Not so little anymore

Gloom

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Maya woke up the next morning with a sudden gloom in her heart. And she wasn't the only one, the whether was horrible outside. It was raining hard, sounds of distant thunder came every few minutes, the sky looked ugly. A perfect day to match Maya's mood.

She got up and started getting ready for the day. Her movements slow as she had so much on her mind. She was supposed to meet her dad today. Her dad and her step siblings and her step mom. If you could even call them that.

Maya had been up for half the night last night just thinking about ways she could get out of it. Maybe she could pretend to be sick, maybe she could make up an excuse of something happened to one of her friends and she needed to be there. Maybe she could say that she had meetings all day with teachers and just couldn't get some free time to get away.

Maybe those excuses would work, except for one thing. Josh.

He would know the truth. And even if she could fool her father into believing it, Josh would know the truth, and with that would come one of his lectures that she really wanted to avoid.

So she got up and got ready. Knowing that Josh would be knocking on her door just a few minutes before noon. It wasn't like him to be late for anything. He loved being early or on time for every occasion. Something that Maya hated doing.

And just like she thought, ten minutes before noon hit, there was a knock on her door. Riley looking up at Maya with sympathy. Maya got up and opened the door to see Josh on the other side. His hands in his pockets and his hair as messy as ever.

"Hey, ready to go?" He asked her. Maya couldn't bring herself to smile. Instead she nodded and went to grab her bag off the bed.

"Good luck." Riley squeezed her hand and gave her a smile. Maya squeezed it back and followed Josh out of the room.

She didn't say anything as they walked outside in the rain to get to his car. Nor did she say anything as she typed in the address to her phone and let her GPS guide Josh to where he was going. She didn't speak for almost thirty minutes as they drove, Josh giving her the space she needed to be able to process everything.

Maya didn't realize she was doing it. Her leg was shaking up and down and she had subconsciously started picking the hair tie she had around her wrist, pulling it back and letting it go so that it would slap against her wrist. She did that over and over again, a little habit she had picked up from when she was a kid.

Josh looked down at the slapping noise and frowned when he saw what Maya was doing. He took one hand off the steering wheel and placed it on her wrist.

"Stop it." He demanded of her, as his thumb came up to gently rub against the lines she was making on her wrist. "I understand your nervous, but why don't you talk to me about it instead of hurting yourself." He told her gently.

"There's nothing to say." Maya told him. Josh squeezed her wrist gently to let her know that he knew that was bull. May sighed and rested her head against the window, closing her eyes for a second as she listened to the rain pitter-patter onto the windshield. "I just don't know what I'm supposed to say to him. I don't understand what he wants from me. What he thinks that this is going to accomplish."

"Maybe he just wants to give you a chance to speak your peace about him. Maybe he's ready to hear just what all he's done to you." Josh told her.

"If he didn't have cancer, this wouldn't be happening. He's not doing this for my benefit, he's doing it for his. He doesn't want to have to deal with the guilt of abandoning his first born as he withers away." Maya couldn't stop the bitterness from sneaking into her tone. Josh just kept creasing the lines on her wrist.

"Probably not. But that doesn't mean you should cheat yourself out of the opportunity to tell him how you really feel. He opened the door, Maya. Whether his intentions were good or not, you owe it to yourself to walk through it."

Nothing else was said for the rest of the trip. Maya kept her eyes closed and focused on the sound of the rain. Josh didn't let go of her hand, and Maya didn't push him away. Neither of them were really thinking too much about it, as Maya had more on her mind and Josh wanted to make sure she understood she wasn't alone. He just kept creasing the lines on her wrist, frowning and thinking to himself how long she had this habit and why had it taken him this long to notice.

As they finally pulled up to the address of the house, Josh parked the car into the driveway and turned the ignition off. Maya pulled her head off the window and looked at the house in front of her. She looked over at Josh.

"Do you want me to go with you?" He asked her. Maya bit her lip and looked over at the house. She shook her head.

"No, I think I can take it from here." She told him. Josh nodded his head.

"If you need me, just-"

"I know." Maya cut him off. She smiled at him. "I know you will." She leaned across and kissed him on the cheek. "Thanks for being here with me." She pulled her hand out from his got out of the car, leaving Josh to smile after her as she walked away.

She got up to the door and took a deep breath. Part of her was screaming to turn back around and just walk away, just leave a note and say you had to go. Go back and hide in her childhood bedroom under the covers like she used to when she was a kid.

But she had to do this. She needed to. She brought her hand up to the door and knocked a couple of times, waiting for just a few seconds before the door was opened.
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