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She couldn’t shake it.
The memories of the 5150. They haunted her, woke her up from her dreams and followed her during the day.
It felt like her back was against a wall, no matter where she turned, she couldn’t get away from them. She knew better now then to try and outrun them, she hadn’t tried, not really anyway. She talked to Diane, a lot, she wasn’t ready to run yet.
But that didn’t mean she didn’t try to outrun her thoughts in different ways.
Cleaning.
The apartment was spotless.
It’s not what she really wanted though, she wanted to flour dust and smell of fresh coffee back.
She wanted her wife back.
Sometimes, when she was sleeping, the straps weren’t a memory. She could feel them again: around her wrists, her around her ankles. She hadn’t stopped trying to get out. They needed to. She knew that, she understood that.
As soon as she calmed down they had unrestrained her, but the damage had been done.
She had been helpless, stuck, no control.
She could still feel her breath caught in panic and hear the echo of someone saying her name, but it wasn’t gentle, not like how Carina said it.
And then she’d wake up, in their bed, heart pounding, hands free.
Alone.
Now, weeks later, the apartment was still quiet. Too quiet. The couch sometimes felt like it had a dent in it from the amount of time she’d spent on it lately, waiting desperately for the front door to open, for Carina to walk in.
But she didn’t.
Carina had walked out instead.
She knew it wasn’t fair of her to think that. She had driven Carina away. She had done that. But that didn’t make it sting any less.
“I just want my wife back,” Maya whispered into the empty room. Her voice sounded thin, foreign.
But whispering it into the empty room wouldn’t help.
Neither would screaming it into the universe.
What could possibly help, was proving herself. Over and over.
Though she didn’t have any plans today, and Carina wasn’t answering her messages right now, so, she wasn’t really sure how she could prove herself.
Running wasn’t allowed, and it would’ve helped if her body got that memo too, but since it didn’t and continued to be restless, she got up to grab a rag and start scrubbing the already clean countertop.
Again.
She had a hard time stopping moving, she couldn’t stop trying to fix things, herself, the apartment, the silence. Because if she stopped, she’d feel the weight again, the walls closing in and the fear that maybe everyone had been right, that she was broken beyond repair.
She knew it wasn’t true though. She had talked about it with Diane, a lot, she was actively working on herself, and even then, Diane didn’t approve of it when she called herself broken.
What Maya did figure though, was that continuing to do therapy and listening to Diane could be considered proving herself. Even if Carina didn’t really know yet.
She wasn’t going to let anything hold her back from proving herself to Carina. Nothing was going to hold her down.
So maybe if she said it enough, maybe she’d start to believe it.
“I’m not broken.”
She wasn’t in the hospital anymore. She wasn’t the woman who had to be put on a 5150 by her wife anymore. She was still standing, no longer fighting against her wife, but for her wife.
She picked up her phone, staring at Carina’s contact. The photo made her chest ache; her grin, her hair messy, sunlight turning her eyes golden. Maya wanted that version of her back. She wanted them back.
So she texted, again, hands shaking.
I love you. I’m working on myself. Please can I see you? I love you, I hope you’re doing okay.
No response came. Not right away.
But that was okay.
She didn’t delete the message, didn’t back down.
She would wait as long as she had to.
She’s Maya DeLuca-Bishop, even when the world tried to pin her to a wall, she would keep fighting her way out.
But instead of fighting against her wife now, she would fight for her. Always.
Carina was home again.
The word home still felt weird, fragile, like something that could crumble if either of them moved too fast. No- if she moved too fast. She’d adjust to anything Carina would throw at her, she wasn’t going to screw up again.
They had taken things slowly, dates, late night conversations, a night here and there, until one day, finally, Carina had told her she was moving back in.
Things were better now. They were trying, both of them, to rebuild, one small moment at a time.
But some things lingered.
It happened in flashes Carina almost didn’t catch. The way Maya’s shoulders went rigid for a split second when someone mentioned a treadmill, or how she froze whenever someone touched her wrist unexpectedly. Little things, barely there, but Carina noticed.
She didn’t say anything. Not right away. Before the 5150 Maya would have- she wasn’t sure how Maya would react now. Her wife had changed, had put in the effort, the work.
A part of her was worried about how her wife would react now, if she’d ask. But a part of her was also choosing to trust that Maya was handling it. To trust she was discussing it in therapy.
So for now she watched, waited, learned the rhythms of her wife’s recovery the same way she’d once learned the rhythms of her heartbeat in the dark.
The same way she was relearning the rhythm of her heartbeat in the dark.
One night, they were brushing their teeth side by side before Maya reached out for the towel and flinched. Just slightly. Carina saw it in the reflection, the quick flicker of panic behind Maya’s eyes that was gone as fast as it appeared.
But she also saw the breath Maya took, the way she stabled herself.
