6. Maya
6
MAYA
I feel nothing. Nothing can touch me. Nothing matters.
My body feels that way, anyway. I don’t know about my head. Even with the door closed, I hear them out there. Snickering, some flat-out laughing, all of them thinking they’re so clever. So much better than me. Well, maybe they are. Maybe I’m just the last one to know. Then again, how many of them basically killed their own mother?
Not here. Not now.
A layer of ice settles over me, numbing me the way I prefer to be. There’s no problem here. I’m going to pull myself together and leave this room. By then, everybody will have forgotten or at least moved on. They’re all a bunch of idiots, anyway. Most of them barely have the attention span of a goldfish. That’s what I cling to as I pull up my pants, refusing to look at the scars. He just had to see them, didn’t he? He has to strip me down fully, has to leave me defenseless. It’s like he lives for it. I will never understand what drives him or anyone who thrives on bullying.
It doesn’t matter right now. I need to focus on what matters in the moment. Getting the hell out of this room. Going somewhere I can breathe. It’s like the walls are closing in, walls around me, walls around my brain. The pressure is too much. Maybe it’ll kill me. Maybe part of me wishes it would.
Once my clothes are straightened out, I pick up my bag, treating myself to a few deep, shuddering breaths. I hear their voices out there. They’re still snickering, some of them waiting for me to come out. I can tell by the way they laugh, by the way they shush each other. Like a bunch of people hanging around, prepared to surprise the lucky person whose party it is. Only this is no happy surprise party. It’s anything but.
Since I know better than to think they’ll ever go away until I come out, I open the door, my head held as high as I can manage. They are not going to break me. Besides, I’m already broken.
“Nicely done, Maya!”
“If I only knew it was so easy to get you to drop your pants…”
“When do the rest of us get a turn?”
Ugly, all of them. Ugly people with ugly souls. I need to hold onto that and keep holding onto it, because it’s the only thing that makes it possible to put one foot in front of the other. Their snide laughter follows me out of the building, where a wave of heat immediately hits me straight in the face. It’s like walking into an oven, but I keep walking, ignoring the way the denim feels on my legs; how hot and sticky and uncomfortable it is once I start to sweat as I quicken my pace, my head down. It’s clear where I’m going before I even realize I made a decision. Rather than sit outside to clear my head before my next class, I duck into the library, where it’s cool and darker and nobody knows what happened back there. Word might spread—it usually does—but for right now, the people around here are busy studying.
Well, except for one other person. I hear her behind me as I swipe my student ID to go beyond the vestibule. “Maya!” Wren’s voice is a whisper, fierce and sharp and heavy with concern. Oh, wonderful. I should’ve known better than to think I could be alone.
This is your friend . Yes, she is my friend, and I’ve tried to be a good friend to her. There is no reason to feel so apprehensive when she joins me, falling in step beside me as I search for a quiet corner to duck into. Normally, the smell of so many books would stir comfort in my soul, the hushed voices of people speaking if they speak at all. It’s something familiar. It’s safe.
Though it doesn’t feel exactly safe, once Wren grabs me by the arm and pulls me between the stacks. If only I didn’t have to see the look of pain written across her face while her eyes search mine. She takes a scrunchy from her wrist and pulls her hair back, tugging at the neckline of her tank top like she’s trying to cool herself off. “It is brutal out there. Didn’t you hear me calling your name? I was practically running after you.”
“I guess I didn’t. Sorry.” I cross my arms over myself, feeling defensive. In front of Wren, of all people.
“You know…” Her teeth graze her bottom lip, and I’m wondering if she’s so flushed because she’s hot or because she’s upset. “I’m here for you. You know that, don’t you? I want to be, anyway.”
“I know that.” God, get me out of this, it’s too much. The way she’s looking at me, the little tremble in her voice.
“You have been such an amazing friend to me, and I love you,” she whispers. “I hope you know that, too. I really do. You saved my life.”
When I can’t help but shake my head—it’s sort of an overwhelming thing to hear—she insists. “It’s true. But now I feel like there’s something happening between us, and I think I know what it is.”
Shit. No, there’s no way she can know what’s weighing heaviest on me, so heavy I can barely breathe. I’ve worked so hard to keep it a secret. “You do?”
Her eyes shine with emotion as her head bobs. “I don’t want you to hate me because I ended up with Briggs. I know it probably seems fucked up from the outside looking in, but it makes sense to my heart.” She places a hand on her chest, where the organ in question beats. “It just seems like when I got together with him, things started to get weird between you and me. I’m not trying to push you out of my life.”
“I get it.” Though now that we have started down this path, I’m kind of glad. The truth is, I have wondered more than once what she’s thinking. How she could want to be with somebody like him after the hell he put her through. “And I don’t hate you. Not even close. I mean, I have wondered,” I admit. “But everybody’s relationship is their own thing. Nobody understands when they’re looking in from the outside, like you said.”
“Look at me for a second.”
