glimpses

"I'll have to stop calling you bambina"

Maya startles awake. She bats her eyelids, trying to regain her senses to figure out what had awoken her.

The room's quiet and dark, there's barely any light coming from outside indicating that it's still the middle of the night.

There's no smell of smoke so definitely there wasn't a fire in the house.

Maybe it was just a gust of wind, she thinks.

She exhales, her lids falling shut once again but as she's adjusting her head on the pillow a sob cuts through the silence of the room.

Her eyes fly open.

Carina.

She quickly rushes to sit up on her knees, facing Carina. She finds her sitting, her head resting on the headboard, hot tears streaming down her face.

"Car, what's wrong?" she rushes to ask, "babe, are you okay?"

With the back of her hand she wipes some tears out of her face, while the other goes to her hair, tucking some of it behind her ear before starting to stroke it in an attempt to calm her down but that seems to upset the Italian even more.

Carina breaks down in sobs and stretches her arms in her direction. Maya easily falls into them, hugging her waist and resting her head in the crook of her neck.

They stay like that for a while, until Carina's cries calm down.

"I'll have to stop calling you bambina," she mumbles in between milder sobs.

Maya frowns. "What? Why?"

"Because if the baby is a girl then she'll be a bambina so I can't call you that anymore."

Maya is sure that's the moment her heart starts beating normally again.

"Babe, why does that make you think you would need to stop? Of course you can still call me bambina," she reassures her.

"Are you sure?" she sniffles.

"I am."

Her left hand travels to her still flat abdomen, caressing it.

"We'll both be your bambinas, don't worry," she mumbles, leaving a kiss on her neck.

"Bambine," Carina corrects her.

"That's what I meant."