NOTHING BUT A BAD TASTE. (✓)

14. SQUARE ONE.

( unedited )

BEHIND THE THE SMOKED GLASS window, Maya sat in the backseat of their Mercedes and watched the graceful scattering of the autumnal leaves glide in the wind and then the sink to the ground, somewhat pensive with its dusk setting and with the man who occupied the seat next to her. It had been an err on her part to extend an invite to Ebén but she had only done so to keep her house in order.

Space, she needed it so desperately — but she had no right to ask that of him, and so, pretended there was no need for one and packaged away her feelings.

"Hey," Ebén said to her warmly, his thumbprints pressed to the exposed part of her thigh.

"Hi," Maya's tone was absent of warmth.

Whilst, she inwardly acknowledged that Ebén wasn't just any man impinging her mental space — her head was still messy with thoughts. Thoughts that she hadn't taken time to process or figure out herself. She was determined not to say the wrong thing but she felt... something constrict her chest. Something heavy, something bound to complicate shit.

Maybe she co — but she couldn't dare think it.

Her muddled brain was already pondering the possibility of staging that talk with Reuben. She had clear intentions; wanting to finally draw a line in the sand, and give him room to explain... his misdeeds.

Since, she had assumed her own reasons about to why he had done what he done but was also interested in his own why.

Maybe, it wouldn't... really hurt to hear him out?

She wondered if the feeling of being publicly shamed by him made her rash all those years ago, when it would have cost her nothing to hear him out.

But, she was also contending with the fact, that she was happy and didn't want to continue keeping secrets — about her ex, from Ebén, especially when he had allowed her to curate a home in his heart and had loved the whole of her, despite her darkness.

Her inner secrets felt like, and smelt akin to the singe of betrayal, stained with a charred black.

It sounded absurd in her head.

She knew that much particularly when she was firmly aware of all the mental hell that Reuben that had lumped on her, having no regard for her hurt. But, she couldn't continue to stay in limbo, with questions that were bound to make her brain burst.

Ebén deserved a woman who was wholly and absolutely committed; and right now she was not. 

"Bonita?" She heard her name fall out of his mouth and mustered out a lax, bothered reply.

"Uh-huh?"

Maya couldn't brave matching Ebén's gaze, choosing instead to keep her eyes plugged to the tinted-dark glass; for fear that he'd read her like a book. She half-expected that he would ask her to look at him, and demand the whole of her attention, which she would inevitably end up doing and he would see the very thing hiding in her heart, etched on her face.

But, to her surprise, he didn't. Instead he said, "Baby, we're here. Want me to open your door or y — "

"I got it," Maya said, rushed, her hand pressed to the door lever and bundling herself out. Alexei and Ebén's eyes simultaneously flocked to the empty seat that Maya had just vacated, then back up to the pregnant woman who waddled up the plots of land.

Ebén's athletic posture was bent as he huffed a long-drawn out sigh to himself, and grabbed his phone.

"Lord. Women, man."