It Wasn't Meant To Turn Out Like This

Brian saw Mayza sitting on the couch through the living room window when he arrived back home after going to see a movie with Rita. He frowned at her look of absolute desolation as she sat staring blankly at a blank television screen. The written words from her father rang in Brian’s ears. If you add to her pain, then you add to your own misfortune. Brian hadn’t meant to upset her like he did. He just wanted answers. Something else was wrong with Mayza, and he only wanted to help her overcome it. That night could’ve gone a million different ways, many of them possibly turning out positive, but it didn’t. And now, the two of them hadn’t spoken one word to each other for several days.

“Are you sure she’s okay?” Rita asked, following Brian’s gaze to the lonely fairy sitting in the living room.

“Yeah,” Brian sighed. “She’s gone through a lot.”

“It looks like you’ve really upset her,” Rita continued.

“It’ll pass. We’ll get through it,” Brian insisted. Rita didn’t look so certain but didn’t push the subject. She leaned up to kiss Brian good night before heading back towards her car. Brian waved to her as she reversed out of his driveway before he turned and stepped inside his house.

Mayza glanced around as he opened the front door. She instantly began to scowl and turned back towards the television, but not before Brian saw the look of a broken heart in her eyes. Instantly intrigued, he toed off his shoes and headed towards the couch. He sank down into the cushions beside Mayza. Almost as though the couch was spring-loaded, Mayza rose to her feet, Brian’s presence being enough to repel her.

Brian, fueled by this new emotion he caught in Mayza’s eyes, reached up before she could take one step, grasped both of her hips in his hands, and dragged her easily back down onto the couch beside him. Mayza whipped her head around towards him, her pink eyes narrowing and darkening to magenta. She rested her hands over his, her slender fingers curling over his ready to pull them away so she could escape.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Brian said, putting just enough force behind his words to let her know she couldn’t just walk all over him. “It’s not just because you’re recovering still.” Mayza was beginning to feel threatened, he could tell. He knew she’d been lying when she used her recovery as an excuse. He was threatening that lie now and she was not happy about it. She started to move against his grip, straining to get away from him without employing any magic to do so. Brian tightened his grip in turn. “You didn’t act this way when you first returned. You only started acting this way when I began to date Rita...”

Brian trailed off. Mayza’s eyes flashed dangerously, and Brian realized he’d struck a little too close to home. It clicked inside his head, and exasperation dominated his face.

“Mayza! This is about Rita, isn’t it? What have you got against her? She’s friendly to you and she isn’t suspicious about us living together. What has she done to make you distant from me even?”

Black began to swirl into the magenta of Mayza’s eyes. Her upper lip drew back from her teeth and she began to snarl at Brian. She wrenched his hands away from her hips, shoving him back as she released his hands. She rose to her feet but Brian grabbed her wrists, swinging his leg around to shove her down onto the couch. His thigh hit her right in the side, knocking her back onto the couch.

“No matter how much magic you plan to use against me, I won’t give up until you give me the straight, honest truth,” Brian snapped as Mayza went to use magic against him again to free herself. Her eyes lightened slightly, taking on a grayish tint. She relaxed underneath the leg Brian still had pressed against her side to keep her on the couch, and he slowly put his foot back on the ground.

“You want the straight, honest truth?” Mayza asked, her voice deep and gravelly. “I’m frustrated because I feel like I’m losing you too. I’ve lost everyone else and now I’m losing you too.”

Brian frowned at her. How would she be losing him? And then, it clicked.

“You’re jealous, aren’t you?” Brian asked incredulously. “You’re jealous of Rita. I might have been drunk, but I remember you saying, ‘I just don’t think of you that way.’”

“I said that to protect your reputation...the band’s reputation! People will judge you guys so horribly if you date me, nothing but a lowly fairy!” Mayza exclaimed. Her voice slowly began to drift back towards its normal pitch. “You’ll lose fans and it’ll just put your progress in a rut labeled ‘Mayza’ and I don’t want any of that! I’m just being foolish...”

Brian’s grip on Mayza’s wrists loosened considerably as he stared thoughtfully at her face. Her eyes continued to lighten. They were almost pink again. He could almost physically feel all the fight going out of her as she stopped protecting her lie and just let the truth come to light.

“Are you saying that you would date me if you weren’t a fairy?” Brian asked slowly.

Mayza’s gaze lifted slowly from where his hands still gripped her wrists to his face. She felt naked and vulnerable without the lie wrapped around her like a warm shawl. But she also felt freer with the truth out in the open like this.

“Yes...” Mayza whispered, her gaze not wavering from his.

Brian released her wrists, instead cupping both of her small, delicate hands inside his larger, calloused ones. They both noticed how it felt so right.

“Listen, Mayza, if we lose fans because I start to date you, then those fans obviously aren’t the kind of the fans we want. They aren’t true fans,” Brian answered, speaking softly and sincerely from the bottom of his heart. “As for our reputation, everyone knows we advocate fairy equality. They would think me dating you would just be imminent and befitting and they wouldn’t think anything of it. If people hate me or the band just because I’m dating the woman I love, then those people don’t matter, like, at all.”

His use of that word—love—touched a flame of warmth to Mayza’s chilling heart. And that he directed it towards her made her heart burst into flames of its own accord. He loved her. But Mayza still didn’t have all the answers she wanted. One woman stood in the way.

“But what about Rita?”

“Mayza, I’ve tried dating so many women since you left with your father...But none of them ever compared to you or the way I felt—feel—about you. Rita is no different. I’ll call her in the morning and explain everything and hope to God that she understands. I’m not going to lose you again,” Brian answered.

Mayza threw herself into Brian’s arms, resting her ear against his chest right over his heart. Brian wrapped his arms back around her, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“Say it out loud, so I know this isn’t a dream,” Mayza murmured.

“I love you, Mayza,” Brian whispered.

“You don’t even know how long I’ve waited to hear you say that,” Mayza said, pulling away to look Brian in the eyes. He smiled back down at her, reaching up a hand and brushing his fingertips across her cheek.

“I think I can guess.”

Mayza smiled as Brian tilted her chin up, their lips connecting. She curled her arms around his neck, pressing her body against his. For the first time in a long while, a true sense of contentment washed over her.