18. Broken

Maya can feel her girlfriend’s eyes on her as Carina tries to figure out what she is thinking. She has been watching her ever since bringing up her mom’s uninvited visit to the station last week and Maya wants her to stop but doesn’t know how to make her. Carina’s question hangs over her… “don’t you think maybe there is some truth in what your mom says?” …the words rolling off her tongue so casually yet feeling like a firework that might explode if Maya taps at it just enough. 

She avoids meeting Carina’s eyes, busying herself with making lunch, but feels on edge as she waits for another question about her family that she doesn’t want to answer. It is not the first time that Carina has looked at her like this, studying her and trying to understand her better. Usually Maya stops it with a kiss or sometimes more; anything to distract Carina from trying to peel back more layers. Except the mood isn’t right for that kind of move, so she concentrates on chopping the salad for their lunch instead. She knows if she looks up, she’ll see Carina’s kind face looking at her with concern and perhaps some pity, and Maya doesn’t want that.

She had come home earlier that day in a good mood after a successful shift – their biggest call involving a family of five caught in a house fire, including a tricky save of the youngest child from the back room that was surrounded by flames and whose access was blocked by an overgrown tree. Maya’s quick-thinking and her team’s hard work had meant that everyone had been saved, including the family dog. Grateful that the end of her shift coincided with Carina’s day off, she had invited Carina to her apartment to celebrate her win, pulling her towards the bedroom the second she had walked through the door – only for the elation to turn sour when Carina had grilled her about her mother’s clouded memories of her youth.

“How long are you going to angry chop at me?” Carina asks.

Maya can hear what sounds like amusement in her voice, like it’s funny that everyone is trying to turn her into a victim, and that causes the rage inside of her to swirl even more. She needs Carina to let it go. She has already made it clear that there is nothing to talk about, that her mom’s accusations aren’t true, and it pisses her off that no-one will believe her. She doesn’t want to waste another moment on it – she has moved on, pushed it aside as nonsense.

Except she hasn’t moved on, not really. It has been sitting with her over the last few days, an underlying irritation that she will admit keeps spilling out into her job. Poor Emmett has borne the brunt of her mood and she knows she has been taking it out on him as the weakest member of the team.

Her mind has been plagued by memories that pop up without warning and which she can’t shake. Memories like the time she had ignored the blister that was about to burst on the bottom of her heel to maintain her personal best as her father cheered from the sidelines; like the time she had paid no attention to the ache in her chest that had turned out to be bronchitis, too determined to cross the finish line and run into her father’s arms as he waited for her. They are memories that usually remind her of her strength; eyes forward at all times.

Now those memories are being tarnished by her mom and Carina trying to turn them into something negative, when they have been the foundation of everything she has achieved since. After all, she would not have had the strength to embrace the pain of her sprained ankle to push past the Ethiopian runner and win her Olympic gold medal if it hadn’t been for the lessons her father had taught her.

Maya does not want to entertain the idea that those moments with her dad are not what she remembers them to be.

“I’m just chopping,” she says, choosing to focus on the task in hand instead of getting drawn into a conversation. Except Carina won’t stop and Maya feels her temper being tested.

Carina can see the effect of Katherine’s visit on Maya. Except for the briefest of moments earlier in bed, when she had softened under the caress of Carina’s hands, she carries tension all over her body. Carina can see it in the way her shoulders hunch and her lips pinch and her eyes lack their usual shine. Now she is taking it out on the salad they are supposed to be eating for lunch and Carina isn’t sure there is going to be much of it left by the time Maya has finished with it.

If only she could get Maya to open up and tell her what she is thinking and how she is feeling, because Carina won’t accept that she is okay with what her mom said. No matter how much Maya refuses to see it, Carina can – and all she wants is to help Maya understand and accept what happened to her.

