Katia's Promise Read Online Free Page B

today?”
    “No.”
    “Then, why?”
    “I want to be your friend, Austin. Your real friend. Always.”
    “I’d like that, Katia,” he’d said as he gently folded the Valentine, put it in the envelope and slipped it into the breast pocket of his tweed jacket.
    “Always...” Katia said out loud, jolting out of her reverie. Of all her memories of Austin, that Valentine’s Day was the sweetest. But what happened afterward made it painful to remember, too.
    Austin hadn’t had a single opportunity to make any rules for himself. That autumn, his mother had shipped him off to New York to attend York Prep School, where he’d remained until his graduation.
    With Austin away at school, Katia felt as if she’d been set adrift on an iceberg in the middle of the Black Sea. Katia didn’t know whom to blame. At times she felt as if she’d done something wrong, but her love for Austin wouldn’t allow her to hide in shame. Other times, she was angry that Hanna would think so ill of her that she couldn’t trust Katia and Austin to be alone. Through it all, she was lonely without Austin and she missed him more than she’d thought possible. By the time she was sixteen, they’d truly fallen in love, and the days without him were torturously long and empty. Nothing she did could fill the void. She counted the days until he came home for holidays. She wrote long letters to him and mailed them without Stephania’s or Hanna’s knowledge.
    Though he never wrote back, he called her every Sunday night just after his weekly call to his mother. Katia waited in her bedroom and told her mother that one of her girlfriends was on the phone. Austin had to stand in line for a pay phone in his dorm, with other boys hanging over his shoulder, and the calls were often strained and awkward. Too often, Katia hung up in tears.
    When Austin did come home for vacations, Katia made a fool of herself by hanging on to him, begging for kisses and promising to do everything and anything he asked. Then he would leave again for school and the torture would start all over.
    Katia was so caught up in her obsession with Austin that she didn’t realize her wise and sharp-eyed mother had seen and heard everything.
    Stephania was convinced Katia would get pregnant on Austin’s next school break. There was barely enough income to contribute to Katia’s upcoming schooling as it was. The cost of a third mouth to feed—not to mention the time and energy required to care for a baby—would diminish any hopes Katia had of attending college, and her future opportunities would dwindle. Stephania told her daughter that her own job in the McCreary household would be on the line if things went too far with Austin. He would come out of the scandal unscathed, while Katia and Stephania would pay the price—financially and emotionally.
    Katia tried to convince her mother that she was wrong about her and Austin, but Stephania couldn’t be swayed. Before Austin returned home, Stephania announced to Hanna that she wanted to quit. In a matter of days they’d moved to Stephania’s cousin’s house on the South Side of Chicago.
    Katia was devastated. She was impossibly in love with Austin, and she believed in her heart that he loved her back. But the shame she felt when she overheard her mother explain their sudden appearance in Chicago to her cousins was unbearable. Katia would always know that because of her love for Austin, her mother had lost a good income. They’d been forced to take charity from their family.
    Yet being without Austin was agonizing, and Katia cried every night for months after the move. Still, she was embarrassed by the way she’d acted around him; when they were together, she couldn’t think straight, much less make intelligent decisions. Though Katia knew that she would never have gotten pregnant, she had to admit her mother was right that her relationship with Austin could have compromised her future and well-being.
    The only way to cure her