Are You Sure? (Marina)

Forty-Five.

Maya

Carina was sleeping when I left for work, somehow going to work came with it's own eerie feeling. The roaring of the engine as we went on calls didn't come with the same butterflies in my stomach or the excitement. My mind always wandered to the day I didn't answer her call and no matter how much I knew it wasn't my fault, I still feel like I failed her.

After our third call of the day, Andy and Vic convinced me to go get some burritos from the truck stationed a few blocks down. I'd looked at my phone the entire we walked over, texting back and forth with my girlfriend about the weird patient she had come in with a hair brush stuck inside her vaginal cavity. People are beyond weird. "Earth to Maya!" Vic said snatching my phone away, which I quickly grabbed back. "You have been glued to that thing since you came back from your vacation."

"It wasn't a vacation, Carina was sick and I'm just making sure she's okay." I looked at my messages and she had not replied, indicating she was either with a patient or in surgery.

"Right, 'vacation'. If she was that sick, she would have been in the hospital." Vic added and left to grab the burritos after our number got called out.

"What gives Maya? Carina is a doctor, I'm sure a cold was nothing to worry about." Andy pulled me forward to keep the conversation hushed. I tapped my phone against my hand and looked up at Andy through my lashes, telling her I didn't want to talk about this right now. "6pm. Punching bag."

"Copy that." I said as Vic caught up with us. Everyone was excited about the burritos and we all laughed at the failed competition between Jack and Dean to see who had a higher spice tolerance. Results were: neither, they both gave in after Andy handed them her fathers salsa to break the tie.

I managed to finish some paperwork by the time Andy knocked on my door to remind me of our standing appointment. I quickly changed and walked into the gym with her. She closed the blinds and locked the doors. "Am I getting murdered?"

"No, you're talking." She played music and then went to stand behind the punching bag, "So start talking or start punching." I looked at the gloves in my hand and slowly put them over my hands. I fixed my stance and took a breath before throwing a warm up punch into the bag.

After a few, my arms started to find the rhythm and I started picking up the pace and the force with which my fists found the bag. Eventually I felt all of my feelings start to rise and my jaw started to hurt from how hard I was clenching my jaw through each punch. "Carina was- is sick- no was." I said as I switched my stance to work on my upper cut.

"What kind of sick?" I closed my eyes and punched harder and shook my head, telling myself to quit while I was ahead.

After a few more, I stopped hitting the bag and looked at Andy, "It doesn't matter but now things are weird and I want to get back to where we were but it's complicated. She's different and I can't read her, she seems okay but I don't trust myself around her." I bent over to catch my breath, "There's also the thing where she doesn't believe in marriage."

"Whoah okay- Marriage? Maya..." I looked up to her widened eyes and put my arms over my head. It did sound a little crazy. Was it actually crazy?

"No, I'm not- I mean is that so weird? I- I love Carina and I don't see how I could find anyone else who'd make me feel like she does." I said undoing my gloves, feeling a little lighter after blowing off some steam.

"I've heard you two through a wall, and over breakfast- you two are grossly adorable and literally cannot stay away from one another, so no it's not weird but.. fast? Then again you two moved in pretty quickly and that seems to be working out." Andy seemed to be processing what I said out loud, "She doesn't believe in marriage, why?"