Page 19 of Iridescent
I’ve had my share of impossible hopes.
When I was sixteen, I begged the universe for a miracle as I watched my childhood home burn to the ground. I prayed my parents would escape the flames.
They didn’t.
I lost them both in one terrible night.
Years later, I staked everything on a championship fight—the night that was supposed to be the peak of my career. I believed I’d win. That I wouldwalk away whole.
Instead, a single devastating blow ended everything.
It should have taught me better.
But I don’t know how to stop.
Even now, some stubborn part of me refuses to surrender the belief that maybe—just maybe—life might still surprise me.
The medication has taken more from me than I know how to explain. My skin doesn’t feel like my skin anymore. My body doesn’t feel like my body. Some days, even my mind feels foreign to me, hijacked by hormones, grief, and everything I can’t seem to control.
Infertility has consumed me. It has made a stranger of my body and a battlefield of my hope.
But I am trying to learn how to sit inside the sadness without mistaking it for weakness. Trying to accept that not being okay doesn’t mean I have failed at surviving.
And when I am ready, I will gather whatever is left of me and try again.
No matter how long it takes.
My shoulders sag into the seat. I wish I could switch myself off for one minute and breathe.
As we slow at a traffic light in the sleepy town of Beaulieu-sur-Mer, my gaze catches on a scene outside my window.
Beneath the warm glow of a streetlamp, a couple stands beside a café not quite closed for the night. The woman bends over a stroller, tucking a blanket around a rosy-cheeked baby. A man steps outside, two paper cups in hand. He smiles as he offers one to her, then reaches down to nudge the baby’s foot, earning a soft giggle.
A lump forms in my throat as the mother laughs, her face luminous even from across the street. My vision blurs, tears prickling behind my sunglasses.
I press my fingertips to the cool window, as if it might steady me.
In that brief moment, I see everything I want—and everything I might never have.
Determined not to cry, I bite down on my lower lip, hard enough that the metallic taste of blood spreads across my tongue.
“Amor,” Xavier says, breaking the silence.
His voice is soft, but it startles me out of my thoughts. I hastily wipe beneath my glasses before turning to face him, drawing in a shaky breath.
“Are you alright?” he asks quietly, his eyes searching mine. He can’t see them, but I know he sees through me.
For a second, I consider telling the truth—that no, I’m not fine. It feels like my heart has been ripped clean through. But something in his expression, in the way he’s looking at me now, makes the words catch in my throat.
I nod, just barely, and stare down at my hands.
The truth presses against my teeth.
“I’m fine,” I murmur. “Just tired.”
Xavier releases a slow breath, not quite a sigh. The red light washes over his face, painting it in uneasy hues.
“Yara… you don’t look fine,” he counters. “You’re wearing sunglasses at night, for God’s sake. You’ve been quiet all day, and you won’t even look at me.”
