It Wasn't Meant To Turn Out Like This

“There’s something wrong.”

“Of course there is. I lost my entire livelihood a month and a half ago.”

“Other than that.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Mayza insisted. She saw Brian roll his eyes from across the table. She pretended to not see it, sawing at the grilled chicken on her plate even though she’d had it cut into edible chunks five minutes ago. “I thought you had a date with Rita tonight.” Mayza didn’t mean to say the woman’s name with menace, but it came out that way anyway.

“She cancelled,” Brian responded in the same tone of voice: slightly angry, but hiding a lot more rage than he wanted to show. He spoke low and quiet, and like Mayza, he continued to mess with the food on his plate even though he hadn’t eaten one bite. “What’s it to you? Did I ruin plans for you to meet with a secret lover?”

“Damn it, Brian, can’t I genuinely care about you and your girlfriend?” Mayza snapped, her head shooting up and focusing her glaring pink eyes on Brian’s face. He looked up as well, responding to Mayza’s sudden flare of anger with his own. Her voice had changed to that menacing tone again at the mention of Brian’s girlfriend. She decided she needed to get a handle on that. Rita was pretty and friendly and Brian seemed happy with her; Mayza would just have to learn to suck it up and stop revealing so much about how she really felt.

“You act as though nothing has changed,” Brian said accusingly.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Mayza snapped, giving up on supper and rising to her feet to throw her food in the trash.

“You’re growing distant!” Brian answered. “At first, you were fine! And then, when Rita started coming around more often, you made yourself scarce. Now, you’re completely cut off from me all the damn time! What the hell is wrong?”

“You’d know it if I was cut off from you,” Mayza growled, throwing her plate into the sink slightly more forcefully than she meant. It slammed against the stainless steel side of the sink, cracking right down the middle. She grabbed the plate, and it broke in half in her hands. She glared at the plate, feeling it represented the current conversation a little too closely.

Brian didn’t respond. He rose to his feet and threw his food into the trashcan as well. He dropped his plate into the sink, gripping the edge of the sink and glaring out the window as Mayza stood beside him and glared down at the broken plate in her hand.

Brian’s relationship with Rita, Larry’s assistant with whom he’d gotten a date with the day Mayza started back at Tuna Town, was progressing along well. She made him happy, and Mayza felt that that should’ve been enough for her to be happy for him. But it wasn’t so easy. She knew she would never love anyone like she loved him. He had always been there for her, through thick and thin, and she couldn’t deny the attraction she felt towards him.

Mayza wasn’t rude or mean enough to take her frustration out on Rita, who really was a sweet girl. Instead, she acted friendly on the outside, while on the inside she attempted to beat her true feelings and keep them at bay because if she told them to Brian, things would only get more complicated.

That didn’t turn out to be so easy either. She found herself biting back more and more snide remarks when she spoke with Rita, felt a little too compelled to let slip some embarrassing secret about Brian, even if she had to make one up. It turned out to be so much easier to just find some excuse to get out of the house or leave the living room when Rita came over. It hurt too much to see them together anyway, when Mayza knew it could just as easily by her in Rita’s place.

Consequently, Mayza started growing distant from Brian too. He spoke constantly of Rita even when she wasn’t around. Sometimes, when Mayza was in a morbid mood, she wondered if Brian knew how she really felt and simply laid it on a little thick to hurt her more. She’d quickly convince herself that would never happen; Brian never meant any harm to her before. Now would be no different.

Suddenly, the plate exploded in Mayza’s hands. Porcelain shards rocketed away from her, falling into the sink, shooting across the counter, and hitting Brian. Mayza looked up and was shocked to see her eyes pitch black in the reflection of the window. She turned to look at Brian. He stood glaring fiercely at her, his hand clamped down over his arm.

“Jesus Christ, Mayza, and you tell me there’s nothing wrong!” Brian growled, switching his gaze to his arm. He gingerly pulled his hand away from his arm, revealing a long, thin cut across the width of his forearm. Nothing too serious, but it spoke volumes nonetheless. “Look at your eyes! You were thinking about something that’s bothering you, and I don’t think you’ve told me what this ‘something’ is!”

“I lost my home six weeks ago!” Mayza snapped, floundering to recover and make up something so she wouldn’t have to tell him the truth. “What do you expect? For me to just get over it without a flinch or an odd moment of anger or remorse? I don’t mean to be distant! It just happens!”

“So you admit to being distant!” Brian exclaimed triumphantly.

“Fuck you,” Mayza growled.

“Fuck me?” Brian asked. “You’re the one who’s lying through your teeth! You didn’t act like this before.”

“I’m not lying!” Mayza insisted. She knew Brian knew it was a lie, however, but hoped if she kept saying it wasn’t a lie, he’d get mad enough to just drop the subject.

“Tell me the truth, Mayza,” Brian said, his voice deadly calm. He gripped Mayza’s arms just above the elbow, squeezing just enough to cause slight discomfort. “Tell me what’s really wrong.”

“I just fucking told you,” Mayza growled, attempting to shove Brian away but failing. So she tried again, this time putting some of that good ole fairy magic behind her shove. His hands instantly released her arms, and he stumbled backward, his back hitting the corner of the refrigerator hard.

They glared at each other for several moments before Mayza turned and stormed out of the house. The instant she was clear of the front door, she launched herself into the air and flew up as high as she could and still have enough oxygen to breathe. She stayed there for hours, hovering in the high, thin air and convincing herself the situation was too dumb and juvenile to cry over, no matter how much it hurt. But she cried still.

She watched as someone flicked the Night switch on, forcing the stars to flicker to life and turning the moon’s dimmer all the way up to bright. It looked different from way up in the atmosphere. And when she grew tired, she returned home, entering the house silently. She paused at Brian’s room on the way to her own room and heard his deep breathing from inside. Wanting to wish a horrible nightmare upon him, but not having the heart, or the hatred, to do it, she continued to her own bedroom and fell quickly into restless sleep.