I spit out the paste and strip my mouth, my brush and put it back. I stick a special Velcro on the front teeth and sharply tear it off. I smile to myself in the mirror and run the tip of my tongue over my teeth, white ones. I look at my reflection, and sadness wakes up in my soul. Who am I kidding, it's bad it's bad. I open the drawer behind the mirror and take out contraceptives.

I take two pills. You need to take them every day, and it doesn’t matter that I haven’t had sex for seven years, or maybe eight, I didn’t count. At least after the wedding, I no longer remember him. I take my pills and put back my half-empty birth control box. They need to be taken so that inflammation of the ovaries does not start, and you do not have to have an operation. Cut everything out for me.

Damn, I can't think about this without crying. I always remember this fucking hospital.

Next to the contraceptive positive pregnancy test. How many years has been lying here, as a reminder of what did not happen. I take it out and turn it in my hands. I should have thrown it away back then, but for some reason I didn’t dare, and now I certainly won’t. This is all I have left of my past. From my happy marriage and my longing to have children that I will never have.

I already have wet eyes:

“I’m sorry I didn’t let you into this world, I’m sorry that you couldn’t be born because of this stupid disease, because of my stupid body, because of my health. Baby, I'm sorry you never called me mom. - I sob, sit down on a cold tile and cry over this stupid dough. I wish I could throw it away, but I can't, but it still reminds me that I am a woman, I once was, before this stupid disease. Lord, how bright and joyful everything seemed to me then. And I naively believed that this would always be the case.

“Don't blame yourself. No one is to blame for anything, ”I recall the words of a psychologist. But I just can’t remember when he told me this, before or after my husband left me. And no one is to blame for this. It just happened, I got sick, I actually killed our child with him.

I myself then said to Tolya:

"Leave. Don’t ruin your life next to me… I’ve already ruined mine.” And he left. True, not immediately. He was with me to the last, was with me at the most difficult time. But when he saw that I finally gave up, that I no longer fight for myself, he said:

"I'm sorry, but I can't do this anymore," he said goodbye, packed his things and left. And never returned again. I don’t remember if there were tears in his eyes, but I often cried then. At nineteen, I buried myself, deciding that infertility was a death sentence.

We also talked about some kind of treatment. But the more I went to hospitals, the worse I got. And there was never enough money. My mother worked two jobs, and I left the institute and got a job in a nail salon. I always knew that I would work there. That's where I still work.

I return the test to the shelf, where it belongs and collect a basin of water. Whatever it is, you have to live somehow. It's not all the time to feel sorry for yourself and wince at any tingle in your side. They told me: one more exacerbation and I would have to do an operation, remove the ovaries, and then there would be no hope left. Yes, and now it is almost non-existent.

And why is this all for me? I have chosen for myself a treatment that will always leave a chance, one percent to conceive a healthy child. In life, there must always be room for hope, otherwise, why then all this? Taking birth control is better than removing the uterus completely. Although doctors recommend the latter.

- Yes, before whom should I justify the honor, what to regret, if I have already lived like this, if everything is not erased. I sing to myself while I take a salt bath. I'll rub my heels with a pumice stone, I'll update the pedicure. This has always calmed me down. Simple clear things, what could be better. Especially since I didn't work at work today. I spent only half a day there. I only managed to drink coffee and take one client.

"Where are you going, girl? - I turn to myself. - Well, what kind of work, and if you get a pain in your side again, what will you ask for time off? And if you faint, you never know what can happen. And here in the native beauty salon, everyone is their own. Everyone knows you well, everyone understands you.”

“So, I sit with folded arms and hope, I don’t know what to do for myself. All my hopes died a long time ago, everything alive in me died. This house smells of death." I remember the past, and again I want to cry. After all, Tolik and I wanted this baby so much, we dreamed about her so much, he even bought a crib. Didn't need to. Nothing was needed. Everything went to waste. It’s good that Tolya took the crib with him before leaving, otherwise I would have sat there, staring at an empty wall and slowly going crazy. There was also an inscription: “Welcome home”, but we did not have time to come up with a name. Thank God.

Lord, why do I need all this? I dreamed of children so much, and as a result I was left alone, forgotten and abandoned by everyone, no one needed.

