Unprocessed

The fertility clinic's waiting room smelled of antiseptic and desperation. Maya sat beside me, her thumb scrolling through her iPhone with mechanical precision, avoiding my eyes. On the screen: an endless feed of friends announcing pregnancies, baby showers, gender reveals. The algorithm's cruelty was absolute.

"Your vitamin D levels are critically low," Dr. Chen had said that morning, reviewing our blood work with clinical detachment. "Both of you. It affects everything—energy, mood, absorption."

Absorption. The word lodged in my throat. We'd been trying to absorb the impossibility of our situation for eighteen months. Every negative pregnancy test felt like our bodies refusing to take in what we desperately wanted to grow.

That evening, we met Julian and Sarah for padel at the club. Their second child was due in three weeks. Sarah glowed with that terrifying, beautiful radiance of late pregnancy, her hand resting instinctively on her belly between points.

"You guys should try this new prenatal," she said afterward, over wilted spinach salads that neither of us touched. "Game changer for my energy."

Maya's fork clattered against her plate. A small sound, but the table fell silent. Julian kept eating, oblivious. Sarah's face softened with pity—that cringe-inducing tenderness that made me want to scream.

"We're actually taking a break," Maya said, her voice steady. "From everything."

The walk home was quiet. The streetlights flickered on, illuminating our separate shadows stretching away from each other.

"I'm sorry," I said at our door. "For whatever part of this is me. My vitamins, my—"

"Stop." Maya pressed her palm against my chest. "It's not about the spinach or the supplements or whatever magical combination we're missing. It's about whether we can still want each other, without the future we built around a child."

Her iPhone buzzed in her pocket—another notification, another announcement. She ignored it.

"I do," I said, and meant it. "I want you. However you are."

"Then come inside," she said. "Let's order takeout. Let's be inefficient together."

Inside, our vitamins sat on the counter, a neat row of promises we'd stopped believing. But her hand in mine felt real—more real than any future we'd imagined.