Maya - The Novel

When she set the breakfast on the table, I couldn't resist pulling her in for a kiss. "Thank you for cooking," I said.

She crossed her arms over her chest. "What did I say about this 'thank you' business?"

"Oh, right." I smiled sheepishly. "Well, it smells delicious anyway."

"Now that you can say." She climbed onto the barstool and plated the omelettes. "How's the coffee?"

I took a sip and swirled it around my tongue. It was strong and almost sweet. I'd never tasted this blend before.

"It's really good. What is it?" I asked.

"It's an Indian brand - we like our coffee strong. There's nothing better than filter coffee."

"I could get used to this," I commented, taking a deeper sip. She didn't say anything as she took a bite of her omelette.

We ate in silence for a bit.

"Would you like to tell me what happened, Gray?" she asked a little later, adding milk and sugar to her coffee.

I took my time chewing. "It was a long time ago. I really thought I was over it."

"How long?"

"Almost seventeen years now. I joined the Axes when I was thirteen. I can tell you now that it was stupid, but at the time I just wanted to feel like I belonged somewhere."

"I know what it feels like to not belong." She placed a hand on mine, trying to comfort me. "It's horrible."

I nodded. "My mom passed when I was young so I went into the system. Every kid hopes they'll be taken in by someone decent, if not kind. I guess I pulled the short straw. My foster parents took four of us in. They weren't cruel, but we were always aware that we were there for their checks. Rodney - my foster dad - had a job but it didn't pay enough. That's why they needed us.

"When I think about that time, I can only say it felt like someone had set me adrift. I went to school but had no friends. My mother's death still weighed heavily on me. I can't remember ever having any relatives and no one came forward to ask how I was doing. So I just... existed."

Maya's fingers tightened on mine.

"When I went back to college to become a counselor, I realized that I was a prime candidate for the Axes. They probably saw me coming from a mile away. They recruited young. Kids dealing drugs - in those days anyway - were only slapped on the wrist. Nothing major."

"So you were..."

"Dealing cocaine at fifteen, yeah. I was happy doing it, too. I was helping something bigger, you know? Belonging. Living.

"And that's how I met Ash. She'd dropped out of school a couple years before. I really looked up to her. She was a good leader, a good friend. I know it sounds weird but we were like brothers, real tight."

Maya nodded, taking a sip of her coffee. "I met Jean, my mentor, one night while I was dealing. We had corners we'd take, our own turf. I thought he was just a weird guy who would stand with me, share a smoke, and talk about the most stupid shit. He never bought anything offa me but I got used to him being there. Sometimes I looked forward to it, you know? It got lonely at night.

"And then one night he invited me to his shop. I was like 'hell no' at first - what a creep, right? But the artists were all still there doing their thing so it seemed safe enough with other people around. He took me in, showed me what he did."

I could feel a smile curling my lips. "He was a wily bastard. It was only a few years later that I realized what he'd done. He'd distracted me from the drugs. I soon began working less and visiting the shop more. I'd even set aside time each night to stop by and watch the artists work. Jean let me sketch out my own practice stencils."

"He sounds like a good man," Maya commented.

"The best." I was smiling in earnest now. "He really was the best. I still don't know why he picked me or what he saw in me. He never said. The more he pulled me in, the more I disassociated from the Axes. You bet your ass they noticed that I was bringing in less money."

I swallowed, feeling the panic well up again. "They followed me one night to Jean's shop and waited until he'd locked up for the night. I usually got the last train home; they knew this. So they waited for me."

"Gray, you can stop if you need to," Maya interjected, squeezing my hand again.

I shook my head. "I can get through this. Most of that night was a blur for a long time until the bits came together, one nightmare at a time. I mostly remember it through feelings, you know? Sensations, words. Those are the things that hurt the most.

"They called me a liar, said I'd betrayed them. The one thing that haunts me is Ash's face. She was my brother, my leader, and the look on her face was... she believed I'd betrayed them, too. Betrayed her. But I hadn't. I just wanted a better life. I was shown a better life, something that I might actually be good at. Just a different way to belong. You know?"

"Yes."

"The thing that haunts me the most is the sound of Ash's boot on my chest. She used to wear this beautiful pair of Doc Martens. I'd admired them so many times. Hell, I'd even been saving up for a pair of my own... and then I saw it come down on top of me, again and again. She broke my ribs. The sound of it haunts me, baby."

