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“I think I’m in love with you.”
The words had floated in the warm autumnal air, swaying with the slight breeze that pushed Franziska’s hair to stick to her lip gloss. She had stared at Maya with an expressionless gaze, hiding the fear, the anguish, the vitriol that was boiling inside of her. She wasn’t made to be loved— wasn’t made for such sappy, affectionate words to slip from childish lips. She was sure, as she brushed her hair aside, the lip gloss dragging ever slightly onto her cheek, that Maya was too immature to be serious or was too young to understand the meaning or too stupid to understand the implications. She laughed. It wasn’t intentional, just the burping over her overflow of emotions from the jar of her heart.
“You’re not serious,” she said quickly, her eyes darting to the neon lights of the corner store across the street from where they stood.
Maya frowned. “I’m super serious. I really like you, Franzy.”
Another laugh, this one as unintentional as the last but filled with mocking of a schoolyard bully. She tucked her hair behind her ear, her skin vibrating from some anxiety she had never felt before. She started moving her hand for her bag but dropped it, understanding that pulling out a cigarette now would be tantamount to losing.
“You don’t know what that word means,” Franziska said simply, taking a step as the crosswalk turned green.
Maya stood there for a moment as Franziska crossed. She imagined her expression, some combination of anger, hurt, and confusion. Quickly, footsteps rushed to close the gap.
“I do too,” Maya said, turning around as she passed her. “You treat me like I’m stupid.”
“Because you are,” Franziska said under her breath, hoping the wind would carry it down the road away from Maya’s delicate ears.
“What?”
Maya stopped dead center of a lane. The red stop flashing as the numbers counted down quickly to zero. Franziska kept walking, passing her by as though she was nothing more than a stranger.
“Franziska?” Maya called out. “Do you really think that?”
“You have other qualities,” Franziska called to her, not turning around. “Whatever charm you possess does not include your brain.”
She had meant it sincerely. Franziska had felt since the moment she had met Maya that some mystic charm had been placed on her, like a childish love potion had been slipped into her coffee resulting in her mind being clouded by this person she knew to be so far beneath her like that of a schoolgirl. She had hated it at first, cursing every late night where Maya’s silken black hair or wild kind eyes or plush flapping lips would fill her every thought, overtaking that of her important work, though as they saw each other more and started enjoying each other’s company beyond the leering eyes of others Franziska had found a sort of solace in whatever spell had been placed over her. What she liked, though she would never even think the word, about Maya was not her intelligence, or Franziska perceived lack thereof, it was what Maya had that she did not. What that meant, Franziska was not sure, but she understood, though she refused to admit, the life Maya led was a life some part of her wished she could. The ability to be young, the ability to have friends, the ability to find a family; Franziska envied all of it to the point it made her sick to her stomach.
She finished crossing, turning around with a sort of parental expression, one that might be plastered on a father only pretending to disapprove of his child’s horseplay, assuming she would see something not as dire as she did. With eyes glassy like plastic beads and a rivulet cutting down her cheek, Maya stood like a girl scorned. She opened her mouth then closed it then opened it again. Franziska simply watched, confused by such a display.
“Get out of the street,” she said as the crossing traffic’s light turned green. “You’ll get hit.”
Maya stayed in place, another tear staining her fat cheek. A car honked, finally knocking her out of her spell. Quickly, she hurried to the same side Franziska stood with now crossed arms, wiping her face with the balls of her hands like a toddler. Franziska sighed.
“Don’t be so sensitive,” she said calmly, bitterness painting her words no more than normal.
It was enough though, the standard edge of Franziska’s tone, to cut Maya in two. What was slight tears turned into heavy sobs, heaving Maya’s body like she was about to be sick. Franziska took a step back in shock, her hand once again instinctively reaching for her pack in her bag. She held it there, clutching the zipper like a lifesaver as she felt she was drowning in the sea of other people’s emotions, a body of water she knew was far too deep and treacherous for her to ever swim.
“What is your problem?” she asked, her anxiety coming out with villainous levels of malevolence.
“I’m sorry,” Maya said through suppressed sobs, her hands working overtime to catch all her tears. “I’m sorry. I- I should go.”
Franziska only stood and watched as Maya ran in some direction she was sure would take her farther away from wherever she wanted to go for solace. She was befuddled in a way she never had been before. The events, so inconsequential in nature to her, made no sense even as she replayed them back in her mind. She had done nothing wrong in her mind, simply stated the obvious. Maya wasn’t a super genius and there was no universe where she was truly and genuinely in love with her. It was a fact just as the sun would come up tomorrow. She unzipped her bag as Maya left her line of sight, finally reaching for her learned solace.
The wind was fickle, shimmying to and fro as though it wanted to put out her lighter or make her burn her finger. When she finally had her cigarette lit, that first drag feeling how she imagined Catholics feel after they give their seven Hail Marys after confession, a nagging feeling hit her. She imagined Miles Edgeworth like a bug on the sidewalk, watching the whole escapade and judging all the while. She imagined no doubt he’d jeer with a smirk. He had it all figured out in his mind, she knew. He had escaped whatever invisible chains he thought her father had latched onto the two of them. He was a better man than her, he thought; he was a man finally worthy to love and be loved, he thought.
She laughed. Not just any laugh but something hardy, something Santa Claus-esque. Tears brimmed as her eyes squeezed shut, which she told herself was just the smoke though none had blown in her eyes. How stupid, she thought. How utterly preposterous. It was too late at night, on a weekday no less, for her to be dealing with such displays. She took another drag, her cigarette shaking as it moved to her mouth, and found that the tears would not stop forming. Two streams poured down her face like runoff from a massive storm. She cursed in German as she wiped them away, begging her eyes to match her carefully crafted image.
“How completely and utterly foolish,” she said to herself before making the long trek back to her makeshift American home.