CHAPTER 10
1110 Words
Day Six of Silence – Maya & Eli
Maya finds him at 9:42 p.m. on a Tuesday, exactly where she knew he’d be.
The pier behind the old ferry terminal in Red Hook: rusted railing, cracked concrete, the Manhattan skyline glittering across the water like it’s personally mocking him.
It’s where they used to come freshman year when the dorms felt too small and the future felt too big.
Eli hasn’t been back here in years.
Tonight he’s sitting on the edge, legs dangling over the black water, a half-empty bottle of whiskey between his knees.
He doesn’t look up when her footsteps echo on the boards.
“I figured you’d be drunk in a scenic location,” she says, stopping a few feet behind him.
Eli huffs a laugh that has no joy in it. “Stalking me now?”
“Something like that.”
She steps closer, hands in the pockets of her leather jacket. “You turned your location back on two days ago. I’ve been watching the little blue dot move around the city like a ghost. Tonight it stopped here and hasn’t moved in three hours. I got worried.”
He finally glances over his shoulder.
His eyes are bloodshot, the skin beneath them bruised purple.
He looks like someone who hasn’t slept since the world ended.
Maya’s heart cracks open, but she doesn’t let it show.
“Mind if I sit?” she asks.
“It’s a free pier.”
She lowers herself beside him, close enough that their shoulders almost touch.
The wind off the water is sharp, salty, merciless.
For a long time neither of them speaks.
Eventually Eli lifts the bottle in silent offer.
Maya takes it, drinks deep, grimaces as the burn settles.
“She told you,” he says. Not a question.
“She told me enough.” Maya wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “That she’s pushing you away because she thinks I’m in love with you and she’s too noble to hurt me. Which is insane, by the way.”
Eli goes very still.
Maya stares straight ahead at the lights across the river. “I’m only going to say this once, Eli. So listen carefully.”
He turns his head slowly, like it weighs a thousand pounds.
“I have been in love with you since the night we got drunk on vodka and you let me cry on your shoulder about a girl who wasn’t her.” Her voice is steady, almost clinical. “I have watched you love Lena with every cell in your body for eight years. I have taken every photo, planned every birthday, held your hand when she broke it without even knowing she was doing it. And I never said a word because I thought that’s what love was: letting the person you want be happy, even if it’s not with you.”
Eli’s breathing is shallow.
Maya finally looks at him. “But I’m done. I’m done being the good guy. I’m done watching you kill yourself for someone who keeps choosing fear over you.”
He opens his mouth, closes it.
Maya keeps going, softer now. “You deserve someone who chooses you first, Eli. Every day. Without hesitation. Someone who doesn’t make you run barefoot across Brooklyn at 2 a.m. because she kissed another man and hated herself for it.”
A tear slips down his cheek. He doesn’t wipe it away.
“I’m not asking you to love me back,” she says. “I’m not that delusional. But I’m asking you to stop letting her be the reason you believe you’re unlovable. Because you’re not. You’re the most lovable person I’ve ever known. And it’s killing me to watch you forget that.”
The wind whips her curls across her face. She doesn’t move to fix them.
Eli’s voice is raw. “I don’t know how to stop.”
“I know.” She reaches out, brushes the tear from his cheek with her thumb. “But staying stuck in her orbit isn’t love anymore. It’s just punishment.”
He closes his eyes like the words are physical blows.
Maya lets her hand drop. “I didn’t come here to confess my undying devotion and make you choose me. I came here to tell you that you’re allowed to walk away. You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to stop answering at 2:14 a.m. You’re allowed to want more than scraps.”
He laughs, broken and wet. “I don’t know what more feels like.”
“You will,” she says fiercely. “One day you will. And when that day comes, I hope whoever she is, she never makes you beg.”
Silence stretches, heavy and aching.
After a long time Eli whispers, “I’m scared that if I let go, there’ll be nothing left of me.”
Maya’s eyes fill. “There will be. There’s so much of you that isn’t about her. I’ve seen it. The way you light up when you talk about design. The way you remember how everyone takes their coffee. The way you make people feel safe just by existing. That’s not hers. That’s yours.”
He looks at her then, really looks, like he’s seeing her for the first time in years.
Maya meets his gaze without flinching.
“I’m not asking you to love me,” she repeats quietly. “I’m asking you to start loving yourself enough to stop letting her destroy you.”
Eli’s breath hitches.
Maya stands up, brushes off her jeans. “When you’re ready to try, I’ll be here. Not as the girl who waited on the sidelines. Just as your friend. If that’s all you ever want, that’s enough.”
She starts to walk away.
“Maya,” he calls, voice cracking.
She turns.
He’s crying openly now, shoulders shaking. “Thank you.”
She nods once, throat working. “Anytime, Harper.”
She leaves him there with the whiskey and the water and the skyline that finally, for the first time in eight years, isn’t looking back at him with Lena’s eyes.
When she reaches her car she sits behind the wheel and cries harder than she has in years, not because he didn’t choose her, but because for the first time she believes he might actually choose himself.
Back on the pier, Eli stays until the bottle is empty and the city starts to dim.
At 2:14 a.m. his phone stays dark.
He doesn’t check it once.
End of chapter ten.
The ground just shifted.
No one is the same after this night.
- Writer