I could feel myself getting breathless.

Maya got off her chair and draped an arm around my shoulders. "Is that what you dream about?"

I nodded. "Most of the time, that's when I wake up. When I feel her boot coming down on my chest."

"Here?" she asked, placing a palm on the center of my chest.

"Yeah."

She let her touch linger, the warmth of her palm comforting against my skin. I felt my breaths ease a little as she leaned in close and placed her forehead against mine.

"Like you said, Gray. This was seventeen years ago. Maybe it keeps coming back to you because there are things still left unsaid."

I cupped my hand over hers. "Like what?"

"I don't know. You were close with Ash, right? Maybe you just can't process how or why she turned on you so quickly."

"Maybe, yeah."

"Maybe you're looking for answers."

I frowned. "What are you saying?"

"Face your demons, Gray. Go find Ash and ask her all the whys you need to."

I started to shake my head but stopped. Why shouldn't I? Why was the idea so repulsive to me? Did Ash inspire such crippling fear that I didn't want to face her? I was no longer a scrawny teen with limbs too long for her frame. If she decided to pull something now, I could take her. I think.

Maya's arm tightened around my neck.

"I'm not talking about fighting it out, Gray," she chastised.

"How did you -"

"Your whole body just tensed. It wasn't difficult."

"Okay." I took a breath and tried to relax my shoulders. "I'll think about it."

"Good." She placed a chaste kiss on my cheek and pulled away. "Let me get these dishes done and I wanna try something new with you."

"Goddamnit, I left my toy bag at home." I slapped my hand on the counter dramatically, trying to lighten the mood a little.

Although she rolled her eyes, I could tell she was trying her hardest not to laugh. "Is that all you ever think about?"

"Around you, baby, yes."

"Shameless," she censured, piling the dishes in the sink.

"Let me help you with that," I insisted, taking a final sip of the coffee.

"No, baby. Why don't you do me a favor, though, and do some push-ups?"

I raised an eyebrow. "What?"

She had a cheeky smile on her face. "Just do it."

"Okay." I dragged the word out. "Is this some kind of weird pervert thing?"

She rolled her eyes again. "No. Will you just trust me?"

"All right, all right."

I did a few quick stretches and took my position on the carpet. After my first set, I heard her mumble to herself, "Maybe it is a weird pervert thing."

That made me smile.

When she came around the counter with her phone, I was already into my third set.

"That's enough, baby. You can get up."

I was really starting to wonder what this was all about.

"Now take your hoodie off."

"What? Why?"

"Just trust me, okay?"

Skeptical but trusting her anyway, I slipped the hoodie over my head. Clad in just my boxers, I awaited further instruction.

"Now go stand by the window. Face it and look back at me. Goddamn, your muscles are so defined now."

As I looked back at her, I heard her camera go off several times. I raised a brow at her but she only kept taking more pictures, a small sneaky smile on her lips.

"You got a few hairs out of place. Just run your fingers through them real quick."

As I did, she snapped more pictures.

"Perfect!" She was so pleased with herself as she flipped through the pictures.

"Can I see them?" I asked.

"Not until I'm done with them. Seriously, just trust me, okay?"

I shrugged. What did I have to lose?

"But you gotta do something for me in return."

"What?" Now it was her turn to be suspicious.

"Take a picture with me."

A smile lit her face. "Of course. I'll just set the timer."

She set up the phone against the windowsill and ran into my arms. I hugged her from behind, burying my nose against her ear.

"That tickles, Gray, stop!" She laughed, trying to get me off her, just as the shutter noise went off.

I thought it was a great picture with both of us goofing off.

She said her nostrils looked too big.

It was going to be my wallpaper anyway.

"So what are the pictures for?"

She plopped herself down on the couch and fiddled with her phone. "You know how you were talking about improving your social media stats the other day? I found a way you can do that."

"I get naked for Instagram? Sorry, baby, I don't wanna be no Instaho."

She cleared her throat. "I'm not talking about being a ho. Just half a ho."

"What?!"

"I'm kidding! Here, have a look at this."

She handed me her phone and all I could do was blink. Surely, that wasn't me.

