18 going on 38

chapter 9

Carina woke up sweaty. Her pillow was warm and Maya, her pillow was Maya. Her pillow was also shaking.Carina blinked a few times, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room. Maya's eyes were closed and she didn't seem to be awake.

She was crying in her sleep.

Carina had seen this before, in the beginning of their relationship, when Maya was still hesitant about showing emotion, she would often let it out in her sleep. Carina was still angry and hurt, but she couldn't stand watching her wife upset. That's why she'd helped her panic attack yesterday.

"Bella, hey, wake up." Maya blinked a few times and reached up to her cheek, frowning at the moisture there.

"Oh, sorry, did I wake you?" Maya asked coldly and Carina cringed a little. When Maya was embarrassed she had a tendency to shut down. The brunette knew the best approach was to meet her with kindness and patience, two things she was far away from feeling at the moment, and she hated the part of her brain that knew she was going to anyways. She always pushed her pwn needs aside in order to help those she loved.

"That's okay. You were crying." She said softly.

"Sorry, I'll go into the other room. You need your sleep." Maya said and started to get up, because Maya too, pushed her own need aside to help those she loved. The thought made her smile and she held her wife back.

"No hey, that's not what I meant. I just wanted to make sure you're okay."

Maya sighed and laid down, she covered her face with her hands and Carina wasn't sure what this attitude meant.

"I don't know how to get anything right."

Oh so they were talking about this now, got it.

"What do you mean?"

"I try to push my feelings down, you say I shouldn't. So I try to be honest and then you get mad, and I think you hate me, and then you say you're there when I couldn't breathe, but then I opened my eyes and you were gone again. You throw my pillow into the guest room but then cry in my arms when I come in here. I'm just so confused. Do you want me here, do you not? Do you hate me?"

Yeah, Carina thought. That had been a lot of conflicting emotions for a person who'd been told her entire life how to feel.

"Maya..." She said softly. "I don't hate you, I love you very much. Which is why this is so hard."

"It feels like you hate me." Maya admitted and it broke Carina's heart. She hadn't expected the blonde to be that honest.

"What can I do differently?"

"Oh god, nothing. You shouldn't always be the one making sacrifices and stuff. I know you've been adjusting to me this past week. I feel bad." It was true that she had, Carina just didn't think the blonde had noticed.

"But if you think I hate you, I need to do something differently Maya, because that's just not true. I hated what you said earlier, and I'm mad and upset, but I could never hate you."

"I'm sorry I said that. I just feel icky about it." Carina almost rolled her eyes, she didn't understand what was so icky about having her eggs in someone else.

"But it's there, and there's not much to do about that, besides having an abortion, which is really not something I would like to do."

"I understand that." Maya said. "I won't make you do that." Carina let out a shaky breath.

"So where does that leave us?" Carina dared to ask, but Maya did nothing besides shrug her shoulders. "Can you think about what you want and then get back to me?"