Page 77 of Iridescent
We both turn to find Yiayia standing a few feet away, hands planted on her hips. The shotgun is slung behind her shoulder now, her cigarette crushed out under her heel. For a long moment, she just stares. A muscle ticks in her jaw. Then she mutters something under her breath in Greek—some fondnonsense about Althea hugging the blue paint right off herself.
With surprising gentleness, Yiayia hooks two fingers into the back of Althea’s collar and tugs, lifting her away from me like a kitten by the scruff. My sister lets out an indignant squeak as Yiayia drags her back a step.
“That’s enough,” Yiayia says gruffly. “You’ll crush her ribs out here.” She brushes a bit of dried paint from Althea’s shoulder, the gesture half scold, half affection. At six foot two, Yiayia towers over both of us; in her grip, Althea looks twelve again. Satisfied that my sister has let go, Yiayia releases her collar and turns her full attention to me.
I stay rooted in place, suddenly feeling about five years old under my grandmother’s gaze. I know I must look as wrecked as I feel. Still, I manage a shaky smile. “Hi, Yiayia.”
Her stern expression falters. Those fierce eyes soften as she steps closer. With work-worn hands, she cups my face. Her palms are callused and smell of tobacco and rosewater. The moment I feel her touch, everything crumbles.
She tilts my face up and studies me. One look, and she knows.
“You’re in pain.”
That simple truth, spoken so softly, shatters the last of my defense. “Y-Yiayia… I-I’m so tired of hurting.”
The confession leaves me trembling. I’ve never said it out loud. Not even to myself.
My grandmother hushes me gently. “Shh. Come here,feggári mou.” My moon.
She gathers me into her arms without hesitation, her hold firm and warm in all the places I’ve felt cold.
At the sound of that old childhood endearment, I break even more. I press my face into Yiayia’s shoulder, and the floodgates inside me burst. A wounded sound tears out of me as all the pain I’ve been holding back comes pouring free. My knees give, but Yiayia keeps me upright with effortless strength. One hand cups the back of my head, fingers in my hair, while the other wraps around me like a wall. Althea steps back in, her arms circling both of us.
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…” I gasp between ragged breaths, not even sure what I’m apologizing for—leaving, coming back, being a mess, all of it at once. I cling to her harder. Last night, the years of accumulated grief and disappointment, the relief of being held and understood at last—it all crashes over me like a tidal wave, wracking my body with sobs.
“I know,” she says, her voice low and fierce by my ear. “Cry it out.”
I cried until there was nothing left in me. Somewhere in the aftermath, I promised myself it would be the last time I cried over him.
Chapter 15
“You’re not going to leave again, right?”
The question comes so quietly I almost miss it.
I turn my head on the pillow and find Althea watching me through the half-dark. The bedside lamp is off now, the room washed in moonlight and the faint amber glow spilling in from the courtyard. She is lying on her side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, the other curled into the sleeve of my shirt as though she does not quite trust me to still be here by morning. Her face is scrubbed clean of the paint from earlier, but her eyes are still swollen from crying.
A hard ache cinches tight around my ribs.
“I just got back,” I say.
“That isn’t an answer.”
I let out a slow breath and tip my face toward the shadowed ceiling for a moment before looking at her again. “No. I’m not going anywhere tonight.”
Her fingers tighten around my sleeve.
“Tonight,” she repeats.
I force a smile I do not feel. “What, are you worried about me now, gremlin?”
Her mouth does that small, unhappy thing it has done since she was little and trying not to cry in front of me. It used to work better when she was a child. It still does damage now.
“I just...” She looks down at the blanket between us, smoothing an invisible wrinkle. “I don’t want to wake up and find out you’re gone again.”
Guilt scrapes at my insides. I hadn’t realized my coming back would unsettle her this much. We had seen each other over the years, but I suppose there is a difference between visiting and returning to the place both of us still call home.
My throat burns. I do what I have always done when something hurts too much to face head-on.
