Is It Ever Enough?

Chapter 35

The Pacific Northwest has an oddly comforting characteristic to it. The silence that follows after a very heavy rain is soul soothing. Life moves a little sweeter, you can smell the dampness in the air and everyone kind of collectively lowers their hoods and shakes them out, staring upward at the break in clouds as the rains leave for the season. The silence is almost deafening.

And that's how the next several weeks went by; deafening silence from one Maya Bishop.

Spring had finished pelting the region with heavy rains and summer was just around the corner, beginning to dig its heels into the city. Days were getting longer, and hotter and the tension building atop Maya's shoulders was festering. Carina watched over carefully, expertly treading lightly around the hair trigger that Maya was sporting. A childhood filled with emotional manipulation and aggression had prepared her for this, no sweat.

Additionally, that same silent tension had cascaded over their relationship. There were no physical arguments, just sighs and glances and restless nights shared between them. A tension left of unspoken pain and words so palpable that you could feel its weight enter a room.

The two women had spent less time together in those weeks than they were used to, and it was stressing Carina out to not have eyes and her physical hands on her girlfriend. Since the night she met Maya, the doctor had always felt a draw to physically pin the blonde down, as if she'd run away at a moment's notice. Maya had been absentmindedly drifting about, the tension and turmoil evident in her rigid posture and flexed jaw.

It was agonizing for Carina. It felt like they were at square one, like she was crawling all over Maya's walls, frantically trying to tear down brick by brick, prying and prodding her way into her mind. Carina knew her Maya, and something wasn't right. She knew without a doubt that Maya was putting brick by brick of her wall back up, silently and devilishly behind her back.

The more Carina pried; the more Maya drank. The further Maya would scoot in the bed after she thought Carina was asleep. The less food Maya would put on her plate at dinner. The earlier Maya would rise for a workout after a sleepless night filled with worsening nightmares. The more Carina willed Maya to talk, the further away she drifted.

What had happened on that shift? What is going on in that beautiful mind of hers?

Carina was aware that this pattern could not hold, and it was unhealthy for it to be so, unhealthy for her to put herself through the torture of caring for another version of her father. But she knew no other pattern, no other form of love, aside from service. The necklace around her neck had begun to wear dull in spots from her constant nervous hands teetering with it.

The two women stubbornly floated about, taking care of the basics and putting in the required inputs to maintain their relationship.

Carina continued to cook for Maya, the two of them going to the store and cleaning her apartment together. The meals they shared seemed to be the only time they spoke, often about surface level things. It was the only time Carina felt her love being shared, as Maya willingly ate anything she provided her. It was the only extension Carina could feel touching Maya.

Maya was checking all of the boxes. She was going to work, following supervision from Sullivan perfectly. She was going to therapy, and placating Diane enough to receive praise and progress. She was eating enough it seemed, finishing all of her supplements and consistently eating at the station with the team. She went for walks, she kept the groceries stocked, Carina's laundry folded in her recently gifted drawer of the dresser. Hell, she even properly changed the oil on Carina's Porsche while she was at work. Carina was exhausting herself, trying to piece together a seemingly broken Maya with approximately zero information or puzzle pieces to start with.