“You know my dad has Bipolar one?” she says tentatively, hoping that bringing up her experience with her own family will encourage Maya to do the same. Carina knows that she wasn’t ready to talk about it last week when she tried to broach the subject in her office, but maybe if she tries again, Maya will let her in. It worked the last time, when she was a closed book about the problems she was having with her team.

Maya finally looks up, her eyes glancing at her briefly. “Yeah, you said that.”

Her tone tells Carina that this conversation isn’t going to be easy but she perseveres anyway. “And my sweet baby brother has inherited it.”

Maya immediately calls her out on what she is doing. “Are you talking about you or are you trying to draw some kind of parallel? Because if it’s you, I’m all in. But there is no mental illness in my family.”

Carina can see the walls building up around her, but she isn’t going to walk away from this conversation. It is too important. She didn’t push hard enough with Andrew and he had spent months in turmoil. She won’t let Maya do the same thing.

“With or without mental illness, the human brain is brilliant and it is devious and it walls off what it doesn’t want to know,” Carina tries to explain carefully.

“Got it. So you’re talking about me,” Maya says, the anger surfacing in a tight smile. 

Carina keeps going, looking for just one small sign that her words are breaking through Maya’s walls. “What I’m trying to say, Maya, is your mind is brilliant and maybe you think you’re too smart to be in denial, maybe you think you’re too smart to have been abused.”

It backfires and her words push a button that she didn’t want to touch. Maya reacts angrily, green leaves shooting across the kitchen as she slams the knife down on the table, causing Carina to jump.

“Okay, I’m not interested in talking!”

“I’m just trying to help,” Carina tries to placate her, but the denial is too strong.

“He never hit me!” Maya pushes back with a raised voice.

“That’s not the only way you abuse somebody, Maya,” Carina says, desperation creeping into her voice as she pushes harder to get Maya to open her eyes. “My dad has never hit me either, he has never hit my brother, but that doesn’t mean that we were not abused. Psychological abuse, verbal abuse – they are real.”

Maya’s body language changes and Carina can see her close off completely, knowing that she has lost this battle.

“I don’t want to fight with you,” Maya says, her voice calmer than it had been a moment ago.

“I don’t want to fight either…”

“Then you should go,” Maya says before Carina can find another way to force the conversation. 

“What?” Carina says incredulously. “This is not how you handle a fight.” Carina knows it is a defence mechanism, but she can be just as stubborn and stays in her seat, refusing to leave. “Maya, I…”

Carina wants to tell her that she loves her and will do anything to keep her safe from the memories that are so obviously tormenting her, but she doesn’t want those words to first be spoken in the middle of a fight and she is pretty sure that Maya will reject them anyway, so she opts for a gentler approach.

“I’m here for you, I’m not leaving.”

It is too late, Maya is too angry and there is nothing Carina can do but sit and watch as she storms out of the apartment to work out her frustrations on a run.

Maya’s feet hit the ground hard, each step pounding out the anger and frustration that fills her body. Too smart to be in denial, too smart to have been abused – as if Carina knows her well enough. She might have let her guard down a little, she might have let Carina be there for her when things were rough at work, but Maya won’t let her rewrite her past just because she wants to fit her into a box labelled ‘victim’.

She doesn’t think about where she is going and, after a few circles around the block, her feet instinctively take her to the fire station. Despite the five miles she has just run, her body is still screaming at her and Maya slips inside, nodding to the firefighter on reception and heading straight to the locker room where she keeps a spare gym kit. She changes quickly and makes her way to the station gym, grateful to find it empty.

She picks the heaviest weights she knows she can bear without a spotter, pushing herself to her limit on the barbell before switching to more cardio and pummelling the punch bag. She grunts with each blow, expelling all that she is feeling until she becomes numb, . Next, she picks up a plate and uses it to do weighted squats until her quads are burning, then grabs the jump rope.

It is here that Andy finds her. “Hey – what are you doing here?”

“I went for a run and my body just came here so figured I’d work out,” Maya says in between gasps of air as she carries on skipping. “You?”

