Corona VS Love

Maya

16.March.2020
"What're you doing here?!" My voice was harsh yet quite. She hesitated for a split of second.
I turned to say my goodbyes to Margaret, "it was nice talking to you! Truly." I said politely.
She nodded, "it was a pleasure."
I stood up, giving my attention to Maya, whose hair was shorter than last time I'd seen her, her face was paler and her eyes were red as blood.
"I wasn't sure it was you." She stuttered, leaving a distance between us like she always did when we fought.
"It's me! After all these months." I said, coughing through my sentence.
"I didn't know anyone here and than I recognized that it might be you!" She said, looking at me the way she always did, showing her dark eyes when she was scared.
I didn't reply, instead I took a glance at Abby! She was still on her chair, in her paradox!
My gaze travelled back to maya, who didn't catch my gazes.
"What happened to you?!" She asked! When did she ever care?! "I mean about catching the virus and all that." She stuttered again, trying to cover her question and worried tone In her voice.
"Long story really." I said, coldly. She sensed my annoyance and so she started to step away from me slowly.
I couldn't talk to her without yelling and asking her how she just left like that, months ago like we were nothing.
Some people don't even have the privilege to be just your friend after walking all over you and playing with your feelings.
She started to look around her as if she were processing what she should do next, whilst guilt took over me.
You can't stand her but she was here all alone and she only knew you, be a gentleman, we are in crisis you should be more understanding, I thought to myself.
"Why don't you come sit with us?!" I invited her gently. I knew it was a bad idea but I should be more mature about it. We are all adults here, I thought.
She was amazed when I said "us", her eyes were speaking so loud. However, she nodded, following my footsteps.
Abby was back to life when I was near her, her eyes were on maya, exchanging glances between me and maya.
"Abby, this is maya! One of my old friends." 'Friend' was so hard said on my teeth.
"Maya, this is Abby, my wife" 'wife' word struck on maya so hard, her eyes were so loud.
"Nice meeting you, Maya"
"You too!"
Maya's face (or at least the part that appeared from under the mask) changed 100 percent but Abby didn't realize it. Only someone who knew maya very well would recognize such a behavior.
Abby smiled innocently, " it's really nice to know one of his old friends, even though it would've been better if we were under another circumstances."
"Yeah" maya smiled, breaking the ice that was built by our past. I never told Abby about maya, she hinted that there was someone else in my life but never heard the story from me.
It wasn't my favorite story, anyway!
Maya was sitting on the seat across from Abby while I sat beside Abby on the nearest chair, holding my coughs  that were getting worse and worse as much as  I could.
"How did you end up here?!"  Abby asked, trying to distract herself from her demonic thoughts.
"Thru the door." Pointing at the door, maya said as a way to relieve her nervousness as she always did.
Abby smiled even laughing a little, trying to loosen up the conversation, "I mean what truly happened to you to be here like us?"
"I'll never  know, I found myself having a fever, my temperature was very high and here I am!"  Maya remained silent afterwards, her hands tangled together on her thighs, her right  leg was shaking so hard, Silence taking over us and anxiety taking over my thoughts.
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Next day, 17.march.2020.
After taking whatever the nurses had left with the breakfast, I was a little dizzy and unstable mentally and physically. Dr. Samir asked me to stay in my room today while solutions were given to me intravenously. Abby wouldn't be thrilled to my absence today but I was relieved that she couldn't see me at such condition.
I opened my phone, ignoring all the messages, scrolling through the various depressing social media applications, where I saw nothing good but bad shit.
Many messages were sent to me but I opened my chat with Lora, she had sent over the 50 messages and 67 missed calls were from her.
"You are an asshole, you know that!!"
"I'm sorry! I should've called sooner, I just wasn't in a right state." Still I was not.
"Jerk."
"Sorry, sis! I really am."
"Why did you do it? Huh? Why would you risk your own life? Sorry!!!!"
I couldn't reply.
"How could you be so reckless?! Why?!!"
"When you love someone so hard, lor, you'd understand." My words hurt her and I sensed it from her deep silence.
"Everyone is praying for you! both of you! I'm praying for you. Don't leave me, okay?!"
"I promise." I coughed.
"Samy!"
"Yeah."
"You are my only family and I love you so much and I want you to come back for me." She stopped, feeling the tears on her face from how her voice was breaking. My eyes were wet, yet I held them.
