29. Chapter 24
X iomara
Running away from someone you love should be made illegal because of how much it hurts. But I have no choice; if I stay, I’ll end up on my knees, begging Zasha to love me, and I know he never will. So, I leave.
The documents and IDs I use are real in the sense that they’re expertly crafted. My father had them made a few years ago, for my mother and me. Just in case a cartel war ever reaches our front gates, my mother and I can flee without any hitch.
How ironic that I’m not fleeing a cartel war but escaping a marriage. A marriage and husband that I cleverly chose and then couldn’t endure.
At the check-in counter, the agent barely glances at my passport. I hold my breath the whole time anyway. When she hands me the boarding pass and says, “Have a safe flight, Miss Moreno,” I almost collapse in relief.
I don’t sit at the gate.
I keep pacing until the final boarding call, and only when I’m finally on the plane, in my cramped economy seat, wedged between a coughing old man and a teenager playing TikToks on full volume, do I allow myself to exhale.
So, this is what economy feels like.
I’ve flown in jets my entire life. Leather seats.
Private stewards. Champagne in real glasses.
I’ve never had to ask for water or fight for elbow room.
Now, I’m clutching the armrest like a lifeline, knees pressed to the seat in front of me, trying not to panic as the plane jerks forward on the runway.
As the plane takes off, the city below shrinks, disappearing into clouds, and I begin to cry silently. The kind of cry that doesn’t make a sound. I cry until I fall asleep, and I sleep through most of the nine-hour flight, or at least I pretend to.
When we land in Madrid, the sun is rising as though to welcome me. I transfer immediately to a smaller regional flight. One more ticket. One more alias. One more layer of distance between the girl I was and the woman I’m trying to become.
A few hours later, I’m in Alicante.
It’s bright and quiet here. Sunlight clings to the buildings like honey. The sea glistens just beyond the town square, and the scent of fresh bread wafts from every corner bakery.
It’s a city that feels soft and slow, the kind of place where people come to have their tattered hearts mended by nature.
After spending a few days in an Airbnb, I rent a small apartment above a bakery in the old town. The landlady, Marta, doesn’t ask too many questions, although her eyes are full of them. She hands me a key and mentions that the sun rises from the balcony and there are “good for sad hearts.”
I think she knows I’m nursing a broken heart.
I unpack the few things I brought and sit on the bed. This should be freedom, but it doesn’t feel like it.
Not yet.
Alicante is warm in a way that feels intentional. Like the sun here has purpose. It creeps through windows, hugs your skin, fills every room like a silent prayer whispered for broken people.
I always sit on the balcony every morning, soaking up its warmth. Because maybe, if I soak in enough light, it’ll burn the gloom out of me. However, two weeks later, the gloom is still there, and I still feel like shit.
But at least, I am beginning to grow to love my new space.
The flat is small but clean. Pale yellow walls.
A fan that groans when it turns. One balcony with a crooked view of the sea and a bakery below that smells like vanilla and warm yeast at all hours.
I sleep on a narrow mattress, eat toast with apricot jam, and drink too much espresso.
I find work through a woman named Celeste. She is an elderly tailor who owns a private alterations studio tucked behind a jewelry shop and a boutique. During my interview, she only asked if I could sew, and I replied that I could. The truth is, I sew better than most.
My hands are steady from stitching torn flesh for as long as I can remember, and when Celeste watches me work for five minutes, she offers me a job on the spot.
“I have wealthy heiresses with thousand-euro gowns that need hemming by Friday,” she states in clear Spanish. “If you’re not intimidated by sequins and fantasy, then you are welcome on board.”
Sequins have nothing on human flesh. I scoff inwardly. At least they don’t bleed.
My job detail is to stitch by hand when the fabric require extra care. I take in busts and rework sleeves and reinforce the invisible seams of chiffon that cost more than the flat I rent.
The women who come here remind me of the life I once had. The type of ladies who wear diamonds to brunch. They speak in whispers, laugh through fillers, and flinch when a pin touches skin. But I don’t flinch, because I learned how to do this on bullet wounds.