“Are there any old files here, like captain’s logs?”

Maya moves to the bench and picks up a dumbbell for her triceps. “I think so, why?” It is a strange question and although she doesn’t really care for getting embroiled in another of Andy’s dramas, she figures that letting Andy talk about whatever is on her mind will distract her from her own thoughts.

“I just need to figure something out,” Andy says dismissively, although Maya can tell from the way she holds her body that she is wound up about something.

“Figure what out?”

“Just who my dad was,” Andy says.

Maya frowns, irked by the statement, as if Andy has any reason to doubt who her father was. “What do you mean, who your dad was?” she questions. “He was our hero, he literally sacrificed his life to save ours.”

Andy steps forwards into the gym and pulls out an old family photo of her with her parents when she was a little girl.

“What am I looking at?”

“My mother looks miserable,” Andy says. She starts pacing up and down. “I’ve always had this idea that my parents had this epic, amazing love story. That they were soulmates, meant to be, but what if they weren’t? What if they were just two messed up people who rushed into marriage and then one of them died?”

A familiar annoyance grows inside of Maya because what is with everyone suddenly trying to cast a dark shadow over their past?

“Andy, do you think maybe it’s possible that you’re projecting your anxiety about your own marriage onto your parents?” Maya snaps at her.

Andy gets riled up. “Why can’t I just say something without someone writing it off as… can I… can I just talk?”

“Okay, what are you talking about?”  

“I’ve been going through my dad’s things and I… I don’t know, I feel like… like maybe I didn’t even know who my dad was,” Andy vents. “Like, what do I actually know about Pruitt Herrera? He was overbearing, he was controlling…”

Maya is transported back to her high school days, when the girls in her track team would tease her about her father’s training regime and strict diet – always with a hint of sympathy in their voices that she didn’t have a choice over what she ate and drank; always questioning why she let her dad control everything she did.

“If he was controlling, it was only because he loved you,” she says, reciting the answer her dad always gave when she asked him why he wouldn’t let her go out for a burger and milkshake with the other girls after training.

“Controlling because he loved you, that sounds like a Lifetime movie about a person who needs to escape,” Andy says.

Maya doesn’t want to get into another fight with some else today but she can’t take this, she can’t listen to another man she loves being trashed by people who are supposed to love them too.

“Andy, you know who your dad was, we all do.”

“Or do we just know the version of him that he wanted us to see?” Andy challenges.

“No. No!” Maya stands up, succumbing to her temper. “You do not get to turn your dad into a bad guy!” she practically yells at her friend. “You won the lottery of dads and now just because he died you are going to tear down his memory because it’s easier than coping with the loss of him? No, I’m not going to stand by and watch you do that! Not to my Captain!”

“Not to your captain?” Andy says incredulously. “Maya, he was my dad!”

“Yeah, and you should count yourself lucky!”

Lucky that he cared about her happiness and not how fast she could run around a track; lucky that he loved her for who she was and not the medals she brought home; lucky that he let her live the life she wanted, to have fun and be a child instead of a protégé that he could mould into the Olympic athlete he could never have been.

With that, Maya storms out of the gym, refusing to listen to any more. She heads to the locker room just as C shift pulls in from their most recent call. She stays in the shower long enough to avoid having to make polite conversation with them. Once the room is empty, she dresses and escapes to her office where she distracts herself with paperwork. There are always reports to catch up on and safety violations to review, and she figures it is better than going home to an empty apartment.

Her phone buzzes in her back pocket, a reminder of the voice message from Carina waiting for her. Maya ignores it. She is pretty good at ignoring what she doesn’t want to hear. Except the message burns a hole in her pocket and it is plaguing her when Jack appears in her doorway.

“Hey. What are you still doing here?” he asks.

“Just catching up on some work,” Maya answers shortly. “You?”

“I don’t know if you heard but, uh, Warren and Avery were held up on the PRT.”

