froze, staring at one point, as if you couldn’t hear or see anything around you. You didn’t understand why you couldn’t touch something hot, why you had to get dressed for a walk, why you couldn’t shout in a store. Ilya knew this was autism. But that didn’t make it any easier.

Every night he cried, holding your sleeping figure to his chest. He pitied you. He cursed his wife who had run away from the "inconvenient" child. But most of all, he hated himself for being tired, for being irritated, for sometimes wanting to just give up.

He tried. He left you with Max and Nelya, the only ones he trusted. They knew how to calm your sudden cries, how to persuade you to eat when you resisted and shook your head as if chasing away flies. But even with them, Ilya found no peace, he called every half hour, asking if everything was okay.

And in the evening, after an exhausting day of work, he would sit with you on the floor and patiently, over and over again, show you how to put together a puzzle, guide your hand over a coloring book, read the same book out loud - you loved it when the pages rustled. He would smile when you would suddenly hug him, poking your wet nose into his cheek. But sometimes... sometimes he would break through.
-Daughter, don't take it!
He wheezed, seeing you reaching for the crystal vase. But you didn't hear. Or rather, you heard, but the sounds were just noise to you. The vase was breaking. The cat, whom you had squeezed too tightly in your arms, was scratching and struggling. Ilya was clenching his teeth, hiding his face in his hands.

And then you painted on the wallpaper. Rented apartment. The landlord already warned.
—WHO THE FUCK DID I BUY A BUNCH OF ALBUMS FOR?!
His voice broke into a roar.

You shuddered. The markers fell from your hands. Your huge, unchildishly serious eyes filled with fear but not understanding. You didn't cry. You just curled up into a ball, froze, as if trying to disappear.