Beyond Goodbye

Falling Apart Inside

Maya dragged her feet along the stony path as she made her way towards her school. It took her only five minutes to arrive by car, but she chose to walk the fifteen minutes as it gave her time to sort her thoughts and get ready for the day. It also meant fifteen minutes of mother-free time in the morning, and she could recharge from all the negative energy by soaking in the beautiful early morning sunrise, air, the sounds and chirping of birds.

This morning, however, the walk was not helping her at all. There was a confusion in her heart that she could not explain. A sad tug, as if her heart was longing for something or someone and she just could not figure out who or what. It felt as if her heart had spent a thousand lifetimes with this feeling and it was pulling her towards it again, but she didn’t know where she should go.

It was scaring her too. She had never felt this before. Sometimes her mind would be flooded with Jared’s beautiful face and his charming smirk and she would feel all mushy inside. But then flashes of images unbidden would trespass her train of thought. His smile, his anger, and then that heavy sadness. Damon had felt all those emotions so enormously, and had made her feel them too. It scared her. She was always afraid of him, and maybe this was the reason why. She had never encountered him this closely before and this meeting had impacted her profoundly.

She had not slept that night after the incident. She should have been bothered about the two men harassing her, but her head was filled more with Damon, than with those two bullies. She hadn’t enjoyed her book, her snacks, or the pretty pitter patter of rain on her window. She had sat there in her bed, staring blankly at her window, registering nothing. In the chaos of her mind she had tried hiding herself in her blanket. From what, she didn’t know.

So many times she had almost gotten up to go to her mother’s room to seek some safety and refuge from the raging thoughts in her mind, but each time something had stopped her. She had never asked her mother for comfort again since she was six years old. She remembered how she had mocked her and lectured her. She had made it so clear that Maya needed to take care of herself. Her mother just was not capable of giving back love. Maybe because she just didn’t know how. Maya knew her grandparents had been very cold and her mother had always been left alone to deal with her issues. She didn’t blame her mother; she was only doing what she had been taught to do.

She wished Mark was here, or even Jared, who never looked at her. Even if he ignored her all day, it would be better than to be alone with her thoughts. She forced herself to think about him. She pictured his blue eyes again and how it would feel if he kissed her. She wanted to sit under a tree and think about Jared so all the other thoughts could wash away. She decided to just do that. She spotted a tree she would always climb with Mark. She went and sat under it closing her eyes.

‘Hey Maya, you look beautiful today. Would you mind going on a walk with me?’

‘Sure I would love to.’

Jared held her hand, as Maya started walking with him. She led him deep into the woods and went to lie on some leaves, pulling Jared along with her. He got on top of her and they started kissing deeply as he pushed her to lie down. She arched her back as he pushed his hand inside her shirt. She had opted not to wear a bra, and he gladly took hold of her breast. She gasped, opening her eyes, as Damon deepened the kiss. She looked into his stormy grey eyes and his messy black hair falling over his forehead. She heard the deep growl in his throat as he pushed his tongue inside her mouth.

Her heart twisted. She jumped in shock and panic as those intimate images of Damon came uninvited into her mind. They looked so real, felt so real. And now that sad tugging has begun again. Even her daydreaming about Jared had not done her any good. Instead, it had left her hot and bothered by a very different guy. She had never felt this aroused for Jared before. What was happening?

She shook her head. It must be that feeling of the unknown, that mysterious aura around the guy that was drawing her in. She must be experiencing what her other girlfriends called the bad-guy syndrome, where an innocent virgin is drawn into the traps of a mysterious bad guy. Yes, that must be it. What else could it be? Damon was handsome, tall, and mysterious. He had such a deep voice, no one else had that. It made him look so much more attractive. And those eyes. They had so much hidden in them. Or it was the bad-guy syndrome telling her that. She didn’t know the guy. She just knew he had always been alone, had no friends, and had a bad temper. Well, the last attribute she had concluded herself after yesterday when she had seen his anger at the two men.

She very conveniently forgot how nice and friendly his smile had been and how his anger had been directed at two other men who were trying to do something very wrong. It just gave her comfort to think of Damon as a bad, mysterious guy, so she didn’t have to make sense of her confusing feelings towards him. As if life already made sense, she didn’t want any more confusion put into it. She didn’t know what to make of her life. She didn’t have any plans, she was just hyper focused on her eighteenth birthday, where she would prove to be a big failure to her mother.

She had not set foot outside this cozy little town and was not at all prepared for what lay outside. The sad tug made her feel two different feelings. She felt she would find great happiness, but at the same time would experience such a great loss that her whole world would be tipped upside down.

She was not at all prepared for that. To be fair, she was not even prepared for the great happiness that her heart was expecting. Her mother thought that by withholding love from Maya, and not comforting or supporting her, she was making her stronger and preparing her for the real world. How wrong she was. Maya was as lost as ever and it was getting worse. The poor girl had nothing to plan for, she didn’t even know where to begin. All the girls ever talked about was their eighteenth birthday and how they would find their mates and live happily ever after. Maya didn’t believe in happily ever after, or her father would have been with them. They might not have been in this town all together. Maybe she would be living near her grandparents, in a nice little home with a happy mother and a comforting father. Maya would have been blessed with a mother who wasn’t constantly on the watch for some kind of failure.

Happily ever after was for people not like her. She was destined for failure, that was the only thing she was prepared for. She wished she could tell Mark how she was falling apart inside. Nothing in particular had happened to her. How could she make him understand her?