Maya’s head jerks up, immediately going into Captain mode.

“Yeah, Avery got shot.”

“Is he okay?” Maya asks.

“Yeah, yeah, everyone’s just a bit shaken up,” Jack says.

Relieved that everyone is okay, but annoyed by having another report to add to her pile, Maya tries to shut the conversation down. “Thank you for notifying me,” she says tersely, dropping her eyes and shuffling some papers.

If Jack notices her bad mood, he ignores it.

“Have you talked to Andy? I’m worried about her,” Jack says.

Maya rolls her eyes. “What a surprise, the men in Andy’s life are worried about her,” she says bitterly. Truth is, she is still pissed at Andy for trying to sully the memory of her father, of their captain, and Maya feels herself losing her temper with Jack, just as she has with everyone else today. “She’s fine, Jack. She’s grieving her father, let her do that however she needs to.”

Jack steps inside the office, closing the door behind him, and Maya doesn’t like the way it makes her feel closed in.

“She married our Battalion Chief after a few weeks of dating, you don’t think that’s a little bit concerning?”

“I think that Andy is a grown woman who can make her own decisions. She’s made that very clear, Lieutenant,” Maya says, addressing him by his title instead of his name as a way of keeping a barrier between them.

Jack still doesn’t take the hint, leaning against the back of the chair in front of her. Maya feels her body tense, irritated by the way her is invading her space.

“We are Andy’s closest friends, Maya, you and me…”

“And as her friends, we should give her some space,” Maya spits. “Not everyone needs therapy, Jack.”

Jack’s face clouds over with hurt and Maya immediately regrets lashing out at him.

“Wow. Yeah, I told you that in confidence as my captain. And you’re just going to throw it back in my face?”

“Sorry. That wasn’t about you,” Maya apologises. She relents a little. Maybe Jack will understand how annoying it is when people try to project their own thoughts and feelings on you. “Carina keeps trying to get me to admit to something that isn’t true and I’m sick of it. You know, my father…”

“Is a real prick,” Jack interjects, and any easing of the anger Maya has been feeling disappears quickly.

“Hey, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Maya says angrily. She is fed up of everyone trying to make out that they understand her and her family. “You don’t know me.”

“No, you know I do, and you hate it because anyone who knows the real Maya is a threat,” Jack says.

He looks at her with such confidence in his words. He doesn’t even bother to break down her walls, he just looks right through them, so sure that he knows who she is. She feels her resolve weakening, like one more jibe will cause that firework inside of her to explode, and in that moment she hates him for being the one to push her so close to breaking point. She will do anything to make it stop.

“Get out,” she orders him.

“Right, ‘cause here comes the Maya freeze out,” Jack goads her.

She doesn’t want to hear this, not from Jack, not from anyone. Maya can feel it bubbling just underneath the surface, the truth that her brain keeps closed off because she has never wanted to turn herself into a victim. She side steps the desk and heads to the door, desperate for Jack to get out of her head and out of her office.

“Does Carina know what’s coming yet or are you going to blind side her like you did me?”

This rattles her, because Carina is supposed to be her safe place where she can rest and sleep and love, and how dare he talk about her and their relationship. Except there is a niggling feeling deep inside of Maya that tells her he is right. It is too much to let Carina all the way in, to let her see the darkest parts of her. The parts that were formed under her dad’s overbearing ways. The parts that were shaped by the early morning runs when most kids her age were allowed to sleep in and the endless weekend track meets when her friends were hanging out at the mall, spending their allowances and pouring over the latest copy of Seventeen, leaving her isolated for so much of her teenage years. The parts that are still bruised by the punishments that he convinced her were just a sign of his desire for her to succeed.

She marches to the door and opens it. “Get the hell out of my office.” She wonders if Jack can hear the panic in her voice.

“Way to prove my point. You’re broken, Maya,” Jack says.

