18 going on 38

chapter 5

Maya woke up to find that yesterday hadn't been some sort of glitch like she'd hoped. She was still in the apartment she shared with Carina, she was still an adult.

She heard a terrible retching noise from the bathroom and figured that was probably what had woken her up. Carina was sick and Maya felt a pang of sadness. Her father would tell her to ignore it, it's not her problem, but Maya felt a need to help in some way. She tiptoed into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge before going back to stand in front of the door Carina was behind. She was still making horrible noises, it sounded painful Maya thought. She hesitated for a second before talking on the door.

"Carina, can I come in please?"

"Yeah." She breathed heavily and as soon as Maya saw her she let her instinct take over. She sat the bottle of water by Carina's knees and immediately grabbed her hair.

"Shh, you're okay." She tried to soothe. She was not good with this kind of thing, but her mother would often stroke her back so that's what she tried to do. She waited for Carina to finish and watched as she slumped against the toilet seat. Maya made an involuntary face at that, happy Carina couldn't see her and pulled her into her arms instead. Manoeuvring them so Maya was sitting on the floor, leaning against the cabinets and Carina was leaning her back against Maya's front.

"Have some water," Maya whispered as she reached to grab it, opening it for her.

"You're back." Carina smiled and nuzzled into her neck.

"Ehm, no?"

Carina stiffened and pulled away ever so slightly. Maya thought her heart was about to beat out of her chest. Having Carina this close to her was doing things to her body and she didn't like it, she felt like a pervert.

"You still don't remember?"

"Sorry, no."

"Oh," she sat up straight, pulling away from Maya entirely. Maya kind of didn't want her to go, but she didn't say anything. "You're sweet, Maya." She said simply and gave her a smile.

Maya wasn't supposed to be sweet, Maya was supposed to be fast and tough, but she found that when Carina said it she didn't mind so much.

"Are you okay? Do you want to go back to bed?" She looked away from Maya, the look on her face reading as guilty to the blonde. She shook her head lightly.

"I'm feeling much better now." She muttered and Maya nodded.

"Okay, ehm, let me know if I can do something. Do you want food?" Judging by the shade of green that took over Carina's face, she did not.

"No thank you Maya, how are you feeling?" She asked carefully.

"Oh I'm not sick." She answered. Carina chuckled a little.

"Yeah, I know but how are you feeling with everything going on?"

"You're the one who's sick." She tried again, not understanding what Carina meant.

"Your head, bambina."

"There's nothing wrong with my head, the docto-"

"Shh, no. I know you like to be all 'eyes forward' and stuff but, how are you doing when you think about everything? Is there anything you want to maybe talk about?"

"What is there to talk about? I was 18 and now I'm 38 and life goes on."

"Yes but we have to talk about what this means for us. And your job, you're probably going to have to go to the academy again if you want to keep being a firefighter or maybe you want to do something else, and-" Carina stopped talking abruptly, Maya waited for her to finish but she stayed silent. She got up from the floor and brushed her teeth, all while Maya watched her in silence.