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Palm trees and scandals

Maya pov

'Okay I'm leaving now for an indefinite amount of time to somewhere very very far away' I said laughing nervously, I was trying to make light of the situation but deep down I felt tears forming and the sensation that they would begin falling uncontrollably from my eyes was starting to consume me. I coughed loudly to ease the tension I felt and to avoid crying.

I wasn't the only one pushing away tears as my brother ran down the stairs and swept me up in his arms, clenching his eyelids as tight as he could to barricade the droplets.

'Stop, you'll make me cry' he sighed.

I rarely saw my brother cry but this morning was an exception.

He had woken me up two hours early so we'd have ample time to say goodbye properly, but neither of us had the ability to say anything of meaning through muffled sobs.

~

I cast my eyes at the large cases hogging the space in the backseats and then to my brothers blotchy red cheeks.

'I- I'm gonna miss you Maya' he choked.

He didn't once peel his eyes off the road but bit his lip nervously and every now and then he would rub my shoulder and smile.

'I'll come and visit soon. And mum finalised her plans too, she's moving in with aunt Lu' he said as we looked at each other with every inch of happiness resting in that one sentence.

We had been planning to pickpocket her from my father's grip for months and the weight had finally been removed from our shoulders.

I sighed and took in the landscape of my home. The road to the airport was lined with Palm trees and the sun reflected onto the windscreen in such a concentration that we were both having to squint, which was giving me a slight headache.

I hadn't anticipated just how difficult saying goodbye could be. Romulo was, in effect, the person who knew me most and it would be alien to spend time apart, let alone move miles away.

His black range rover, which he treated like a living human, pulled into the car park and we both sat in silence, blinking at each other.

Once we had exhausted all of the 'I'll miss you', 'contact me' and 'at least it's not mars' talk, I grabbed the bags. There weren't many and neither were they heavy as most of my things had been shipped there prior to my flight as it was impossible to fit things like a sofa into the allocated space airports allowed.

I kissed him on the cheek.

We hugged briefly and then I left.

~

The long flight gave me time to set my mind at ease and consider what I was leaving behind.

When I joined secondary school, Romulo had gotten into Santos and my parents were working two or more jobs each to pay for the training kit and to make ends meet, this strained them greatly and they would fight every day to the point where I couldn't remember my mother's smile or the sound of my father's laughter.

To try and repair their marriage me and Rom had suggested they go on a weekend away together but when they came back they couldn't be more distant.

There was an unspoken pact that neither one of them would disclose what had happened on that holiday but my mother took solace in me and explained that she had slept with the receptionist; that day she cried every tear she had and I'd never seen her so broken, I told her I wouldn't tell him but she told me how he walked in on them and beat her.

Being the man he was, he decided not to break off their relations, because ultimately that decision lay in his hands, but instead he would let her suffer in every way a woman could. To mask his embarrassment of being married to such a disgrace, his words not mine, he would stay married and treat her like the dirt on his shoe.

Romulo had left, leaving Alvaro with no one to help him feel assertive so he turned his attention to my mother who became the recipient a large portion of his anger. He would exhaust all his reserves and turn to me and try his best to regain control so I became the scapegoat to any pent up frustration he had yet to release after a few rounds with my mother.

This is how my arranged marriage came into existence: I had lashed out at him after coming home and finding my mother crying under a table, a sight I still can't comprehend, and a twisted form of punishment he wanted rid of me.

Marlon wasn't the worst groom to be engaged to- he wasn't bad looking and he did have an interesting and well paid job as a journalist- but I didn't know much more about him than that.

To an outsider it's clear as day that my mother and I should've left a long time ago, and that perhaps she should've never even married him but the father I used to know was so different, and she was so crippled by her fear to run to the police or explain anything to her family that she stayed put and so did I, because it couldn't see her stand this alone.

He exercised his control by marrying me off in the hope of making a profit as his work had long since dried up for 'futile behaviour' and 'endangering employees'.

He had so far successfully hid all of this from anyone and so we played along, afraid of the consequences.

I wasn't too upset to be leaving Brazil as I wouldn't miss my childhood. My mother worked on a cruise ship for large chunks of the year, her only salary and only time apart from my father, so I didn't see her much anyway.

~

I was exhausted from the thorough evaluation of events and laid my head on the make shift pillow I had formed from a folded towel.

The flight would've been pure bliss had an irritating child not been kicking my chair repeatedly.

~

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