She doesn’t need him to say it, Maya already knows it. She remembers standing in this office a few months ago and calling herself broken, back when her relationship with her team was falling apart and she couldn’t figure out a way to fix it. Back when she was leading the team like one of her father’s training sessions: relentless drills with no time to stop and rest, pushing them as hard as she could because she had been taught that tough love was the best way to learn. Back when she was so focused on her career that she had almost sacrificed her friendships, because she believed her dad when he told her that she was strongest when she only had herself to rely on.

She is mad that Jack knows it and she turns on him, letting the venom out before it poisons her from within. “Oh, the foster boy without a daddy is calling me broken.”

“Yeah, well, I’d rather have no daddy than have yours.”

There he goes again, acting like he knows her, acting like he knows her father, and she just wants him to stop but he won’t. She slams the door closed in anger. “Don’t you dare talk about my father ever!”

“Or what?”

“Or I will bury you!”

“Yeah, threats of violence? That checks out.” He keeps pushing and pushing, and he’s in her face exposing her most vulnerable parts. Maya won’t let him, so she does the only thing she knows to do to shut him up.

She kisses him.

Her lips are rough and his unshaven skin grazes her chin, and it’s familiar but so very different from Carina. She hates it, but at least she is in control. For the first time today, she feels in control, preying on his weaknesses as she lets him carry her to the captain’s bunk.

Carina feels her heart sink when the door slams, leaving her alone in Maya’s apartment. She knows it is the brain’s way of trying to protect Maya from the truth, but Carina feels stunned by just how hard Maya had pushed her away. She waits for a moment, hanging on to the hope that Maya will reach the sidewalk downstairs, regret her actions, and come back – but it doesn’t take long for her to realise that Maya is gone.

She thinks about leaving but hates the idea of Maya coming home and finding her gone. Maybe she won’t be out for long, she thinks; maybe she’ll run for an hour or two, then come home and she will let Carina into what she is really thinking and feeling.

Carina’s appetite is gone so she clears up the mess that Maya has left behind in the kitchen, scraping the wilting salad leaves into the trashcan, wiping down the work surfaces and sweeping the floor. The kitchen looks untouched, like they hadn’t been sat here an hour ago, making lunch with the rest of the day ahead of them.

Carina keeps her eyes on the clock on the wall, watching each hour pass by slowly and still there is no sign of Maya. She hates the silence more than anything – not just the silence of the apartment, but the silence from Maya. She tries calling her but all she gets is her voicemail, Maya’s cheerful voice telling her to leave a message. She does the first time, doesn’t bother the next five or six times. 

Carina has never spent time in Maya’s apartment by herself and she feels like an intruder, like she shouldn’t be here. She tries to occupy herself with the television but nothing captures her attention. She curls up on the couch and flicks through the magazines that sit on the coffee table but they hold no interest to her. She thinks about going for a walk to get some fresh air, but she doesn’t have a spare key to get back in, so she is stuck here until Maya gets home.

Leaning back into the soft cushions, her gaze wanders around the room. Carina has sat on this sofa countless times but has never really taken in her surroundings except for the gentle teasing of Maya’s Roma picture that sits above her fireplace, despite her never setting foot in Italy. She has always thought of Maya’s apartment as warm and cosy, but maybe that is more because of the person in it than the objects that decorate it. Those objects are sparse – a small collection of books on the shelves, a few plants, some scented candles that fill the room with hints of vanilla and orange blossom.

Carina stands and walks over to the fireplace, studying the photos that fill the silver frames. There is one of Maya and Andy from their graduation from the fire academy, one of the whole team at what looks to be a night out, another of Maya with some friends Carina has never met. There are no photos of Maya’s family, no sign of her parents or brother – nothing that connects her to her past. It is a part of her life that Carina does not know much about, but then they have both shared so little about their families. Maya knows all about Andrew, of course, but Carina has never told her about what it was like growing up under the shadow of her father’s brilliance or how he could be kind and caring one minute, but cruel the next. Sympathy stirs inside of her. It had not been easy to see Vincenzo DeLuca for who he really is, but once she had, it had given her a sense of freedom from everything that held her back – and she so desperately wants the same for Maya.  

