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When I rushed to the hospital with her in my arms, her blood dripped on the white tiles of the hospital floor, I made a promise to the unconscious girl in my arms. “I’ll never let you go again, Maya, no matter what.”
CHAPTER 5
ZEKE
The guilt was eating me alive as I watched her fragile form in the hospital bed. She was still pale, her wrists were wrapped in bandages, and she looked so weak, so tired. Her steady heartbeat was the only thing that gave me hope.
Doctors and nurses were telling me that she was fine, but she wasn’t. In that rabbit hole of a house she could never be fine, yet I left her to deal with things by herself. She was just twenty-years-old, but the purple rings under her eyes, the constant frown on her face even while she was in deep slumber made her look older. I remembered the time when she smiled when she still had the light inside her.
Unlocking the door, I entered the house. Carl was home for a change, but he was passed out on the couch. I wrinkled my nose; his disgusting stench must have already covered the couch I called a bed. I shut the door loudly, and Carl opened his eyes, a lazy smile formed on his flushed face.
“Brother, hi!” he greeted me with too much enthusiasm like we liked each other.
Carl and I hardly tolerated each other. After our parents died in a car accident, I knew he would be more than happy to give me to the system and forget everything about me. But, my parents’ will stopped him from doing that. They gave everything they had to Carl with only one condition: He had to look after his eight years old brother. At the age of twenty, he suddenly became the father figure. I think my parents saw the useless man he’d turn into, even though he wasn’t this bad at that age. The opposite actually, he had money, a beautiful wife who was pregnant with his child. I was happy living with my big brother and his wife. My happiness got so much more when Maya was born. That little girl became my whole world the moment she grabbed my thumb and smiled at me. But that moment was also the downfall of the things that were once good in my life. Amanda and Carl started to fight, Carl started to get drunk. When Maya turned five, Carl had lost it all; the money, the happy marriage. Since then, I tried to save what was left of this family, but my main focus was always Maya.
As I walked toward her room, I knew nothing had changed since the first moment I saw her sweet smile. Maya was my only priority, and she was always going to be.
I opened the door of her room and smiled at the girl who was leaning over her old desk, drawing on every piece of paper she could find. Sketching was her forte, her happy place. As she sketched, she left this fucked up world and created her own magical land. That moment was my favorite; watching her become something big in her petite body. She turned her head when she sensed my presence, and her face broke into a big grin.
“Hey, baby girl,” I said and placed a kiss on her forehead, letting her sweet smell calm the storm inside me.
“Where were you?” she asked.
It was the weekend, and she knew I always reserved my weekends for her, no matter what. With a smile, I showed her the shopping bag in my hand.
“Hot chocolate?” she asked hopefully.
I shook my head. Until this year, I used to buy her a cup of hot chocolate for her birthday, but this year I couldn’t afford it with the other things I bought for her. “No, but I bought you things I hope you’ll like.”
Her smile didn’t falter. She wasn’t a materialistic girl. She hardly got upset when she didn’t get something she wanted.
I watched her as she discovered the things in the bag. I wished I had a camera then. Her face was a picture I’d like to keep forever. Her happiness was intoxicating, addicting. Her smile was dazzling, she glowed in the dimness of her room.
“Zeke… you shouldn’t have,” she whispered, but her fingers caressed the paper of the sketchbook I bought for her.
“Do you like it?” I asked.
She played with the pencils, smelled the sketchbook before nodding her head with a glimmer of joy in her eyes.
“Then I should have, and I did,” I answered with certainty.
She
bit her lip, not sure if she should’ve been this happy, before launching herself into my arms. She peppered my face with kisses, and I laughed with her.
“I love you so much, Zeke. So, so much,” she panted.
Closing my eyes, I will my heart to slow down. She’s fucking thirteen, I reminded myself before whispering, “I love you too, baby girl.”
And I knew when she looked at me with bright eyes like she was the happiest person in the world, I was gone for.
I wanted her to open her eyes and look at me with the same hypnotizing look she used to. I wanted to see the light in her gaze. The light I watched fade away when I left her behind and walked away from her without looking back.
“I have to leave, Maya. I have to leave before we do something wrong. You deserve the world and the only thing you’ll get with me would be embarrassment.”
She whimpered in her sleep, her lips parted for a word that was too silent for me to hear. I smiled, she always talked in her sleep. Her whimpers turned into sobs, and I reached for her, caressing her pale skin with the pad of my thumb.
“Don’t leave,” she whispered, putting a lump in my throat.
