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“Babe, please,” Maya tried again as she knocked on the door lightly. She had been trying to give Carina space, but this- it was too much, too hard to watch. It had been 5 days since… well since it happened.
She’d been sitting in Carina’s office for what felt like forever, her girlfriend’s brother had just been taken back into surgery and the blonde watched the brunette pace around.
“Love, can you please sit?” Maya asked, Carina’s pacing was causing her more anxiety than she already felt. She didn’t regret missing the 4-alarm, but it made her tense.
“He was taken back into surgery, how do you expect me to just- just be like you and turn off what I’m feeling?” Carina snapped. The shock on Maya’s face made her scrunch her eyebrow, take a deep breath before mumbling an apology.
“It’s fine, if it was my brother, I’d do the same thing, just come sit down, okay?” Maya asked. She had recently learned this chase was after a low-sleep 48 hours and hoped Carina would nap while Andrew was in surgery. She had been proved wrong recently.
Carina nodded hesitantly before sitting down and leaning her head on Maya’s shoulder. Within seconds, Maya felt Carina’s body shake as soft sobs filled the room.
Maya didn’t know how to help. Nothing felt good enough. She would bring Carina soup and her favorite foods and coffee and tea and wine and whiskey, trying to get Carina to eat literally anything, but she couldn’t. It was as if the doctor had shut down. Maya understood, but she didn’t know how to help.
“Amelia came by and brought over lasagna. She also said negative covid tests warrant a baby visit if you’d like,” Maya said, knocking again. “Babe, I know you-” The blonde stopped to sigh, “I’m coming in, Carina.” She walked into the bedroom to find Carina staring at the ceiling, lying on the floor of their room.
“Are you hungry?” Carina shook her head no, “Thirsty?” another head shake of no, “Car, you haven’t had anything to or drink in days- you’ve barely said a word.”
A moment of silence passed between them. Carina just staring at the ceiling, Maya just staring at her. She didn’t know what to say, how to fix it. Carina was the one who always knew what to say, but now her girlfriend seemed so lost, so empty.
“Let’s lie in bed for a bit okay?” Maya asked, the brunette also hadn’t been sleeping, just staring at the fan on the ceiling. Carina nodded and stood up slowly, making her way under the covers, into Maya’s arms.
“Carina, it’s been almost a week. Let me in, please. I wanna know what you’re thinking,” Maya whispered and Carina shrugged.
“Okay, then I’ll go first. I’m thinking that I love you and if I could take even a fraction of this pain for you I would. I would take double the pain you’re feeling right now if it meant you didn’t feel any pain. I love you so much Carina, I just- I love you so much and so did Andrew, he would want you to-”
At this Carina shot up out of Maya’s arms and glared at her, “You don’t know what he would’ve wanted, Maya, so just stop! If you want to help, give me my brother back!” Tears were flowing from brown eyes at this point, “But you can't because no amount of hoping or praying or anything is gonna bring him back!”
“Carin-“
“It was my fault, Maya, I knew it was stupid and I let him do it anyways, so you can’t make me feel better!” Carina said through a final breath. She had started hyperventilating.
“Breathe with me,” Maya instructed, watching Carina stare at her for a second before they took a deep breath together, holding it in, releasing it and repeating for the next few minutes.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, okay? You didn’t do anything wrong,” Maya told the brunette as she rubbed her girlfriend’s arms. She felt so useless. She wanted to take all of Carina’s pain for her and feel it tenfold if it meant the Italian felt none of it.
Carina caught her breath and looked at Maya hesitantly, “I wish it was me.”
“What?” Maya heard her loud and clear, she was just hoping she hadn’t.
“I wish it were me, Maya. He doesn’t- he’s my baby brother, I’m not supposed to watch him be buried! He’s supposed to be here! He’s supposed to be alive!” Carina broke down and Maya didn’t know what to do or say. She had wanted her girlfriend to speak but she wasn’t sure that was what she wanted to hear. She honestly didn’t know what she wanted to hear, but that wasn’t it.
“It’ll be okay-“
“How!? How, Maya?! I no longer have a baby brother! How is anything okay? He was supposed to- he wanted to get married and have kids one day! Not be buried at 35!”
“I know! I don’t know what to say or how to help but I do know if you don’t eat or drink soon you’ll get hurt- you’ll die too and I can’t- you can’t.”
“How am I supposed to live without him?” Carina said so quietly that it was nearly inaudible. Nearly.
“Oh, Carina,” Maya pulled the brunette as close to her body as she could. She felt Carina shake as she silently cried into the blonde’s shirt. Maya didn’t know how long it had been but at least an hour had passed before Carina’s breathing evened out and her body relaxed more against Maya’s. The blonde hadn’t run in five days, she hadn't wanted to leave Carina alone. She hadn’t been to work or actually left the house. Just received everyone’s pity food and said Carina was asleep or showering or anything to get people to not try and talk to her. Carina hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone.