My father’s men used to sit shirtless in kitchen chairs while I sutured torn flesh and swabbed dried blood. There were no morphine drips or soft words. Just steady hands and silence.
That’s how I learned.
Needle to skin. Thread to wound. Pain to peace.
Now, I apply the same precision to silk, tulle, and high-end illusion mesh.
Celeste notices my precision. “You sew like a surgeon,” she says one afternoon, raising an eyebrow as I adjust the delicate neckline of a Dior gown.
I nod, but I don’t tell her I an expert in putting torn men together.
The days begin to fall into rhythm, and I make enough to pay rent, eat well, and keep the lights on. No security detail. No private chef. No guarded estate. Just solitude and routine.
I don’t talk to many people. Even though my Spanish is fluent, I only speak when necessary, and my smile remains guarded. I don’t linger in cafés or make friends at the market. I keep to myself. Let the world turn around me, but not through me.
Six weeks have passed since I relocated to Alicante, and my body is finally reacting to the change in environment. But after two weeks of these awful symptoms not letting up, I start to wonder if there could be more to it.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, the possibility of something I don’t want to name springs up, and I immediately start calculating the date of my last period.
My last period was five weeks ago, and it was very light, lasting only two days. I initially chalked up it to stress, but now I’m not so sure. I walk to the pharmacy three streets away, the one that doesn’t recognize me yet, and buy a home pregnancy test.
Back at my apartment, I pace for almost twenty minutes before I muster the courage to use the strip.
I step into the small bathroom, a cracked shutter window letting in sunlight so warm it feels almost sarcastic.
I set the test down on the sink. Wash my hands.
Dry them. Pick it up. Set it down again.
When I finally take it, I don’t look at the result right away. Instead, I rinse my face first, then slowly, I glance at the small plastic stick, and see two pink lines.
“Fuck.”
I just slide down the wall and sit on the cool tile floor, my knees bent, arms limp at my sides, the test still in my hand.
How can I be fucking Pregnant?
Well, I know how, and I sure do know who I did it with. I ran away from him. But I didn’t leave him behind. He’s still here, rooted within my body. In my blood. In the quiet rhythm of something new growing inside me. A secret heartbeat layered beneath my own.
For a while, I don’t think about anything. I simply stare at the soft sunlight spilling across the floor. After what feels like ages, I get up and walk to the bedroom. I lie in bed and gaze at the ceiling while my mind drifts back to the last time I was in Zasha’s arms.
He’d held me like I was the only thing anchoring him to earth.
Touched me like he was afraid I might disappear.
We didn’t speak much. We didn’t have to.
The silence between us had always been thick—but that night, it felt like something else.
Like we were about to finally cross that line.
And then I heard him say to someone he couldn’t wait to see me gone.
I wish I could erase that conversation from my memory, especially how eager he sounded to end ‘our sham of a marriage.” But since I can't unhear it, I decided to do the only thing within my control, which is to walk away. And now, I’ve walked away with a part of him blooming inside me.
Damn! I know I should tell someone, but I won’t. The moment I say it aloud, my parents will inform Zasha about it. And I’m just not ready for that.
Every few days, I take out the small notebook in which I wrote some numbers before burning my phone. I run my fingers over the inked names, lingering on Zasha’s.
I imagine what his voice would sound like if I called. What he’d say. What I’d say. But I never dial. I close the book and put it back in the drawer every time, like some sacred object I’m not yet worthy to use.
As the weeks go by, I purchase maternity clothes and other items one at a time, replacing my trousers with ones that have elastic waistbands.
On one of my solo shopping trips for baby items, my mind drifts back to a few months ago when I shopped with the girls.
Tears slide down my cheeks at the memory.
Would they have come with me for my own shopping? Would we have become friends by now and be seen as one of them? I’m sure they would have doted on Zasha’s kid.
These thoughts flood my mind, and the pain of what could have been wells up in my eyes and streams down my cheeks.
But I wipe them away, knowing I have to be enough for my baby and myself.
