Complicated People, Complicated Love

He Can't Know

Lucas

Almost right after I hung up the phone, Maya was shaking less. She's in my lap where I put her, my arm supporting her back and neck. I grabbed her clenched hand and tried to pull it apart, and when I finally do, she has marks where her fingernails were.

After a couple minutes her jaw starts to relax also, she still isn't responding to my voice though, or me shaking her.

All of a sudden her eyes flicker open. I laugh with relief as she looks around. She registers my arms around her and how I'm basically cradling her in my arms.

"Uh, Huckleberry?" she says to my relief. "What's up with you?" Her voice sounds like she thinks I'm crazy.

"What's up with me?" I say, not able to shake the smile off of my face. "I'm not the one who just had a freakin seizure," I laugh. She looks confused. Her eyes drift from the bed to the blankets on the floor and then to her hands. The marks that her nails left are still there. A wave of something washes over her face and her confusion turns into panic. She gets up from where she was on my lap and starts to pace.

"Maya, what's going on?" I ask. She doesn't give any indication that she heard me.

After a few seconds of quiet pacing, she stops abruptly, looking at my phone on the floor and then back to me.

"You didn't call anyone did you?" she asks. Her voice is quiet and slow, almost like she's dreading the answer.

"Well, of course I did. An ambulance." her face fills with panic and she brings her hands to her head, pacing again.

"You were shaking and obviously in pain, I didn't know what else to do," I say, suddenly worried that I had done something wrong. I stand up and grab my phone.

She's whispering something under her breath, the only words I can make out are "in trouble" and "he's gonna,". I hear the ambulance sirens coming. She looks up having heard them too.

"Maya, what's happening?" She looks at me but doesn't respond before leaving my room and going down the stairs and out the front door. I follow her, scared that she's running away. When I get outside though, she's just standing on my front lawn with her arms crossed.

I walk up next to her, the sirens getting closer. She's wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and a t shirt which I would have made fun of her for if I wasn't so worried. She turns to me all of a sudden when I see the ambulance lights around the corner.

"Lucas, please. You can't let my mom or dad find out about this okay? They can never know." I've never seen Maya look scared, but right now, this is as close as I think she gets.

"Okay," I say. I don't question it, I know that this is what she needs to happen, and I'll do it for her.

The ambulance pulls up and three people hop out of it and open the back door about ready to pull out a gurney. Maya walks up to them.

"Hi, my friend here called and said that I needed help, but I'm all better now, it's okay, really." The three of them look at each other, skeptical.

One of them speaks up, "Even if you are better now, it's procedure that we bring you in. It's against the law not to." The others confirm this, and Maya hesitantly gets into the back. I follow her in, not questioned by the three paramedics.I feel the engine start and then the vehicle slowly pull away from my house.

"I'm sorry Maya, I was just scared," she's not looking at me, she's looking out the back window, quietly.

"It's okay, Rick. I get it," she doesn't take her eyes away from the road which doesn't really help me to accept her reassurance.

I join her at the window and watch my house get farther and farther away. Until it's a little dot in the distance. I'm worried about her, just as we start to get happy together, I go and ruin it. I don't know how I ruined it, but it's clear that I did. I look at her, she gives me a little flicker of a smile, but it's not convincing. She's scared and I know it. I'm just not sure why.