Are You Sure? (Marina)

Sixty.

A/N: This is the longest chapter by far, buckle in and please comment? Idk do you!
__________________

Carina

There were small moments of my life when time felt slower, small moments that took my breath away and comforted me. It was like a rush that passed through me and told me I was right where I should be. I felt it when I chose my specialty, when I decided to try my luck with my study in the US, when I made risky calls in the OR. All moments that started after my mamma passed, I always took them as her sign that she was with me.

The night I looked up and saw Maya I felt my whole body freeze, for a second I was stuck. Not to mention the moment I looked into her eyes for the first time and she smiled. For a moment, the world stopped spinning.

A golden smile that rang every bell in my head and stirred every cell of my body. It was a feeling that never disappeared after the first night I kissed her. To kiss Maya was like breathing, I didn't know I'd need it every day— all day— until I went without one.

Now as I stand here watching her eyes wash over after she sang the song Vic played for us, love me tender never rang so true. Maya couldn't love me any other way. It wasn't a sentence Maya threw out as an afterthought. I felt it each time. I felt it standing here looking at her eyes. How present she was, here, in this moment with me and nowhere else.

It made the fights we had in the days leading up to now not feel so suffocating, so important. All that mattered was here and now, giving myself to the woman of my life, wholey and without doubt in my heart.

"I understand you both wanted to exchange vows," Andrea said and I smiled at her, ready to hear what she had prepared.

Except I don't think she was, her eyes widened and the grip on my hands loosened. "Carina... I'm so sorry... I can't—"

~*~

Twelve days, twelve days that I've now slept comfortably, pain alleviated. There wasn't an ache or a spasm. The cold didn't make me rue life, I could fall asleep in shorts again and it was heavenly.

Maybe this was it, maybe all my leg needed was a break of the inflammation cycle it had been on and the real healing could begin. There was a moment when the first injection started to wear away that I doubted, but now with the second one I could not wait to dance at my wedding to move and not wonder if my leg will give away.

I hugged my pillow closer since I was officially on vacation. Tomorrow was a sleep away and then I'd be the happiest woman in the world.

An unexpected limb slipped over my torso and moved up to my chest as the rest of Maya's body met my back. To my surprise she hadn't gotten up and gone running as she usually did. Not that I was complaining, I loved morning cuddles in bed. Wake up calls even more. It soothed the distance that was starting to frustrate me.

Maya hadn't spoken about work since her meeting, she dismissed it and told me it was nothing to worry about, which only left me to worry more. When Maya went silent it meant there was more, more she was pushing down and suffocating herself with. More runs. More distance. More anxiety.

More separation from us and I wish I could crack into her mind and just see what weighed her down and made her push distance between us.

Though when her soft warm lips met the skin left exposed by my tank top, I welcomed them. Her kisses were like jolts of electricity to my body, igniting a desire never really gone, always waiting for her touch or her words to bring it to the surface.