"I will come back for ya, that's a promise and stop the drama already."
"Jerk!!"
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Next day 18.march.2020
I wasn't feeling alright either. Dr Samir asked me how I was feeling today but I simply said I was fine.
I lied.
To tell the truth, I was a mess, a fever taking over my body and I looked like a zombie.
I was asked today to sit in my room and the nurses as well as the doctor would come and check up on
me today again.
I sat on my bed, looking at my phone, 13 messages from Abby. I put the phone beside me without replying. Pain started to take place in my chest, the fact that I was getting weaker and weaker despised me so much, my breath was something hard to take further and further.
Damn you, Corona! I whispered to myself.
A knock on my door interrupted my thoughts, door started to open making its squeaky sound. My first thought was Abby but instead it was Maya. She was wearing her mask and I wasn't.
"You look awful, Sam!" Looking at the solutions beside me, she said.
"Very helpful." My breath was heavier and heavier.
She stood there, leaning on the wardrobe by her tiny body. I couldn't help but comparing her with Abby, which was a big fat mistake.
"You seem happier." She said, her hair was longer than Abby's and much darker.
I nodded, not looking at her eyes directly, "How did you get in?!" Words were heavier on my tongue, now.
"I sneaked in.. you were gone yesterday and you didn't show up today." Her eyebrows were -as well- darker than Abby's.
Her eyes were much darker too.
"Yeah!" I shrugged.
"Abby's really worried about you." She said to me as if she were standing on sharp nails or on fire.
I didn't reply, only paying attention to my breath and counting, one, two, three,.....
"Are you?" I asked, she was shorter than Abby.
"Am I what?!" Her glances were different from Abby's.
"Happy now?"
"Yes, yes!" She didn't look me in the eye.
She wasn't Abby.
"Actually no, not really" her eyes were shedding tears right now, staring at my cold ones.
"You were the one who left, Remember?!"
"Yes"... "and it was a mistake"
"Maya" her hands now were hiding behind her back.
"You disappeared just like that."
"You shut down your phone, you didn't answer my phone calls or messages."
"You changed your number!!"
"I know"
"You ghosted me!"
" you broke me." She remained silent.
"You made me a broken man, I have no-" I couldn't complete the words, my chest was on fire. I needed the air for breathing not talking, trying to fog any thought related to maya.
"I just came to tell you that I'm sorry and I was sorry.."
"I proposed to you, Maya! And you ran away!!!" My breath was hard and my heartbeats were racing inside and echoing in my ears.
"Please, leave!" I said, giving my back to her.
Yet no tears on my face, my heart was aching inside and not just for oxygen.
Her footsteps were getting further and further away.
I heard the squeaky sound of the door.
"But I've forgiven you, Maya!" My breath was steady right now, my chance to say everything to spill it all out once and for all.
"I forgave you the moment I fell for Abby..
you should forgive yourself too.
If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have met her." I knew that I was killing her with my words but it was the closure I needed for myself.
She was the one who made me lose myself and lose everything I once believed in, Happiness, true love, peaceful life...
The door was closed and I was relieved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
13.December.2015
"You are Dr. Kane, right?!"
"Call me Maya, please!"
"Okay! Maya, How is my parents condition?"
"Well!"...... "the damages were fundamental and.."
"And what?!"
"We couldn't stop the internal bleeding and they came here in the emergency room very late, we couldn't-" her hands were hiding behind her back.
"I'm sorry." She said it in a professional way as a person who Said it multiple times. However, tears showed on her cheeks, which she quickly removed them.
"What do you mean you couldn't stop it?"
"Well brain hemorrhage is a serious condition and the accident was brutal and.." she was trying to justify but words were lost from her vocabularies.
"I'm so sorry" and by that Maya aka Dr.Kane left.
Lora was crying on my shoulder, I surrounded her with my arms, trying to soothe her while I-myself- was in Shock, my body and brain completely frozen.
Nothing could describe how I felt that very moment.
_______________________
I was standing in front of their grave, I felt a hand digging in mine, I looked at the owner of the hand and there she was!
Maya, she was smiling sadly at me, surrounding her hands around my arm, leaning towards me.
She was trying to comfort me and she succeeded.
I smiled despite all the pain and grieve that I had felt inside.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
13.December.2019
I was sitting in my favorite café, trying to forget such tragedy happened today four years ago, and there she was, Abby taking my sketchbook to get it dried.