It's just ours

20 Young and beautiful

Maya's pov

Guilt had always been a constant feeling in my life. Whatever I did when I was a teenager was followed by guilt: eating something more than I should, not being able to run fast enough, not breaking my record, but mostly disappointing my father.

Disappointing someone was one of my biggest fear.

Carina has improved this side of me, she managed to make me understand that I didn't have to be perfect to be appreciated. She loved me, no matter what.

She reassured me when I cut my hair, personally arranging it and stroking it when she had the chance. She reassured me when I lost my job as Captain of 19, spending our wedding night holding me and remembering how much she loved me and didn't marry me as Captain but as Maya. She reassured me when we found out we couldn't have children, despite her sadness, she worked hard to be the rock between us.

Those were my thoughts while I was driving my car back home.

We couldn't just take half a day for ourselves and hope that our problems would magically disappear, we had to talk, confront each other and find a solution together. We could afford a couple of days alone in the past, not now. The girls had already witnessed our fight and didn't react well, we had to avoid any kind of discussion in front of them.

Meanwhile, I was making a mental list of things I wanted to talk about with my wife. Maya queen of clipboard.

Surely we could not overlook the fact that we needed a better routine, we thought it would be easier to look after two children, but it was very difficult to manage everything, so Carina had found herself looking after them most of the time.

The second thing was that we both needed a vacation. Both Carina and I had never needlessly lost days of work, so we definitely had many saved days that we could use to spend time with the girls. Now that Lisa could walk, we could expand our horizons and travel more. I had to think of a place that Carina would appreciate, and I already had some ideas.

But first of all, the adoption problem.

The girls were still unaware of everything, and I didn't know how to deal with it either. This whole thing, the fact that we look after them in the six weeks of the pre-adoption class was crazy.

I was sure Carina knew what to do. She always knew what to do.

When I got home I waited for Carina at the front door, and we walked in together, almost as if it was our first time. I closed the door behind my shoulders and took a deep breath. When I turned around I was wrapped in an embrace, one of those needy hugs, that warm your heart and make you feel protected from the world, as if I had a shield around me.

She was taller than me, but that didn't stop her from hiding her head inside the space of my neck. I wrapped my arms around her waist and held her close to me, until I heard a little sob coming from under my chin. "Carina?"

"I'm sorry" she immediately apologized lifting her head from where it was.

"You can cry Babe, you can cry, because I need to cry too and I can't do that alone" I laughed sarcastically. "I'm sorry, my humor is not funny"

"It's okay Bambina, let's sit on the couch for some time, okay?" She asked taking her hand in mine. "We can sit there and just stay silent or you can talk about your feelings if it helps; I overheard your conversation with Diane and she said that, I'm sorry if I'm overstepping"

I let out a long sigh, she was right, I had to talk about what I felt. My long therapy session made it really clear, I held them inside for too long, and despite not being used to it, I promised Carina to be the best version of myself for her and for our future children.