ABSOLUTE INSANITY: A forbidden bond-Chapter 165: Guilt

Chapter 165: Guilt
Chapter 165
KATYA POV
I couldn’t look away. My gaze, heavy and unfocused, remained locked on Nonna. She was right there, just inches from the bed.
But she seemed to be drifting in a world of her own and I saw it, the glint of moisture under the harsh lights.
Nonna was crying. The Iron Matriarch, the woman who ruled the Salvatore household with a gaze of flint and a voice of silk, had tears carving slow, wet tracks down the deep lines of her face.
It was a sight so wrong, so disconnected from the reality I knew, that it made my heart stutter in my chest.
Why? My mind, still swimming in the thick, hazy soup of painkillers and trauma, began to churn.
Why is she crying? Was it because of me? Or was it the argument? The shouting match from moments ago echoed in my skull.
I remembered the roar of the man—the dark silhouette who had just stormed out. Was that Romeo?
It had to be. But who was he screaming at? Was he screaming at Nonna? Had they been fighting over what to do with me? Over the "shadow" that had caused so much trouble?
The panic began to rise again, a cold in my stomach. Did I break them? Did I break this family?
Nonna’s eyes suddenly snapped to mine. She must have realized I was looking—really looking—at her.
In an instant, the mask tried to slam back into place. She moved with a sudden, jerky motion, raising a lace-trimmed handkerchief to her face, pretending to dab at a stray hair or a speck of dust in her eye.
She was trying to hide it, trying to failingly and discretely cover the fact that she was falling apart.
But she was too late. I had seen the salt on her skin. I had seen the way her bottom lip trembled before she bit it into stillness.
"N-nonna..." I whispered, the word sounding like dry leaves skittering across pavement. She froze, the handkerchief still pressed against her cheek.
She didn’t look at me for a long beat, her chest rising and falling in shallow, jagged breaths. When she finally turned her head back to me, her eyes were red-rimmed and fierce, a terrifying mix of ancient sorrow and protective rage.
"You are awake," she said, her voice gravelly and forced. "Good. You... you must stay awake, Katya. The doctors say you must stay with us."
I ignored the command. My mind was still on the man who had left. "The man..." I croaked, my eyes darting toward the door he had slammed. "Was it... Mr Salvatore?"
Nonna’s hands gripped the armrests of her wheelchair again. She looked at the door, her expression darkening into something so cold it made the fever in my skin drop.
"Yes," she whispered. "It was Romeo."
"Was he... angry at you?" I asked, my voice trembling. The thought of them fighting because of me was a weight I couldn’t bear.
Nonna let out a short, hollow laugh that didn’t reach her eyes. She reached out and took my hand, her fingers trembling against mine.
"No, child," she said, leaning closer until I could
see the reflection of my own broken state in her pupils.
"He wasn’t angry at me. Just... just." Her lips quivered, I saw another tear escape her, despite her best efforts to hide it. It fell onto the back of my hand, a small, warm drop of reality in a room full of white-hot pain..
"Just think of yourself for now, Mia cara," she whispered, so low I almost didn’t hear it. "Let me go catch the nurse"
Nonna started to pull her hand away, her eyes darting toward the door as if she needed to escape the weight of the moment.
"Let me go catch the nurse," she repeated, her voice thin and brittle. "They need to check your vitals... they need to..."
But she didn’t move. Something was so wrong. The way her shoulders hitched, the way the most strongest woman I know was shrinking right before my eyes—it was more terrifying than the cane.
Silent tears were leaking out of her eyes again, fat and heavy, betraying every lie she was trying to tell me.
My heart felt like it was being squeezed by a cold hand. It’s me, I thought, the realization spiraling into a dark, bottomless pit in my chest
I did this. I was the reason Romeo was screaming. I was the reason Nonna was broken.
I was the parasite that had brought blood and tears into their world. I wasn’t just a shadow anymore; I was a curse.
I needed to just die, I needed to just get the fuck out of everyone’s life. Why was I always the curse.
First my mother, then my sperm donor, Frank and now nonna. The list of people I had "ruined" played on a loop in my mind.
She didn’t deserve this. I felt a desperate, agonizing need to fix it, to stop the woman who had been my only light from going dark.
With an effort that felt like moving a mountain, I forced my arm to move. It was weak, trembling so violently I thought it might fall, but I reached up
My fingers, pale and trembling, finally made contact with her withered cheek. I wiped away the stray tear with the pad of my thumb.
Nonna froze for only a heartbeat before the dam broken, she let out a devastating, ragged breath and leaned her face into my palm.
She closed her eyes, clutching my hand against her skin as if it were the only thing keeping her from drowning. "Don’t... cry," I whispered, a sob of my own catching in my throat.
"Please, Nonna. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I caused this."
"You did nothing," she choked out, her voice a ruin of grief. "You are the only innocent thing in this house of ghosts, Katya. And I let them break you."
Seeing her like this—the pillar of the Salvatore family leaning on a girl who could barely breathe—destroyed what was left of my composure.
I felt my mind slipping into a dark place, a place where I was the villain of my own story. The pain in my back was nothing compared to the crushing weight of the guilt.
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