matchmaking for experts || h.s au

nine

As soon as she hears the door to Matchcierge shut with a click, everything hits her all at once. Sadness flows and fills every crevice of her bones, pushing every other emotion from her being.

"Fuck," she mutters to herself as she clasps onto her desk, needing to hold on to something as the unwanted emotion overcomes her like a tidal wave. Tears sting her eyes, burning them, and her chest feels heavy as if it were filled with lead. When her vision starts to get blurry and her throat starts to tighten up, a stream of expletives leaves her mouth. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

Maia is not a crier - has never considered herself one. And she's not about to become one even when she feels as though there's an open wound inside of her. Like her heart is being stabbed over and over and over again. She has done a pretty good job at keeping her emotions buried deep inside, in fact, she doesn't know how to deal with them another way, but right now bottling it up doesn't seem like an option. Not when they're threatening to break through her walls, escaping from her like a river escaping a dam.

She's done it. She's ruined the one thing she thought she'd never ruin: her friendship with Harry.

When Harry came over to her desk and asked her if they could talk, she panicked. Her brain went into an overdrive, thoughts whirring in her mind. She knew he wanted to talk to her, caught him looking at her every now and then as he looked for an opportunity to talk to her alone, which didn't come until everyone had left.

A part of her wishes she'd gone home with Laura and Grace instead of burying her nose in her notebook because had she done that, what had just happened between her and Harry wouldn't have happened. She wouldn't have told him that the night they shared didn't mean anything more than just her wanting to get him out of her system. And she certainly wouldn't have made things worse.

Though, in her defence, there was some truth to her words.

That night did start out as her wanting to get Harry out of her system. She was tired of having to suppress her feelings for him, tired of pretending that she wasn't attracted to him or that she didn't want anything to happen between them. When in reality she'd thought about kissing him countless times, had thought about running her fingers through his hair, and on occasions when she allowed herself to, she had thought about being with him.

And because she let go of her fears and let her heart make the decisions that night, now she knows what it feels like to kiss him, to touch him and to be so close to him that it made her feel whole.

Burying her face in her palms, Maia fights the urge to scream. To let her frustration out.

She's so in her head that she doesn't realize someone has walked into the office. She was convinced that she's alone but she wasn't.

"Maia?"

Maia looks up, her eyes widening when she sees Chelsea making her way towards her. Concern pinches her brows together as she takes in the sight of Maia who quickly plasters a smile on her face.

"Hey," Chelsea says as she stops at her desk. "Everything alright?"

"Yeah." Maia nods. The lie comes out effortlessly, with such ease that it bothers her. Has she told so many lies that it's like second nature for her to lie now? That she's become good at it? The idea that the answer is most likely yes makes her feel unsettled, but she pushes that thought to the back of her mind. "You're--I thought you've left?"

"Oh no," Chelsea shakes her head as she makes her way to her desk. Only then Maia notices that her bag and her jacket are still there, and that her desk is still cluttered with her things. She definitely has been way over in her head that she fails to notice that one of her friends hasn't left yet. Picking up the pens and pencils she's used throughout the day, Chelsea continues, "I was helping Joanna with her book."