“The Lord does not do anything for nothing. He wants to teach me something to show something in this life. He loves me like his beloved daughter. He will lead me through the valley of the shadow of death and will not give me trials beyond my strength. I know. Yes, but for some reason it doesn’t make it any easier for me. ”

When I was small, I thought that twenty-six is ​​old age. And I lived these years and, however, I feel sick and old. I'm constantly in pain. And after that operation, my hypochondria worsened, the fear of getting sick with something. The doctor told me to contact me at the first symptoms, and now I see these symptoms in everything. And every day I swallow handfuls of pills. In fact, I live on pills: birth control, anti-inflammatory, yogurt to restore the flora of the stomach, vitamins and much more.

I'm afraid of an ectopic, I'm afraid of any inflammation, I'm afraid of everything in the world. I already sinned against Tolik, I thought he had infected me, but the doctor said that it was not a venus, it just happens. I was just unlucky with my body, very unlucky. I'm just a loser. It's autoimmune or something like that. In short, my body is killing itself bit by bit.

It is doubly insulting that I myself am to blame for everything, my body betrayed me. But Tolya did not betray me, and our baby would have been born healthy, and I would be a happy mom now, if it were not for this cursed illness.

"Stop thinking about her." I turn on the music and gently rub my heels with pumice. I want them to be smooth, I love my legs. They are so elegant to me. Neat fingers, neat little nails. I'm just the perfect leg model, and here my age is not a hindrance. I renew my pedicure once a week. I can do it more often, but more often I don't have to. But I would do this at least every day, I love my body, I love to touch it, especially my legs. Too bad nobody else does it.

And I myself am to blame for this, I don’t let anyone near me, I don’t trust anyone. I live like a recluse in my apartment: work - home, work - home ... I wanted to say romance. But there is nothing romantic about it. I run around in circles like a squirrel in a wheel and never look around.

While the heels are sagging, I scroll through Instagram. I never decided to start an insta. At one time I put up photos, but then I scored on everything and deleted it. I don't want to be stared at, I don't want to be liked, I don't want to be known. How tired I am of this. I do not want anything. I want everyone to leave me alone.

Oh-oh-oh, a new photo of Vicki! I leaf through photos of a tall blonde with three cute children in the feed. She has such slender legs and pumped up ass, and this bra is clearly too small for her. So many years have passed, but Vikulya has not changed a bit, she only got prettier after her third birth. And how does she manage to stay so slim?

By the way, she called me the other day. But I can't talk to her for long. I… how to put it mildly, I envy her. It's embarrassing to admit, but it's true. She is too good, too perfect, she has the perfect husband, and she has the perfect kids. And I don't have any of that. This is how it turns out for one everything, for the other nothing. Why is everything so unfair? But we were best friends, she even named her daughter after me. And now, every photo of her, every post of her, is like a reminder of what I don’t have, and never will. Happiness. I introduced her to my future husband.

And then I met Tolik. I remember when I heard that Vika was pregnant, I was so happy then. I remember how I looked at Tolik and realized that I urgently wanted a child from him. But it didn't work out. God did not give. He took everything from me.

“Well, don’t you dare blaspheme God,” my inner voice wakes up. When I'm alone, I always talk to myself. And I'm always alone.

Vika and Sasha are a great couple and stop envying them. There will be a holiday on my street.

"It won't stop living in false hopes."

I remember how Vika was sitting with me in the hospital, despite the fact that she herself had little Yulechka in her arms. I remember how she wept with me for so many days and nights when what happened happened. No one supported me then, only she and my mother. She is good, she is the best in the world and she deserves happiness. And apparently I don't.

“God, how I want to have children. Help me please. It doesn't cost you anything, but I'll be happy. I will be the happiest. Please, please, please, Lord, I say it out loud. I just have no one else to turn to, no one else can help me.

“Don’t cry, fool, but don’t cry and don’t wind yourself up,” I say to myself out loud.

Yes, what kind of squalor am I. I am sitting alone at home, no one needs it, forgotten by everyone, barren ... the last one is probably superfluous. The last one is the most painful. And what could be worse? In Muslim countries, this is called "the curse of Allah." And in Israel? It seems like Abraham did not have children, but the Lord blessed him and he had a child, from whom the whole race of Israel went.

“Infertility is our national feature,” I smile to myself.

“God bless me, I beg you,” I look at the dim light bulb in the corner, and I feel as if I’m talking to God. I go to the local church on Sundays and always light a candle. For my mother and grandmother, for Vika and Katya, and also for myself, I want to be healthy and I want the Lord to take pity on me and give me children. Am I asking too much? Others are asking for millions, yachts, villas, but I just want to become a mother.