11 - SHE HAD BEEN FIGHTING HERSELF TOO

Serena left her fingers right on my cheeks, and was now looking at me like she had finally run out of places to hide.

“Then tell me,” I whispered to her while turning my face right into her palm. Serena took a slow breath and shifted right against the pillows. “When you left for the university, I told myself that the distance should make everything easier.”

I then watched her slowly while she was tracing the back of her hand with my thumb. “Did it?” I asked her, while I was afraid of the answer. Serena gave me a small shake of her head before meeting my eyes again.

“It made me realize how much,” she disclosed while rubbing her thumb right across my knuckles. “Admitting why I missed you was another thing. I knew what Ethan would see if I crossed that line.”

Serena stared down at our joined hands before moving on. “And every time I remembered who you were to Ethan, I reminded myself where the line was.”

I pulled my hand back from hers. “No, right?” I repeated, staring at her, while Serena caught my fingers again before I could take it away completely.

“That isn’t what I mean,” she corrected me while tightening her hold on my finger. “You were eighteen when you left, Maya, and I had already spent a while telling myself that whatever you felt and had for me belonged to a different part of your life. I thought protecting you was never giving those feelings somewhere to land.”

Serena’s voice softened as she was starring on my face. “So I kept my distance. When you called, I answered, but I never gave you anything I thought could make your feelings harder to understand.”

“You really thought I would grow out of it?” I asked Serena while also staring at her face. Her mouth tightened before she nodded. “I hoped you would because loving me was never something I wanted you to carry alone.”

“And now when I came home?” I asked while leaning closer to her. Serena looked at me for a long time as something unguarded crossed her face. “Then you came home, and suddenly none of that distance mattered.”

My breath caught as she still came closer to me despite the discomfort around her injury. “You walked into the airport looking very different, but then you smiled at me exactly the way you used to, and for one stupid second, I forgot every reason I had ever given myself.”

I remembered that moment too at the airport where her hand was on my suitcase, and the way she stared at me before giving me that warm hug. I wondered, in the times I was away if she would even notice that I had changed, but she had noticed immediately.

“You were fighting yourself too?” I asked her while brushing my thumb over her fingers. “Maybe, yes,” she had to admit while moving a strand of hair away from my face.

“Those times I called you my love,” Serena continued while holding my gaze, “I didn’t always think before saying it”

I lowered my eyes before asking her the question that was still bothering me. “And Claire?” Serena exhaled slowly while also resting her head right against the pillow. “Claire was real, Maya, and I cared about her.”

She squeezed my hand slightly. “But there were some things I just couldn’t give to her.”

My gaze met our hands. “So the kiss wasn’t because you were scared of the feelings you had because I was here?” I asked her while searching her face. Serena shook her head slightly. 

“No,” she replied while bringing my hand closer to her breast. “I wanted the kiss before tonight.”

There was this warm feeling that moved through me. Serena watched me with the same seriousness that was following her confession. “It wasn’t a mistake,” She went on, squeezing my hand.

“But I need you to know something,” Serena warned me while still holding my gaze. “Wanting you doesn’t really make Ethan okay with this, and it doesn’t make our families understand. It also doesn’t clear away Claire or the years before you came back home.”

I swallowed. “I am not asking you to erase anything.” I said, while her thumb moved slowly towards my hand as she answered, “I know that, but I need you to let me be honest, even when the honest answer is difficult.”

There were things I wanted to ask her. How many nights had she thought about me? How many moments had she stopped herself because Ethan was somewhere in the back of her mind? But before I could ask, the door opened.

The door of the hospital room we were in opened, and neither of us noticed it at first. Serena was still watching me when a shadow fell across the doorway. Then Ethan came in, and he placed one of his hands against the frame.

His face immediately changed as his eyes moved from Serena to our joined hands and then came back to me, as though he had just walked into a conversation he was not ready to hear. I straightened myself on the chair, but didn’t release my hand.

“How long have you been in love with her?” He asked while staring directly and firmly at me. My entire body became still, and Serena’s fingers tightened around me.

I opened my mouth to talk, but I couldn’t. Ethan walked without looking away, and somehow, I didn’t see anger on his face. There was only a question I had spent a long time avoiding.

My gaze met his, and then met Serena's, knowing that whatever I opened my mouth to say next would change the three of us forever, starting tonight.