110
Yalda jolted awake.
Sweat clung to her skin, and the sheets were tangled around her legs like vines. Her chest rose and fell in harsh, uneven pants. Her heart thudded like a drum, completely wild and terrified.
It was morning and the soft golden light had once again began seeping in through the sheer curtains. She had been dreaming again, one of those dreams that had her completely disoriented when she woke up.
Just a dream.
But it had felt so painfully real.
Her pulse hadn’t caught up with reality yet. Her fingers curled instinctively into the sheets, gripping the linen to anchor her a bit. Her eyes burned with unshed tears and her throat clenched painfully.
She could still hear his voice, Alexander’s. It was still loud and clear in her mind. In the dream, they had been married. Truly married. Not the shadows of what they once were. No secrets, no regrets. Just them, whole and in love.
And in that perfect world, she hadn’t ended it. She hadn’t been a coward.She hadn’t listened to the fear. In the dream, she’d kept the baby; their baby.
And they were a family.
A happy one. Loud with laughter and Sunday mornings, with small feet running through the house and the sound of Alexander reading bedtime stories in that deep voice of his.
But reality crashed down like a wall of glass, sharp and merciless. It pierced and sliced through her till she felt completely raw.
A sob built in her chest, bitter and thick. She felt like screaming, like clawing her skin off. She felt like running to Alexander....
Before she could stop herself, she threw the sheets aside and climbed out of bed in a panic. Her legs wobbled beneath her as she stood, the room slightly spinning.
She didn’t even glance at the man sleeping beside her, she didn’t dare to. She didn’t want to see the warmth in his expression. Didn’t want to feel his concern.
She just ran to the bathroom.
She slammed the door shut behind her and locked it. Her body slid down the smooth marble wall until she sat curled on the cold floor, her skin clammy, her heart raw.
And then it broke, the wall she'd managed to build over the last couple of days.
The sobs came hard, full of pressure and ache. Ugly. Her fingers dug into her arms, her nails carving crescent moons into her skin. She hated this. Hated the weight pressing on her chest.
She hated that even after everything, Alexander still lived in the corners of her mind. That even in the safety of someone else’s arms, she couldn’t fully leave him behind.
She thought she had buried it. The memory. The guilt.
But the dream had unearthed it in brutal color.
How could she still miss him? Still crave that version of life? How could she want something that had cost her so much?
She wanted to scream.
A soft knock pulled her from the spiral.
“Yalda?”
Ioannis’s voice. Rough with sleep, low, but not angry, he sounded concerned.
She stayed silent, biting down on another sob.
“Yalda,” he said again. “Open the door.”
“No,” she croaked, pressing her forehead against her knees. “Don’t. Please just...leave me alone.”
Silence.
Then, “Tell me what’s wrong.”
She let out a bitter laugh. “You’d hate me if you knew. If you knew what I’ve done. I've done such horrible, horrible things....”
“I wouldn’t,” he said, his tone calm, deliberate.
“You don’t know that,” she whispered. She was crying so much now.
“I do.”
Another sob rose in her throat. She wanted to believe him, God, she wanted to, but the shame inside her screamed louder.
“I killed a part of myself,” she said quietly, the confession trembling in the air between them. “I was pregnant and I had it terminated."
There, she had said it. It was left for him to ask her to get the fuck out of his life.
The silence after that was so heavy it felt like it pressed down on the door between them. So she continued.
“I'm a monster. He...he didn't make me do it; I....I would have done it either way, just so he would keep me around. I didn't care about anything else." She sobbed bitterly. "I hate myself so much."
Her voice was breaking now, cracking like thin ice under pressure.
Still, Ioannis didn’t move. He didn’t flinch. His voice remained steady.
“Is that what you think I’ll do?” he asked softly. “Hate you?”
She pressed her face into her knees. “You should.”
“Yalda…”
“You should see me differently,” she whispered.
“No,” he said again. There was no hesitation in his voice. “There’s no judgment between us. Haven’t I made that clear?”
Her fingers clenched into the fabric of her nightgown.
“You’re human. You were scared. Alone. And you made a choice you thought you had to. That doesn’t make you a monster, Yalda. It makes you someone who survived.”
She didn’t respond. Couldn’t.
Then, gentler, “You don’t have to carry this guilt alone anymore.”
That’s what did it.
Something inside her cracked, something old and trembling and desperately tired. She stood on shaky legs and reached for the lock with fingers that wouldn’t stop trembling. The soft click echoed like a gunshot in the quiet.
The door creaked open slowly.
And there he was. Ioannis stood barefoot in the hallway, shirtless, with tousled hair and steady eyes. No judgment. Just concern. Just him.
He said nothing.
He stepped forward, gathered her in his arms, and held her like she might fall apart if he didn’t.
She buried her face in his chest, inhaling his scent like it could calm the storm inside her, like maybe it could make it all go away. Her tears soaked into his skin as her body shook against him.
He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t try to fix it with words.
He just held her.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured against her temple, the warmth of his breath anchoring her. “I’ll fix this. I’ll fix you.”
She shook her head, a strangled noise escaping her throat. “You can’t.”
How could he fix her when she had sinned against herself and everything she held holy?
“I can,” he said fiercely. “Not by erasing the past. But by giving you a future that doesn’t hurt.”
And maybe it wasn’t a promise he could keep. Maybe it wasn’t even a fair thing to say. But in that moment, wrapped in his arms, something inside her believed him.
Just a little.
She clung to him tighter, not because he was the solution, but because he was her safe
zone now, because he was here.
And for the first time in a long, long time, the pain didn’t feel like it was swallowing her whole.
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