be safe, bambina

chapter 8

Andy and Carina got their things and started to leave the room, Carina stopped at the door, and turned around walking up to her wife in the bed, placed a gentle kiss to her temple and whispered, "I love you," to Maya.

Maya's eyes started to well up in tears.

"I hate that she has to see me like this," Maya said to Dr. Lewis.

"Like what? Recovering from an accident, something you couldn't have prevented," Dr. Lewis questioned.

"No, weak," Maya said.

Dr. Lewis knew right there, that this had nothing to do with Carina and everything to do with Maya's relationship to her father.

"Maya, do you remember the conversation we had about you breathing and sleeping and loving in this life? Carina is all of those things to you. She helps you breathe easier, sleep easier, love easier and the last thing that would cross her mind is you being weak," she said.

"You have lived your life in the shadow of your father, feeling like in order to be the best, you had to beat the best. You could only move forward and never really feel your emotions, until you met your wife, who promised to love you through sickness and health."

"I just feel like being basically strapped to a bed for so long that I became more of a nuisance than a wife. I haven't been able to hold her or help her or really do anything for her or with her...and not that those things alone make me a wife, but they help her make her days better and I can't do those things when I am recovering from a brain injury," Maya said.

"I just never want her, or anyone, to see me in a state of helplessness because that is when I feel weak, not good enough, not worthy and certainly more like a problem than a solution."

"That is the issue here Maya...is that you're looking at this like it is a problem, when in reality, this recovery is just an experience. There is no right and there is no wrong," Diane said. "And you avoiding the care you need for your anxiety, that is the problem. That is what is pushing your best friend and your wife away. That needs just as much care as your physical injuries."

"How did you feel right before you threw up?"

Maya knew right there, that Dr. Lewis was right. No matter how much it pained her to hear those words, she was right.

"I really need to talk to Carina," Maya said.

Diane walked out of the room to get Carina.

"Is she okay?" she said.

"Yes, she just wants you in here with her," Dr. Lewis replied.

Carina opened the door to Maya, whose cheeks were rosey, her nose was stuffy and her long black eyelashes damp from her tears.

She walked fast to sit next to her wife, immediately grabbing Maya's left hand, kissing the top of it.

"I'm okay, I just..." Maya said, already getting choked up.

"Just tell her what you told me, what you're feeling, what you're afraid of," Dr. Lewis said. "Like I tell all of you at 19, there is no judgement behind these closed doors, only growth and understanding."

"I am sorry that I snapped at you...I was afraid of showing weakness, of you seeing me and looking at me like I was weak and helpless. I was looking at it like a problem I had to solve, that my recovery was the problem, that it was wrong of me," Maya said. She started to cry. "That it was wrong of me that you had to take care of me at all hours of the day, helping me do mundane things that I couldn't do myself. I was looking at it like I was a problem and that it was all my fault; I felt that I wasn't a wife to you, more of a bother and a patient at home, like that you weren't away from your job."

"Bambina...," Carina said with tears in her eyes.

"I am sorry it took me so long to notice or accept help," Maya concluded. "I am really okay, and that's only because of you, because you keep me safe."