Maya's Next Step

Part 25

Maya POV 

"Right bub, no running today please," I said seriously to Elva as I bent down to her height. 

We were outside the school gates about to go in to drop Elva off at school. Carina had to go into work a little earlier this morning, one of her expecting patients had gone into labour earlier than everybody had expected so she was paged first thing. 

"But I miss you," Elva wined, pulling on my arm to stop me from walking onto the playground. 

"And I really missed you too when I had to go to work, but I'll let you into a secret, you know when Carina and I left yesterday morning?" I asked her. 

She nodded. 

"The first thing I did was cry," I told her. 

"You cried?" she asked, tilting her head to the side. 

"Hmm, because I was already missing you. But I knew that I had to go to work and you had to go to school and I'd see you later on," I explained. 

"I see you later?" she asked softly. 

"As soon as school is over, you will be walking to the station with a chaperone and some other kids on their way home," I clarified. 

Again she nodded but this time turned to face the school gate.

"Come on bub," I said, attempting again to walk Elva into school. 

Before leaving her in class, I had another word with her teacher and explained why she ran away yesterday, Miss Thomas understood and said she'd be watching her like a hawk today. I waved a final goodbye to Elva and headed off to the station. 

The first call of the day came in an hour after shift had started. A three car collision, not a very nice call at all but thankfully all passengers made it to the hospital. 

"So Elva called Carina mama last night," I told Andy as we were working out in the gym. 

"Ahh that's amazing," she squealed. 

"Ahh that's not amazing?" she said, seeing my straight face. 

I sped the treadmill up and continued running. 

"Maya? What's wrong with her calling Carina mama?" she pushed, leaning against the treadmill. 

"Nothing, nothing at all," I said. 

"She's not called you mommy yet," Andy said figuring out the reason for my mood. 

"You're jealous," she added. 

"No," I panted. 

"Yes you are, you're Maya Bishop. You compete for everything and you're sulking because Carina won the mama race," she smirked. 

I sped the treadmill up even further. 

"No, she was crying and exhausted, Carina even said she doesn't think Elva even realised that she'd said it," I said in between breaths. 

"Then what's with the super-fast treadmill running?" she laughed. 

I pressed the stop button and jumped my legs either side of the treadmill. I dabbed my face with the towel and caught my breath. 

"I don't know. This is new to me, these feelings are new. I've never been a mom before, I've never even had more than one or two conversations with a kid. I just feel like if she called me momma, mom, mommy whatever, I'd know I was doing a good job." I ranted out quickly.