The months fly by in a rush, and before long, I am in my third trimester.
My midwife had tried to prepare me for the aches but this shit is worse than I expected.
It starts in my lower back, moves into my ribs, and settles in my heart.
I’m currently sitting on the edge of my bed wishing someone could massage my feet and back.
But off course, there is no one to do so.
My hands instinctively go to my stomach and gently start to rub my bump.
The ultrasound at my twenty-four-week appointment had shown that I would be having a boy, and as I sit here, I can’t help but wonder if he will look like his father or me.
“I’m sorry.” I whisper to my baby, “I’m sorry I made you grow in loneliness. But this is what is best for us.”
Two weeks later, I feel a slow, dull cramp at dawn, so I get out of bed and walk to the kitchen. I’m making tea when the pain strikes again. It feels like something is tugging from the inside out. I pause and place my hands on the counter, waiting for it to pass.
It doesn’t.
Instead, it comes again, stronger and deeper, and this time accompanied by a sudden warmth between my legs. When I look down, the floor is wet, and I realize that my water just broke.
For one suspended second, I stare at the mess, frozen. Every part of me wants to panic. To cry. To call someone. To scream.
But I don’t. I do not have anyone to call.
I press both hands against the counter, grit my teeth, and begin the breathing exercise that I was taught. In. Out.
As soon as the wave of pain subsides, I grab the packed duffel bag from the hallway—clothes, ID, cash, a blanket I stitched myself. I slip into flats, pull a cardigan over my loose maternity dress, and dial the number for a local taxi service.
Ten minutes later, I’m climbing into the back seat, gripping the side handle with each contraction. The driver, a middle-aged man with gentle eyes, doesn’t ask me anything except which hospital I want him to take me to.
On my way and in between contractions, I call the hospital, and when I arrive, I find a room waiting for me. The walls are white, and a nurse is present who speaks little but works efficiently. She helps me out of my clothes, into a gown, and onto the bed.
The contractions are coming harder and more frequently now. Each one is a wave that crashes through my spine and hips, stealing air out of my lungs.
I bite the inside of my cheek, clench the rails, but I don’t scream. Seconds blur into minutes and minutes into hours.
Sweat pours down my back as the pain become more frequent, and before I know what is happening, the nurse is counting down. The doctor is telling me to push.
I obey and push with everything I have. Everything I am. Every ounce of regret and love and fear that’s been coiling inside me for months. I push until the room tilts, and my body feels like it’s splitting open.
As I give a final push, I hear his cry. A long, sharp wail that cuts through the room like thunder. I collapse back against the pillows, tears springing to my eyes, but a shaky laughter bursts from my lips.
A broken, relieved, trembling sound I didn’t expect.
The nurse wraps him, swaddles him tightly, tucks a knit cap over his soft head, and places him in my arms.
He’s warm and heavier than I expected. And so impossibly small. His eyes open just barely, storm-gray and unfocused, and even in their haze, I see his resemblance to Zasha.
The resemblance is not just in his eyes, but also in the set of his mouth. The stubborn line of his brow. The quiet calculation in the curve of his little face.
Tears slip down my cheeks because he won’t know his father, and his father won’t know him. However, I still want him to carry something of his father’s culture.
I press my lips to his forehead.
“Dobro pozhalovat',” I whisper in the little Russian language that I know. “Welcome.”
His eyes flutter closed again, his lips parting in sleep. I cradle him tighter and whisper the name I’ve carried in my heart for months. A name pulled from the same cold soil that shaped his father.
“Maksim.”
It means the greatest. And I am not naming him that because of his background, but because he is the greatest thing that has happened to me.
I spend hours memorizing his face. His toes. His mouth. The crease in his brow that mirrors a man who doesn’t even know he exists.
He’s perfect.
Too perfect.
I trace the baby’s cheek with my finger, then whisper softly, “You are my greatest gift, and I will always love you.”
My little Maksim stirs against me, his fist brushing my collarbone. I kiss his head again and hold him tighter.
And for the first time in months… I don’t feel completely alone.