"Did you photoshop this?"

"On my phone? No." She swiped left. "This is the original. I just changed the colors around a little bit on an app."

"I look fucking amazing. Jesus. Is this what you see?"

"Someone's modest," Maya mumbled under her breath.

"I'm sorry but this is a gorgeous picture." In it, I stood leaning against the window, running a hand through my hair, one brow raised, the sun streaming around me. I looked like a model.

"I'm impressed, baby. You're so talented."

"Thank you," her smile was infectious. "Anyway, I was thinking you could take a few more pictures like these and join a few fitness groups online. Team Fit Ink, for example. People love following fitstagrammers. Plus, you're masculine, tattooed and gorgeous - I bet you'll confuse a lot of girls. Now you just gotta work on your tags so that the right people can find you and maybe even promote you."

"That's a great idea. Why didn't Chesca tell me this?"

"Maybe cause you're her boss? How do you tell your boss to get naked on Instagram?"

Maya had a point.

"Let's post the first picture and see how it goes down," I suggested. "But first, send me the picture of us. I'm gonna make it my wallpaper."

She groaned. "But my nostrils!"

I could only laugh.

#

Chapter 11

By December, we'd fallen into a comfortable routine, somewhere between "committed" and "just dating". I got the feeling that Maya didn't want to talk about the future - she said it was "complicated", and from that, I gathered it had something to do with her family. So I didn't push - being pushy wasn't my thing anyway. I think. For now.

We saw each other a few times a week. When her mother was in town, she would come over to my place under the pretense of "going to the gym" and we'd just hang for a while. Maybe watch a movie or, you know, the good stuff. Did I wish she could stay over so that I could wake her up with a kiss on her forehead and hear her little breaths of "five more minutes"? Sure, I did. But I was also content to let her lead the way.

She'd gotten quite close to my counseling group... and it had somehow happened without my knowledge. Maya was a pretty good secret keeper, it turned out. Apparently, a few of them now had a Facebook chat where they caught up on the daily. I didn't mind. It felt like Maya was more a part of my life than ever before.

It really crushed me when she said she was heading home for two weeks over Christmas. Granted, I'm not sure why I thought she'd be spending Christmas with me when she'd told me countless times about her strict Christian parents. Wishful thinking on my part, I guess.

Two weeks seemed like an eternity, even with her promise to FaceTime me whenever she could. The imprint of the last kiss she'd placed on my lips still lingered a week later.

The shop was closed for a week over Christmas and through the New Year. With not much else to do in the flat and needing to compensate for the homey but indulgent Christmas dinner with the crew the day before, I turned Netflix on in the background and started on my reps. I'd just started on the third when the buzzer rang. My brows rose. I wasn't expecting anyone and the mail wasn't due until the 27^th at least.

I set the weights down and ran a towel over my face before flicking the intercom switch.

"Yeah?"

"Hey, uh, it's Alex. Maya's friend?"

Alarm gripped me. "Did something happen?"

"No, no," her voice was a faint crackle over the system. "I was just in the neighborhood and wanted to say hi."

Unable to shake off the alarm, my brows furrowed. "Come on up."

She showed up at my door with a bottle of Jack Daniels and an awkward smile.

"Merry Christmas! Don't mean to crash. I brought drinks."

"Okay," I drew out the word as I shut the door. "Why?"

She looked sheepish. "Well, Maya was worried about you."

"She was worried about me? I'm not the one 10,000 miles away."

"Well... you kinda are."

We just stood in front of the door, staring at each other for a few uncomfortable seconds.

"Anyway," Alex cleared her throat. "I promised Maya I'd come see if you were okay. She said you were pretty bummed when she told you she needed to go home for Christmas."

I shook my head and sat heavily in my favorite lounge chair. "So, you're like what? My babysitter?"

Alex held up the bottle. "Did your babysitter ever bring you a bottle of JD?"

"Fine," I said, gesturing for her to sit. "You really didn't have to, you know. I'm fine."

"I'm sure you are, Gray. You want me to leave?"

"You got any plans?"

She shook her head. "You?"

"Nah. You wanna hang then?"

This wasn't awkward at all.

"Sure."

I got us some whiskey glasses from the cupboard and she poured us a couple of shots, which we both drank pretty quickly.

"So..."

