Crash- Station 19/Marina

Family

Day three of their trip they had a lot more planned. They'd left the first 2 days pretty open so they could adjust to the time change and everything. Carina woke up first which almost never happens when they are home, so she assumed Maya hadn't slept very well and got herself ready quietly so Maya could keep sleeping.

Maya woke up and saw Carina already awake and dressed, sitting on the bed.
"Good morning" she says as she pulls her arms out from under the blankets and stretches
"Buongiorno. Did you sleep ok? I never wake up first" Carina asks as she leans over to kiss her.
Instead of replying Maya pulled her closer and kept kissing her. After a minute Carina pulled away a little

"Ok, as much as I love this morning activity your braces need to come off first, they're not very comfortable" she says, sitting up

"Sorry" Maya says, pulling her arms away from Carina and staring to take her braces off.

She'd figured out how to do this recently, she still can't put them on herself but she can take them off. She bites the end of the straps to pull them open then pins the end of the brace with her other arm and pulls her hand out. While she was doing that Carina repositioned her so she was laying on her back. Once she had her braces off she wrapped an arm around Carina again to pull her closer so she could kiss her again.

"We should probably start getting ready soon" Carina says after a few minutes
"I know" Maya says "fine, but this is more fun"
"We can continue this later when we don't have plans" Carina tells her as she gets up. "What do you want to wear?"

An hour later they were ready to go, they were going to have brunch with Gabriella before meeting Carina's family for the afternoon.

Brunch went better than Maya expected, she was a lot less jealous than the first time she met Gabriella. She was even more self-conscious about her abilities and embarrassed about needing Carina's help than usual but she always is when she's around other people. It also helped that she can speak Italian know so she could understand most of what Gabriella said.

After that they went to Carina's aunt and uncle's house to spend the rest of the day with her family. There were a few steps up to the porch then another step to get in the door so one of Carina's cousins had to help bump Maya's chair up the steps to get her in. Once they were inside Carina introduced her to everyone who was already there and more people were still showing up. Maya was overwhelmed by the number of people and felt trapped, even with her custom chair navigating tight spaces is very difficult for her. She made her way over to a corner away from people so she didn't have to worry about running into people or being bumped.

She wanted Carina but she was off talking to everyone and Maya didn't want to try to navigate through the house and the people to find her. People had never been her favourite but since her injury her anxiety around new people and crowds was worse. She was scared to crash into people or run over their toes, scared someone would into her and knock her off balance, scared someone would grab her chair and move her somewhere and she wouldn't be able to stop them.

There was also the fact that this was a completely new experience for her, nothing to do with her injury. She's never had big family gatherings growing up It was only every her parents and brother so this big gathering of extended family that all know each other well and seem to do this often was strange to her. Carina noticed pretty quickly that Maya had disappeared and went to find her.

"Hey, what's going on? Do you want to go?" Carina asked quietly in English
"No, you want to see your family, I'm fine"
"I can tell your stressed, talk to me"
"It's just a lot of people, I don't want to bump into people, I don't want to deal with all the questions and I don't know what to do"
"Ok, let's go find a good place to hang out, I'll stay with you"
"You can go talk to people, it's ok"
"No, I'm not going to have fun knowing you're sitting in a corner panicking. Come on, do you want me to push you?"

Maya sighed, knowing that she was not going to win this. She took off her breaks and put her arms back on her lap, signalling to Carina that she was ok with being pushed. Carina brought her to the living room where some people were sitting and chatting.

"Do you want to sit on the couch?" Carina asked, stopping Maya's chair near the edge of the couch
"No, I'm fine" Maya replied, moving her chair next to the armrest of the couch. Carina sat next to her on the corner of the couch, reaching over to hold her hand.

Maya slowly got more comfortable around everyone and started joining in on the conversation. People stared, mostly at her hands and arms but no one said anything. It made sense, they'd told people she's paralyzed and in a wheelchair but hadn't gone into detail about her injury- the level, the severity, her function. When you say paralyzed, people think you can't use your legs but when you say quadriplegic people think you can't move at all and use a ventilator. So they weren't sure what to say and didn't go into much detail but now she's realizing she maybe should have explained better.

When it was time to eat they went to the table and Carina got Maya's adaptive fork out of her bag along with a straw. Once everyone started eating Carina cut Maya's food for her before helping her get her fork on her hand so she could eat. The youngest there, a little 3 year old girl, was very interested in Maya's fork and had lots of questions about why an adult needed their food cut for them which brought up Maya's insecurities but Maya knows it's just because she's a little kid and curious about everything.

After dinner everyone moved into the living room and Carina convinced Maya to get out of her chair since she'd been in it all day which she doesn't usually do. So Maya's sitting on Carina's lap on the couch. They heard someone knock and be let in. Maya was facing away from the door and couldn't see who it was or feel Carina tense and hold her tighter but she saw the change in her wife's face.

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I hope you liked this chapter, it's not the best, I'm not sure how to write Carina's family, but I decided I just needed to post something. Sorry it's been so long since I've updated, I was busy with exams and since then I've been working a ton and also really struggling with ideas for this story so please let me know any ideas/suggestions!