Work Text
Jane had given up on optimism. She had given up on nearly everything. Days crept by in darkness and she never tried to make it go away. Everything she’d planned, every hope and dream of the future was gone without a trace, and the one person she most wanted to talk to was gone. Her life, so certain one morning, had ended in less than a day. Her safety was over. Her best friend was gone. She had no idea what to do, no plans for the future. The idea of a future felt more like a childish fantasy now. Her beautiful life was over, and anything from here on out would just be her moving through something that felt utterly empty. But, of course, she had to keep going. Like her grandmother had. She had a family, or what was left of one, and her son deserved a family too. She just had to believe what her abuela had told her; her life would be beautiful again. In different ways. And she was right. It would. It would in ways she never would have imagined. Things she never used to think could be beautiful the way her life used to be. The color blue. The color white. The way blonde hair looks in the sunlight. And it was true. And she was right. The beautiful things came to shine bright. What an opening paragraph. It was so different from any other she could remember writing, nothing like what she usually wrote. That smile that made her heart glow once again. That was something. Something beautiful in a way she’d never known before.