Page 22 of Cara

The metro ride is short to the airport.

This, out of every place in Madrid, I know like the back of my hand. I’ve been here enough to memorize every square foot. There is more love in this airport than anywhere else inMadrid. You have to look hard for it, but it’s there. I always return, a silent voyeur to the excitement one experiences when they spot their family for the first time in a long time. The way they bounce with excitement, their bouquets dribbling petals onto the ground when they leap into each other’s arms.

For so long, I’ve waited.

Eighteen months.

I’ve been here for every incoming flight from New York. Every single day, but one. Just the thought of it, and my heart is pounding, my mind remembering.

The blood. The hospital.

You’ve lost the baby.

I stared at that doctor as if she were insane. I wasn’t pregnant. No, my stomach was flat, my ribcage outlined by pale skin. I would have known, seen some signs. I didn’t want to hear it, to even think I could’ve brought my waking nightmare with me. When she told me how, how I wasn’t healthy enough to carry a child to full-term, I felt relief. Relief to not have anything to remind me of my horrors. Not even her probing questions regarding the state of my body could break through that kind of remedy.

And then she blew up my world.

She shared the term.

All that respite morphed into unsettled disbelief, horror, a raw,guttingrage as she took her time explaining it to me, inadvertently revealing that I was pregnant before I entered that compound… that prison.

It struck me… what I had truly lost.

The body works in mysterious ways.

You didn’t feel the fetus. It was underdeveloped for?—

I drowned out the rest.

I’d missed a day. All I could think of was to get back to this seat, this gate, this airport.

He will come, I said.

He has to come.

Those days are long gone now. That hope, I don’t have it anymore. What’s left of my heart hardens as my eyes follow the crowd of travelers rushing through the gate, eagerly greeting their families with excitement. My fists clench in my lap.

No more. He isn’t coming. He can’t. He told you.

This is foolish.

Waiting until the gate clears, the last family strolling off, arms linked as if never to be separated, I stand, leaving this place for the final time. The weight of each step is daunting, a decision I make to relinquish hope, to accept this life for what it is, the decisions we made to get here.

The excruciating pain I’ve lived with for almost two yearsnumbs.

Stepping into a downpour, I venture onto the streets. At this hour, the only places still open are nightclubs and bars. Patrons are sprawled out, having indulged in a night of excessive revelry. Under them, the cement sidewalks pulse with the thumping bass from the music blaring through the speakers.

For the first time since I arrived, I abandon the path I’d carved for myself. Flashing lights blind me as I enter the nightclub, engulfed by a wave of cigarettes and liquor.

Once I sit at the bar, I know exactly why I’m here. If I look closely enough, if I try hard enough, I can summon my husband in a place like this. The bartender delivers a glass of bourbon, my husband’s drink of choice. I let the liquid coat my weary throat, allowing the warmth to spread through my hollow chest. This new numbness feels welcoming. Something I can live with.

I prefer it over pain.

“Want another?”

No.Contradicting my thoughts, my head bobs, throwing caution to the wind. I lift the glass to my lips, my eyes fixed on a man across the bar. The crystal lands on the granite countertop as Istare, seeing Xavier Marcello so clearly. His dark curls, his face crafted like carved stone, a suit clinging to his masculine figure. He is a dark angel, everything my body yearns for… and then he’s gone.

My eyes close.