It’s only when she makes that plea that I realize I haven’t been. I’ve been deliberately looking anywhere but at her. The floor, the books behind her head. Math books, theory, and all the stuff that’s always gone over my head. I deliberately turn my gaze toward her, looking her in the eye while my soul shrivels. What does she want from me? I don’t know how much more I can take of this.
She looks so sad, and I feel terrible about it. She deserves a better friend than me, somebody who can be genuinely happy for her instead of pretending. “Why won’t you actually tell me what you’re feeling?” she whispers. Now, her eyebrows knit together over the bridge of her nose. “It’s like there’s this wall between us. What is really happening with you?”
If she only knew, but I can never tell her. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. “There’s just a lot on my mind right now. That’s all. It’s not about you.”
I didn’t mean it to come out harshly, but her pained wince tells me it did. With her lips pulled back from her teeth in a grimace, she murmurs, “Okay…”
“I’m glad you and Briggs are together,” I lie. It’s not difficult. I do it all the time. “I’m glad you’re happy. Really, that’s all that matters, right? What other people think doesn’t make a difference.”
“So you’re saying you disapprove, without actually coming out and saying it.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” I whisper fiercely. I need to chill, but it’s getting harder by the second. My heart is pounding in my ears, the pressure in my chest almost painful now. “But, yes, I have wondered how you can be with somebody who was trying to hurt you and humiliate you over and over again. He literally went out of his way to ruin your life until, all of a sudden, he cared. Am I not supposed to wonder about that?”
“You can wonder about it all you want.” Her shoulders lift defensively, hovering around her ears. “Did it never occur to you to come to me? To ask me how I’m feeling? Or were you just going to judge?”
This is all wrong. It’s only getting worse the longer it goes on. “I only care about you.”
“And I care about you.” Folding her arms, she blows out a sigh. “I’m sorry if I sounded defensive. You are the last person I ever want to alienate. I want you to know I’m here for you the way you were here for me. I don’t want you to go through things on your own. That’s all I was trying to say. I’m sorry if it came out the wrong way.”
When will this be over? I need it to be. It’s all too much after what happened with Tucker. I could tell her about it, but she doesn’t need my burdens. Nobody does. “I understand.”
“It doesn’t sound like you do. Why can’t you just be honest with me?”
Because you would never talk to me again, if I was honest with you. You would never want to see me or hear my name. You might even regret the time we spent together.
She still thinks I’m a good person. She only knows what I’ve let her know. That’s the only way I can survive, by keeping so much of myself to myself.
The thing is, I want to open up. The pressure in my chest might ease if I shared at least some of the truth. My loneliness, the emptiness I wrestle with every day. I might be able to step out of the darkness and into the light for the first time in much too long.
But that would sort of defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it? Because if I told her what I did, how Mom is dead because of me, she wouldn’t want to be my friend, anyway. I would end up just as alone as I am now, only I’d also have to struggle with knowing what I once had and how suddenly I lost it. It was easier to deal with before I had a good friend. Life is so damn cruel, but then I already knew that.
If there’s one thing I’ve practiced, it’s pretending everything’s fine when it definitely is not. “There’s nothing to be honest about. I already told you, I’m a little worried about you. And I’m sorry if I have a hard time accepting Briggs and you being together when you were so afraid, and he did those terrible things. You’re my friend, and I care about you, and I just have to wonder if you’re making a mistake.” Yes, because it’s easier to turn this around and pin it on her than it is to let her shine a light on me another minute longer. I can’t bear it.
What’s even worse is the way her chin quivers. The way she backs up against the shelves behind her, almost like she’s leaning against them for support. The way a person dies when they’ve been knocked weak by something they weren’t expecting. I’m sure she wasn’t expecting me to judge her. There I go, hurting somebody else. It’s all I’m good at.
“How can I make you understand?” she whispers.
“You can’t, so you shouldn’t bother trying.” It’s better this way. She won’t ask so many questions if she’s not around me all the time. I wish I could make her understand this is for her sake. “Maybe you should go have fun with your bully and his bully friends.”
That was the death blow, the one that makes her suck in a breath before she turns away from me, shaking a little. Is she crying? I hate to think she is, but again, it’s for the best. This is how it needs to be.
Maybe she’ll understand someday. That’s what I have to tell myself as I leave the stacks and almost rush to another, quieter part of the first floor. This time, she doesn’t follow, but it’s only when I’ve taken a seat in an unused study pod that I’m able to release a long, shaky breath. There are partial walls blocking out most of the floor, giving me a sense of privacy. Exhaustion leaves my body slumping in the chair, the effort of holding myself together having wiped me out. It’s getting harder and harder to keep the darkness at bay while I’m in public—and run-ins like the one I had with Tucker don’t help. What’s the alternative? Running away for good? Disappearing? If only it were that easy.
Maybe I should do what Mom did and fall down the stairs. Not the first time I’ve had that thought, but it is the first time that thought seems so seductive. All of this would be over. I would finally get a break, a little peace. If I get lucky, there won’t be anybody around who knows how to help me survive.
The way couldn’t help Mom.