Chapter 4
I ’m defective.
There is no other explanation left.
Some desolate part of me had known from the beginning that this would end the same way.
Yet I let myself believe the treacherous little gospel my body preached these past few weeks.
Hope is a cruel thing when it’s all you have left. It slides under your skin, turning every flutter and twinge into a promise. It lets you build a future out of symptoms, procedures, and maybes—then rips it out of your hands.
I stared at the single blue line until it blurred. Nothing made sense, no matter how long I looked. The symptoms were there. This cycle had felt different from every other time.
Still…
Now I know better.
Nothing I do will ever be enough.
The nurse came less than an hour later. I sat through the blood draw with my sleeve rolled up and my body emptied of its last foolish argument.
She was kind.
Too kind.
Her gentleness scraped against what little composure I had left, and I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.
After she left, the waiting resumed its old shape.
By late morning, the clinic called.
I answered in the bathroom because Xavier was still asleep, and I couldn’t bear to hear my devastation spoken aloud in the same house where we once laughed about names for children we hadn’t yet managed to bring into the world.
“We got your results,” the nurse said gently.
I closed my eyes, already knowing.
“I’m so sorry, Yara. It’s negative.”
My heart sank past every depth I thought grief had already carved out of me.
I did not ask her to repeat it. I did not list the symptoms, explain the nausea, or tell her how different this cycle had felt. I had done that before—begged reality for a loophole by presenting evidence it had never agreed to honor.
The answer never changed.
“I know,” I whispered.
She kept speaking after that. Something about hormones. Medication. Progesterone mimicking early pregnancy. A follow-up call. Dr. Moreau wanting to discuss next steps. This not being my fault.
None of it reached me.
All that remained was that word.
Negative.
After the call ended, I stayed on the bathroom floor, the phone loose in my hand and the test beside my knee. The tiles were icy against my skin, but I barely felt them.
I turned on the faucet and let the rush of water swallow the first sob. I pressed my hand over my mouth, trying to keep the sound in .
I cried until there was nothing left. Until my throat burned and my chest caved in.
Until I was empty.
When the tears finally stopped, I threw the test into the trash and splashed water over my face. I scrubbed away the tear tracks, then steadied my shaking hands long enough to force a smile at my reflection.
Once it looked almost convincing, the clock was nearing noon.
Xavier woke around noon and moved through his routine, mercifully unaware of the wreckage inside me.
I kept wondering how he had slept through all of it. The nurse. The call. The bathroom faucet running long past any reasonable excuse. Not once had he stirred.
He knew we were getting the result today, yet somehow, he had slept through the ruin of it.
While he stepped away for a brief conference call, I wandered the house in restless circuits, trying to quiet the noise in my head. I picked at a light lunch and kept to the edges of our home, grateful his distraction spared me the humiliation of explaining my swollen eyes.
He used to notice everything. These days, I’m not so sure he sees me at all.
When it was time to leave for his parents’ house, I changed into a simple black halter dress and low heels.
All I wanted was to sink into the pit of my failure and quiet the noise in my head long enough to breathe. But Xavier needed me. And I was the one who had pushed him to attend this dinner in the first place.
So I moved.
I found my husband waiting by the door, already scrolling through his phone.
Work again.
Or someone , a voice whispered at the back of my mind.
I shook it off.
“You look stunning, amor,” he said, glancing up to brush a quick kiss over my lips before his attention dropped back to the screen.
I smiled, even as something tightened in my chest .
He opened my door with his free hand, never putting his phone away.
What was it about work that he couldn’t let go of, even for a second?
I slid into my seat and watched him finish typing, the blue glow of the screen washing over his features. He didn’t look at me again before slipping the phone into his pocket and climbing in beside me.
Twenty minutes later, dusk has given way to night on the French Riviera.
Neither of us says much.
Xavier focuses on the road ahead, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the gearshift where—once upon a time—my fingers used to rest.
The engine purrs beneath us, the tires humming along the winding coastal road. Inside the car, the air carries the faint scent of his cologne—crisp and woody, with a hint of citrus—mingled with the warm leather of the seats.
I stare out the window as the landscape streaks past. The narrow streets of Nice open into sweeping curves carved into the cliffs above the sea.
Streetlamps cast pools of pale light over umbrella pines and dark cypress trees.
Through breaks in the foliage, I catch glimpses of the Mediterranean far below: an endless black expanse flickering with reflections from distant hillside homes.
A blue road sign flashes past: Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat – 5 km.
We’re getting close.
The silence between us is heavy, but my mind is loud with thoughts I can’t quiet.
I wonder what impossible things the people in those distant villas and modest apartments are wishing for tonight—what hopes they cling to in secret.
How many of them are like me, holding on to something they will never have?
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 would walk 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.”
My gaze drifts to the dashboard, to the glowing numbers of the clock. I can feel his eyes on me, waiting, willing me to say something true.
I twist the thin gold ring on my finger, over and over.
“I…” The confession sits heavy and bitter on my tongue. I force it out before I can swallow it back. “I took a home test this morning. Before the nurse came for the blood draw. I couldn’t wait.”
He goes still.
In the corner of my vision, his knuckles tighten on the steering wheel. The light turns green, but he doesn’t move—not until the car behind us gives a short, impatient honk.
“ Mierda ,” he mutters under his breath, easing the car forward. “I completely forgot that was today.”
Of course you did.
“Why didn’t you say anything to me all day?” he continues, his expression tightening. “You could have woken me. I can’t believe—”
“Are you blaming me for your own incompetence right now, Xavier?” I cut in, stunned by the sheer audacity of him .