End on Extinct

Chapter Fourteen

MARIANA

Fluxing emotion erupted inside Mariana. Hope, nervousness, passion, lust, pain, excruciating pain that triggered a reminder of all her mistakes—from Zane to Ruston, the first boyfriend she had loved. Mariana bit down on the index finger of her left hand to contain herself as she snaked through the hallway of the fourth floor toward the restroom.

But as soon as she met her eyes in the mirror, she bit down, harder on the hand that had led her to these extremes.

She tried to piece the events back together. A moment had occurred where she had felt the most excruciating pain, a horrible shock of the moment which sent her mind back to a long-ago former shock when Ruston had hit her.

It happened once. And it broke her inside.

Her mind had gone back to that memory, until she'd gelt a new hand pressing against her glove, and the pain shifted. The awful headache left, sending her instead into a glowing state, a surge of love, endearment, loyalty. She remembered the clapping, strong clapping coming from Folsom's hands, toward a blonde woman in front of him, while he radiated with joy.

Her insides felt slaughtered by emotions.

Joy!

Hate!

Lust!

Passion!

Pain!

It was too much. Now, she felt exhausted, angry, confused. Drained.

She turned on the sink and let the cool water spill over her hands. She stared at the left hand as if it were a traitor as if it had opened things it should haven't opened.

With her right hand, she splashed water onto her forehead, then looked back into the mirror. Blaring thoughts still flashed through her mind. Like a disorganized Christmas light show, neurons firing, hers, Ashyr's, Folsom's, a traffic rush hour of congestion to process.

She drew in a deep breath. A long safe breath. Then, she stepped away from the mirror and leaned against an empty wall. Her entire body pressed against it while she processed a single thing, her gratitude for the wall's stableness. It's sturdy support while she tried to put some order around the last dozen minutes of her life.

After Ashyr took her hand, it had started. The tingling, the movement of separation, like her brain had split in half. She held the happiest memory in front of her, the moment right after she'd transitioned from labor pain to relief, from that final push to the moment Zane Jr. had been placed in her arms.

Her life filled with purpose, with the reality of who she was. The little one placed there, surrounded in her arms, what she had to live for, die for, give her everything for. And she would be all he needed her to be. But, before she could kiss his head, suddenly she was looking at herself, through Ashyr's eyes. Feeling an appendage of his enlarge, as he stared at her, and moved in close, his heart racing, his palms sweating.

And she had fed him what he wanted, her lips planting against his.

Suddenly, she was kissing herself.

Except she wasn't.

She was Ashyr, or inside Ashyr's memory of kissing her. And apparently, she kissed well, because she felt excitement in Ashyr's groin area, driving him forward as she slid onto his lap. His heart beat faster, his arms embraced her further.

There in the bathroom, propped up against the wall, Mariana could think clearer, could process the uncomfortable moment, the hunger that raced through Ashyr.

He'd gone for her blouse. His fingers had reached for the buttons as he ached to see her undressed.

With palms pressed against the bathroom wall, Mariana felt dirty, as if she'd undressed for him. As if she were responsible for all the eagerness he'd displayed as if she'd done this to him.

Safely in the restroom, Mariana wrapped her arms around her stomach while recalling Ashyr's transition into lies. Sour lies where he'd unbuttoned her blouse all the way down.

She felt for the wall again. Feeling the stability, the memory of what had truly happened. She had stopped it. Stopped things from going too far between them.

Almost immediately, after it had begun, she'd regretted that kiss. And, she'd stopped it. Indeed, she had. She'd stopped anything more from happening that night!

Yet, according to Ashyr, his memory, he'd continued to undress her. With an eagerness that danced within his fingertips—and in that moment, during this memory exchange with him in the lab, she did all she could to stop what she was experiencing.

She let go.

A rush of pain had slaughtered her brain. Like two sides separating, working opposite from each other, screaming to find their connections.

To end the wrenching state of broken thought, Mariana had done the only logical thing she could grasp. She held out her hand again, begging him to resume their communication in her attempt for relief.

Yet, she did not want to see herself naked—not from Ashyr's eyes! Still, with the desperate hope it might stop the screaming pain of the splitting brain, she prepared herself for the nakedness, the lust, perhaps the sex—which directed her to memories of Zane, her nakedness with him, their sex, and then the memory of another pain. A different broken connection in her brain. When she had first loved. So much.

Only to have that first love physically and emotionally hurt her.

She had been young. Stupid. Ruston, her first serious boyfriend, had broken her heart and in her young folly, she had tried to heal by finding another brokenness to fall, where she had found love with Zane.

She released the bathroom wall and stood on her own. Short breaths escaped her. Her heartbeat through her entangled memories of Zane. Mariana chose love poorly! Ashyr's distorted memory reminded, warned her, sacred her of that.

With arms hanging loose at her side, Mariana drew her head back to touch the bathroom wall. Moments earlier, in the lab, the sharpness of that headache had led her to the long-ago memory of Ruston's slap. She replayed it again—the place in time where she had been so young, with a heart so vulnerable. She kept the scene replaying in her mind, the moment in the lab when the headache disappeared. A strong, stabling hand connecting with hers, the firm clutch of the gloves interlocking. A large auditorium. Mariana hearing someone next to her say, "There she is Folsom."

His wife on a stage, followed by clapping. A warmth through Folsom's entire body.

Love which led to joy.

Joy that blurred the corners of his eyes. Purejoy. A hope, a beauty, a love, which left Mariana with a hunger for more.