Chapter 3
1018 Words
I have a child myself, after all. But every time my mother starts asking questions, everything inside me shrinks. I wonder if this will go away or not.
Behind him, an impatient driver in a healthy SUV honks. But I do not care. I won't move until the traffic light turns green. Oh, and here he is.
There are a couple of blocks left to the sports arena in which Timur is engaged. The driver of the SUV does not let up and blinks his headlights at me so that I give way to him. Of course, because I'm driving my little green hatchback. Here ham!
I am moving through the city with a maximum speed limit of seventy kilometres per hour. “You need to, you go around,” I say to the nervous driver, looking at him in the mirror behind the daytime kind.
And he seemed to hear me. Blinking his headlights again, he turned on the right turn signal and went ahead of the curve. When the SUV caught up with me, I felt somehow uncomfortable. Suddenly there is a bandit or an inadequate man.
It became especially scary when he abruptly changed lanes back to the left lane in front of me. I even had to slow down so as not to fly into the back of this SUV. Well, the male, cut me off!
Without thinking twice, I turn left at the intersection. I'd better go through a couple of yards. It's a little longer, but it makes me feel better. But I got excited early on. Having reached the sports arena, I see that there is a free parking space only next to that very huge SUV.
Okay, it wasn't. You'll have to park. I was already fifteen minutes late. Timur, as always, will be dissatisfied. He is very correct and punctual. I don't even know who he is. More precisely, I know, but I don’t want to think about Timur’s father. Unfortunately, our paths severely diverged from him.
For a long time, I blamed Titov for what happened, for those stupid words that he said then in a dream. But all that faded when I found out I was pregnant. I had hysteria, panic, and fear.
The first thought was to run, tell, accuse, and ask Oleg for help. I ran around the whole university in search of Titov. I was scared. But even here fate gave me a big kick in the ass.
It turned out that Titov, along with the guys, left for the qualifying rounds for amateur teams to enter the professional football league. As it became known later: our team flew out of the tournament, but one of the football selectors noticed Oleg and invited him to his team. And he stayed in another city.
The second thought was how to tell the mother about it. She will immediately bury me somewhere in the nearest forest under an oak tree. Everything she feared came true. But there was nowhere to go.
I came home and honestly told everything. Mom screamed, cursed, and cried. I'm with her. For the first time in my life, I even argued with her.
She told everything that she felt all these years of strict control and supervision. At every opportunity, I tried to try something from the mother’s list of “forbidden”. So I tried it before flying.
The mother initially insisted on terminating the pregnancy. I didn't know what to do. I did not want to get rid of our child with Oleg.
Let Titov be a goat, but I myself went with him to the room and at that moment was the happiest in the world. But I also understood that I had nothing, and if my mother wanted, she could put me out on the street in my pants.
My stepfather took my side. Matvey Alexandrovich always treated me with warmth. Even sometimes he slipped the affectionate address “daughter” to me, but I resisted this for a long time. After all, I have my own father. Even if I don't know where he is, I still didn't need another one.
The stepfather spoke to the mother behind closed doors. I still don't know what arguments he gave her. But after talking with him, my mother changed her mind and said:
"Whatever it was, Yana, you will give birth to a child, and Matvey and I will help you raise him. Just don’t quit your studies, and so that there aren’t even one four in the standings."
I am still very grateful to Matvey Alexandrovich for not letting me commit a big stupidity. Today my son is seven years old. Whole seven. Mom is dear! My stepfather is now fifty-six. He has no children of his own. But there is a grandson. And my son has the best grandfather Matvey in the world.
I don’t know what I would do if Timur didn’t have a worthy male example before my eyes. After all, the boy really needs a dad nearby.
An insistent knock on the passenger window makes me scream in fright. I was so lost in memories that I didn’t notice how I had been sitting motionless in the car with a bag in my hands for five whole minutes.
I press the power button and lower the passenger window. That's the meeting. Judging by the open door of the SUV behind him, this is a very impatient driver.
"Why, little one, did you buy a license and can't drive normally? You have to give way if you are asked,” the man complains to me and looks out the window.
I look at his face and can't believe it. Yes, no, it can't be. The man just looks a lot like Titov. No no no. It's not him. I shake my head back and forth to make the ghost of the past disappear.
"Oleg, why are you stuck there? Let's go inside soon. They are waiting for us." I look after the two departing men. I can't move.
There are no such coincidences.
- Writer
