My one and only Love

Chapter 20

It had only taken that first moment for Maya with a pencil and paper to fall back into her old pattern, to find the release that art had always given her, pouring her soul onto the pages, filling them throughout the week…

She sat cross-legged on the floor after dinner. Josh and Auggie were playing a very intense game of go-fish at the coffee table. He usually came over for dinner at least once a week now that he was so close by. Her eyes never left Josh, but her pencil moved across the page. She sketched the smirk on his face, sketched him and Auggie both with Riley sitting behind her uncle watching the game. She loved this family so much and it showed in her art.

She focused in on his hand as he wrote, both doing their homework on the floor of the dorm room, Maya closed her Algebra book and reached for the sketch pad, her hand drawing his hand as she smiled a little. He asked what she was doing and she shrugged and replied ‘homework’.

Saturday, the day Maya got to spend the most time with Josh, she arrived in the morning – a key to his dorm in her hand. She dropped her bag on the floor and toed off her shoes and tugged off her jeans. She slipped into bed beside him in her t-shirt. He smiled, eyes opening slowly and pulled the blankets up over them both as he pulled her in close. “Morning gorgeous.” He said softly as he snuggled against her in nothing but boxers.

“Morning.” She replied as she turned in the bed to face him, nose to nose in the small space. He leaned in to kiss her once, then twice. The kisses grew deeper as they pressed together. She hooked a knee over him and shifted them both. He rolled to his back, keeping her close and she straddled his hips. She leaned down, her hair falling around them both as she kissed him.

Josh took hold of the bottom of her shirt, pulling it up as she rose away from him. Maya’s arms rose, letting him pull the shirt off her and toss it to the floor. It had become normal for Maya to show up on a Saturday morning, not getting to see one another as much during the week due to school and curfews so Saturday was their day. Maya’s hips rolled against his as she kissed him deeply. In a mess of tangled legs and roaming hands they were both naked in minutes.

He’d rolled her over, resting between her legs as she caught her breath from the way his hands worked over her body. But she wasn’t ready to be done, hooking her leg over his and pushing him against her she tilted her chin to kiss his neck. She parted her lips slightly as she let her teeth drag near his earlobe and smirked as he moaned and held her tighter. “Hang on.” He muttered, reaching towards the top drawer of the desk next to his bed that worked as half nightstand. He fumbled blindly for the condom at it while Maya kissed and bit at his neck.

After, with the TV on low and the room quiet, Maya smiled and closed her eyes. This was her favorite place to be in the world. With eyes closed she thought to her favorite sight, Josh above her, looking down on her with love and passion. He would lean in to kiss her as they made love, he would let his lips trail over her jaw and neck. When she opened them again, she looked over to see him sleeping beside her and both images became the next sketches in her book.

On her way to Dr. Embry’s office the following Wednesday, Maya realized that she would want to see the sketches she’d done. She stopped in the hall outside the lobby, ripping out the two sketches from Saturday and folding them carefully and hiding them away in her bag. There was no way anyone was seeing those.

Once inside Maya sat quietly as Dr. Embry flipped the pages in her sketchbook, looking through the images. “Hmm” She hummed a little to herself, causing Maya’s eyebrow to shoot up.

“What?”

“What happened here?” She asked, her fingers pointing to what was left of the ripped out pages in the spiral binding.

Maya eyed the paper and shrugged. “Wasn’t any good.” She lied. But there were always tells when someone lied and Dr. Embry knew but chose not to question it further.

“You have a pretty clear muse. Josh I assume?” She asked, every sketch having him in it somewhere. Maya just shrugged she didn’t really notice that they were all Josh, just knew there were a few of him. “I understand how important Josh is to you, but a person needs more in their life than a significant other. I’d really like to see more in the book than just Josh next week.” Maya rolled her eyes slightly, but it didn’t go unnoticed. “Do you draw what you see or can you draw anything?”

“I don’t know.” Maya muttered.

“I’d love to see a self-portrait.”

“I’m in one of those.” Maya muttered as she pointed to the book in her doctor’s hand.

Dr. Embry handed her the book back. “Oh I saw and it’s lovely. But I don’t mean a self-portrait of you right now. I mean one of you in ten years. In your mid-twenties. I want to see what you see for yourself in the future. What do you dream Maya? What do you want for your life?” Doctor Embry felt that going forward was going to be the only way to get Maya to go backwards and talk about what was truly hurting her. Maya went more quiet than usual as she thought about the assignment. Dr. Embry watched her for a moment. “Don’t like the assignment?”

Her brow furrowed some and while she didn’t want to admit it to the doctor she spoke softly anyway. “I don’t know how to dream. I don’t think about the future really, I just kind of focus on what makes me happy right now and get as much of it as I can.”

“And that’s why you draw Josh so much? He makes you happy?” Maya nodded. “Does anyone else make you happy?” Once upon a time Maya would have been able to answer that easily, her friends, her family, and her art. But now she didn’t feel happy thinking about any of those things. Maya didn’t realize how her face fell thinking about it and slowly shaking her head no. “Do you remember the last time something else did make you happy?”

“I don’t know.” Maya muttered trying to force back the emotion building up. But it was a lie. As soon as the question was posed, Maya’s mind went back to sitting around the bakery with her friends, laughing and Riley’s arm around her. She’d gotten an A on a test which was big for Maya. They’d all studied together and worked hard and Katy treated them all to smoothies after school to celebrate. It was almost 24 hours exactly before her mother died. Her eyes began to well a little as the one memory flowed into the next and she was overflowing with feelings of her mother but as soon as Dr. Embry held up a box of tissues Maya was shaking her head and took in a sharp breath. “I’m fine.” Still not ready to face it.