"How's business?" Alex asked, getting comfortable on the couch.

"Good. We're booked up till February."

"Nice."

"And how's... what you do?"

"I'm a writer at Kult Magazine and yes, it's going great."

"Good for you."

We drank in silence for a few minutes.

Then I asked, "Why did you decide to move here?"

Alex shrugged. "Things weren't really good for me back home." She paused to take a sip of her drink. "Family drama and all that."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"I'm not. I think it's the best decision I've ever made. I can marry the love of my life here and no one can deny us that right."

"So things in Singapore are..."

"Conservative," she finished for me. "Most people have a 'live and let live' kinda attitude but we're far from getting any legal rights."

"I see. Like America in the Nineties."

"Exactly."

"It must've been hard to leave your family behind," I ventured.

She shrugged again. "I was living with my grandmother and then by myself for a few years anyway. So... it wasn't that difficult."

I poured myself another glass.

"You wanna talk about it? I'm a licensed counselor, I promise."

She stared into her drink, twirling the glass around.

"Maybe," she said after a long pause. "Mind if I get comfortable?"

She tried to put a brave face on but I could tell that it was hard for her to open up. But what shook me was that it was even harder for me to hear what she had to say. The level of discrimination she'd faced from her family was almost unbelievable; I had to remind myself constantly that what I was hearing was someone's truth.

"So, you know," she finished. "It's very hard for people... like us... to be out. Or come out in the community. Sometimes things make it impossible."

And then it clicked. She didn't open up because she wanted my help. She didn't need advice. She was sitting there, her eyes full of sadness, because all this wasn't about her... it was about Maya.

She was sad for me.

"I see."

"Do you, Gray?" she asked, her question a mirror to one Maya would've asked. I felt my throat thicken so I merely nodded.

"You okay?" she asked, sinking back into the couch and propping her legs up on the chair.

I nodded again, trying to force a smile. "I appreciate you telling me this."

"I really didn't mean to upset you."

"I'm not upset." Even to me, that sounded fake. Remember that scene from Friends where Ross drinks a shitload of margaritas and goes around telling everyone he's fine? I probably sounded a lot like that.

"Hey, look," Alex said, setting her drink down. "I'm not saying that things won't work out between you and Maya."

"You're just saying that things could get difficult." I finished her thought.

"Yeah. But Maya is worth fighting for."

She reached over and topped up my glass.

"I know," I returned. "'Cause I'm not giving her up so easily."

I extended my glass and we toasted to happy endings.

"Speaking of, how go the wedding plans?"

Alex groaned and shut her eyes. "Bad. Just bad. We can't agree on anything."

I felt a smile touch my lips. "Like what?"

"The flowers, the food, what we're wearing... Get this, she doesn't want me to wear a white tux."

I choked on a sip of JD. "Why would you want to wear a white tux? You're gonna look like-"

"The colonel, I know. But I've always wanted to wear one at my wedding. I think it'll be beautiful."

I tried not to grimace and nodded instead. "Well, why don't both of you go to a boutique and try on your outfits? She might change her mind if she sees how good you look in one." And you might change your mind once you see yourself in one, too.

"Maybe," she nodded. "She also wants to spend $2,000 on flowers. Flowers!"

She said it like it was the most ridiculous thing in the world.

"Alex, you know your woman better than I do. If this is going to make her happy, then why not say, 'up to you, darling' and leave it at that?"

"I don't know. I guess I want this to be our wedding, you know? Not something she set up and I'm just along for the ride."

"Well..." I started.

"You think I should just go along for the ride?"

"No, you should compromise. If she says yes to the tux, let her have the flowers. It's not a win-win but it's something both of you could be somewhat happy with."

"I suppose." She let her head drop back onto the couch. "This whiskey is getting to me."

I looked at the clock. It was just past seven. "Do you have to get home?"

She shook her head. "Cady's out for a girl's night with her friend."

"Great." I stood and headed to the small kitchen area. I kept my stash of munchies in a cabinet in the far corner. Reaching up, I pulled out a few packets of Cheetos and tossed one her way. "Let's have a girl's night of our own."

She caught the pack and tore into it. "Deal. On one condition."

"What?" I said, my fingers itching to be coated with orange goodness.

"You don't call this a girl's night ever again."