Chapter 10
MAYA
Hanna Banana
Lilith
That’s not a nude…
Lilith
….the glee I felt seeing this message pop up and the disappointment I now feel. Please make this right.
Papaya Maya
I am on a train, so…
Lilith
I mean I feel like a Harvard student should be able to figure this out.
Hanna Banana
best I can do right now, I am watching TV with my parents.
Lilith
FINE
Papaya Maya
When I get back to my apartment I will MAYBE send nudes.
Lilith
Don’t tempt me with a good time!
Hanna Banana
Wow, I was just trying to say hi and see how your train ride is going Maya. I am sorry we couldn’t make it work and head back together.
Lilith
I’m not…
Hanna Banana
WOW
Lilith
I get FOMO
Papaya Maya
#needy
Lilith
If you saw how I saw you two, you’d be needy too.
Maya burst into laughter at Lily’s antics, her chest warming with how quickly they’d begun texting each other. She hoped it would last. Maya was sure she wasn’t the only one worried that perhaps their one-night stand had just been that, but somehow, she didn’t think so.
Maya sat back with her head against the window of her train. She loved train rides through New England during this time of year; it was like a front row seat to a fall-themed Pinterest board. It also gave her some long needed time to herself before getting back to the swing of school and the city.
Her mind flitted to her mother, Maggie, who had truly looked distraught when Maya had said goodbye earlier that day.
After the night in the treehouse, she had spent the following night lying next to her mom, like she had done as a little girl, only this time she had stayed awake, fluctuating between rubbing her mom’s back as she cried softly in her sleep and escaping to what it had been like to sleep between Lily and Hanna.
Her mom was not okay, and Maya felt guilty leaving her.
But she had checked in with her dad to let him know that her mother was not okay, but that she hoped she would be okay, and he promised to do what he could.
All in all, Maya could tell her father loved her mother deeply, and her mother loved him — which is why she couldn’t piece together what had happened to cause them to fall apart, caused her mother to withdraw so completely.
She also knew that it was her parents’ position that it wasn’t her right to know.
With a sigh, Maya reassured herself that she’d check in with her mother as soon as she got back to her apartment, back to her life in Boston.
It wasn't like she didn’t have friends and a life there, but Maya continued to feel like she was always on the outside looking in.
She had been walking back from the library one night and happened to be walking by another Black woman (a rarity) whom Maya realized was likely faculty.
Before she could ask—beg really—what classes she taught and how Maya could sign up, the woman met her eyes, smiled knowingly, and whispered to her, “Keep going, it’ll be alright.
” Maya had been so shocked that by the time she found her voice again she and the woman had long passed each other, the moment to find a sliver of belonging slipping through her fingers.
That woman’s words had sounded like both a plea and a promise.
Keep going, it’ll be alright.
She had one more year left, and then she would need to figure out what she was doing next, perhaps find a place she belonged. The thought made her mind go back to what it was like to be held in that treehouse, listening to the steady breathing of both Hanna and Lily, enveloped in their warmth.
It had stirred a feeling in her that had been fleeting since her parents’ marriage began to implode: safety and belonging.
Maya couldn’t wrap her head around how one night had given that to her, but she also didn’t feel the need to push it too far.
She simply decided to hold on to it for as long as she could.
As a constant outsider, that was all she could do.