The clock ticks by until the sun sets and darkness falls outside. Carina wanders around the apartment, turning on lamps and a few overhead lights, creating an inviting atmosphere. It doesn’t do anything to soothe her mood, which is slowly turning from worry to frustration. Sometimes she thinks she is a fool to be sat here waiting for Maya to get home, that she cares too much. She thought they both did, after all they have been through together. Yet Maya had not hesitated when she had stormed out in the middle of an argument, whilst Carina is still here, with her phone in her hand and hoping that Maya will call her back.

She knows Maya is in pain, but Carina hates that she won’t let her in, choosing to fight with her instead. She is tired and Carina doesn’t think she has the energy for another fight, too wounded with battle scars after so many arguments with Andrew as she fought to get him to listen to her.

She is just about ready to give up and go home when she hears the front door open. Maya steps inside and Carina offers her a conciliatory wave, still hanging on to the hope that Maya will be ready to open up and talk to her. That optimism fades the moment she sees Maya’s face, still pinched, still angry, still closed off.

“I thought you left.”

Carina tries not to be put off by her accusatory tone, desperate to find some peace between them. “I… I almost did, but then I thought you might need…”

Maya cuts her off. “I don’t need anything except space,” she says curtly, as if she is angry to find Carina still in her apartment.

Carina deflates a little, but keeps trying. “I can see that you’re pushing me away and I wanna give you space,” she tries to appease her, to no avail.

“So give me space,” Maya fires back.

Maya takes a few steps towards her, closing the gap between them, yet Carina feels like she is getting further and further away from her. It aggravates her. She is just trying to help but no-one will ever let her help.

“I understand that you’re going through a lot and I am trying not to be mad at you…”

“Well, I just slept with Jack an hour ago, so be mad at that.”

Carina stares helplessly as Maya stalks forwards and disappears into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Carina thinks for a moment that she misheard her, but reality quickly hits her and she gasps for air, Maya’s callous words winding her. Her head drops and her hand shakes as she raises it to her forehead to mask the tears that start to fall.

She doesn’t understand it. A few hours ago, Maya was “all in” and moments later she was falling into bed with someone else, without giving Carina another thought. Does Maya really think so little of her? Of their relationship? Carina has put everything she has into their relationship and, in one blow, Maya has thrown it all back in her face, like the last few months mean nothing to her.

She sits, frozen to her spot on the stool at the end of the corridor. She wants to leave but her legs are like lead and if she moves she might be sick. She looks at the closed bedroom door, a single piece of wood that hides the woman she both loves and hates most in the world right now. There is a part of Carina that wants to storm inside and yell at her, but the moment she hears movement on the other side of the door, her stomach churns with dread. Another argument will not achieve anything, the damage has been done – and Carina doesn’t think it can ever be undone, not after this. She has never known such cruelty, the spite with which Maya told her was like she wanted to break her heart. Well, it worked – her heart is well and truly shattered.

She musters all the strength she can to stand up, dragging her feet against the rug as she makes her way to the front door, picking up her bag as she passes it and slinging it over her shoulder. The bedroom door opens just as she pulls the front door towards her and as much as her head tells her to walk out, her heart encourages her to wait for an apology that never comes. Maya stares at her, all warmth gone from her eyes, the walls built up around her so tall that Carina barely recognises her. Maybe she never really knew her at all.

“Just tell me why you did it,” she says before she has time to process what and why she is asking.

She waits, but Maya doesn’t speak and it is only then that Carina spies a hint of regret in Maya’s face. It is not enough though, the betrayal too big, the heartbreak too deep; and there is an odd peace that comes with the realisation that this continual fight is over.