The first time someone, Richard, had brought them food, Carina had spoken for the first time that wasn’t on the phone telling relatives, or making funeral arrangements. The Italian had begged her- begged her to tell him she was asleep. Owen, Teddy, and Owen’s mom had each brought a meal by the end of the first day, but Carina couldn’t even look at the surgeons, let alone answer the door, get the food, and hold a conversation. Then, it just became normal. Maya would open the door, get the food, thank people, answer their questions about how Carina was doing. She had a line at this point.
“As well as someone who’s just lost a brother can be.”
She had said it at least 20 times in the past 72 hours. She honestly wished people would discuss bringing food so they didn’t get 5 meals in 2 hours again. Their fridge was full of food at this point, most of it store bought because of the fact everyone they knew were first responders. It wasn’t that hard to coordinate when to go to the store and buy a cheap frozen meal.
“How’s she doing?” Andy asked as she walked into the apartment. She had brought a meal that the station had made together, some kind of soup.
“Andy, she just lost her brother, she’s not-she’s- she’s just not okay. She’s not eating or sleeping or drinking or anything. She’s just numb.”
“I know, are you okay?” Andy asked, she knew Maya and Andrew weren’t close but the blonde was so worried about her girlfriend.
“I’m- Yeah, I’m just- yeah. Are you moving your stuff out yet? I need to uhm- I need to do something that’s not watching my girlfriend stare at the ceiling as she grieves her baby brother.”
About an hour later, after packing up all of Andy’s stuff and getting her ready to go, they were on the couch, Maya kind of sort of maybe venting.
“How am I supposed to help her? Andy, I feel so useless watching her look so- so emotionless, so broken. I know she lost her brother, I know losing Mason would break me and we’re nowhere near as close as they are- were,” Maya talked quickly.
“You can’t help her. Just be a shoulder to cry on,” Andy advised.
“She isn’t crying! She isn’t feeling anything! I don’t know what to do!”
“She’ll need to cry. She hasn’t yet, but she’ll need to. And you’ll have to be the shoulder.”
Maya nodded slowly.
The stages of grief. That’s what she had expected. She expected for Carina to be in denial at first, but she wasn’t. The moment she found out the warmth and happiness and love left her eyes. Her eyes looked like a void, empty.
The numbness had replaced it. She expected the denial and then anger and guilt and then the bargaining and the depression but this- she didn’t expect this. She closed her eyes and tried to get some sleep too. She felt the weight of the past few days come crashing down onto her, she was nearly asleep when Carina’s body started thrashing around. Muttering something in Italian.
“Carina, wake up,” Maya whispered.
“Help! Help!” Carina screamed during her sleep. Maya shook her gently, “Carina, wake up!”
The brunette sat up quickly and gasped quietly.
“Carina-”
“I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” Carina mumbled as she cut the blonde off.
“Carina, please tell me what I can do? I need to do something.”
“Go, Maya. Go to work. Leave me alone, stop breathing down my neck and go away!” The bathroom door slammed shut behind the brunette.
Maya stood outside the door for a good thirty minutes, Maya heard the crying but couldn’t do anything . She didn’t know how to help Carina. She had never lost a brother. She had never really lost anyone. Pruitt, she supposed, but Carina was right there to help her through it. Carina had felt the pain of losing a parental figure. Carina had felt so much, too much, pain. It was hard to remember because of her bright smile, her positive demeanor, the light in her eyes. All of which Maya was afraid she’d never seen again. How many times can something be beaten and ripped apart before it couldn’t be put back together again?
Throughout her life, Carina had always had one constant. One person who would never always love her no matter what. It had been her brother. Ever since their mom had died Carina had only had her brother. Only 3 years of her life had she not had her brother as support, the three years before he was born. Even when he was a few months old and she was three she could remember sitting on the couch, finally being allowed to hold him and cooing at his little adorable face. Holding him made her forget about their dad’s mood swings or the constant fighting at home. From the moment she first held him, she knew she had someone forever.
When their mom died, it was one of the worst things to ever happen to her. She remembered thinking, “At least I’ll never have to bury him,” as she hugged Andrew tightly. She took solace in the fact she was older, she had assumed she would die first. It gave her a sense of peace. It was like she had run out of oxygen, like her heart had been ripped out of her chest. Like she was one part of a whole, with the other part missing. Because she was. She was missing the other half of her.
She felt like she was suffocating. She didn’t want to be held by Maya, she didn’t want everyone’s pity food, she didn’t want anything except her brother back. She just wanted him to tell her everything would be okay. If she had just stopped him, kept him in the car or in the train. Gone with him after Opal. She could’ve prevented it all. If only she’d done her job as a big sister. If only she’d protected him.
She opened the door to the bathroom to find Maya on the bed with her head in her hands. Carina sat down next to her and felt Maya’s hand grab hers.
“Carina, I’m so sorry, and I know that doesn’t help, but I don’t know what does and I need to help and-”
“You can’t, Maya! It’s my fault he’s dead, everyone, you, Ben, the police- everyone - was telling us to stay put and we didn’t, I couldn’t keep him safe, so now he’s dead!”
“Carina, it’s not-”
“I’m going to bed.”
And so the cycle of numbness- numbness Maya would realize was an avoidance of Carina’s denial- continued.