Carina didn’t ask, not yet. She just stepped closer, resting her hand on Maya’s back. “You okay?”
Blue eyes darted away, Maya wasn’t hiding, not fully, but she wasn’t ready to tell her either.
Carina’s thumb traced slow circled over her spine. “You don’t have to explain everything, it’s okay if you’re not ready.”
“I want to- I’m just.. not ready. I’m talking to Diane though, I promise. I’m okay.” Maya turned her head to look at her, and if Carina had considered pushing, the look in her eyes halted any thoughts of that.
The same look she always carried when they talked about the 5150.
She knew her wife, and she also knew of the guilt Maya carried, the way she still thought she’d ruined everything that night. So instead, Carina simply leaned in and kissed her, warm and steady.
Later, curtains closed, lights out, lying in bed, she could feel Maya stir beside her. The tension in her body, the shallow breaths, her wife was still awake, caught in that half-place between then and now.
Carina didn’t move closer, didn’t say anything. Just reached for Maya’s hand and laced their fingers together.
Maya’s grip was tight, desperate at first, then easing as the minutes passed.
When she finally whispered, “I’m still here,” Carina’s chest ached ,but she smiled into the dark.
“I know, amore,” she whispered back. “You always are.”
She wanted to know what her wife was thinking, but Maya wasn’t ready yet, and despite that, she talked to her therapist.
And that?
That counted for something.
The living room was quiet, sunlight soft through the curtains, dust dancing in the air between them. Maya had been pacing for ten minutes, small, restless circles that didn’t seem to go anywhere.
Carina sat on the couch, patient, hands folded in her lap. She didn’t rush her, she didn’t need to.
“I talked to Diane,” Maya said finally, voice low.
Carina smiled gently. “That’s good. How was it?”
She nodded, though blue eyes stayed fixed on the floor. “Good. Hard. She- uh- she made me realize I’ve been doing that thing again.”
“What thing?”
Maya exhaled, rubbing her palms against her thighs. “Hiding the bad parts. Pretending I’m fine so you don’t worry. So you don’t-” She swallowed, voice faltering. “So you don’t feel guilty.”
Carina’s breath caught, but she didn’t speak.
“I know you already do,” Maya continued quietly. “About the 5150. About everything that came after. And I didn’t want to make it worse, so I just… pretended. Every time I flinched or panicked or thought I heard someone unbuckle a restraint, I told myself it didn’t matter. I told myself if I was strong enough, it would go away.”
Her hands trembled. “But it doesn’t. It just gets heavier. And I can’t keep hiding it from you anymore.”
Brown eyes shone with unshed tears, but she kept her voice steady. “Thank you for telling me.”
“You’re not mad?” Maya said with a small, humorless laugh.
“How could I be mad? You’ve been surviving, amore. I just wish you hadn’t felt like you had to do it alone.”
Maya finally looked up, and the tears in her eyes broke something in both of them. “I thought I was protecting you.”
Her wife reached for her hand, fingers warm and sure. “You don’t have to protect me from your pain. That’s not how this works.”
She blinked hard. “It didn’t feel fair to put it on you either.”
“You’re my wife, bambina. That makes it fair.” Carina smiled faintly.
They sat in silence for a moment, hands intertwined. Then Maya whispered, “Sometimes when you touch my wrist, I remember the hospital. The sound of the restraints. It’s not you, but it feels like it. And then I feel guilty for even thinking that, because you’re- God, you’re my home, Carina.”
Carina moved closer, until their knees brushed. “Thank you for telling me,” she said again, voice thick. “Now I know. And I can be more gentle, more aware. But I don’t ever want you to hide it. Not from me.”
Blue eyes shined, her lip trembled. “I don’t want to hide anymore.”
Carina lifted her hand to her wife’s cheek, thumb tracing the path of a tear. “Then don’t. No secrets, no lies. Just us, okay?”
Maya leaned into her touch, nodding. “Just us.”
Maya woke with the phantom burn of straps across her wrists.
She knew they weren’t there. She’d checked the first time, pressing her palms flat against the sheets, forcing herself to open and close her fists until her brain caught up with reality.
But in the dark, when the house was too quiet, her mind dragged her back to that sterile room. The cuff around her ankle. The pressure on her chest from panicked breathing. Her body pinned, her voice useless, as though every ounce of fire she had had been smothered out of her.
Carina stirred beside her. Even asleep, she had one arm draped across Maya’s stomach, tethering her here, to now.
Maya turned her head, pressing her nose into the crown of her wife’s hair. Breathed in. Counted. Tried to remember that she was home, free, loved.
But the memories pressed closer.
The white-hot panic of not being able to move, of begging for release and being told “not yet.”
She slipped out of bed.
The bathroom mirror was merciless. She braced both hands on the sink and stared herself down. She looked healthy now. Not like she had then. But her reflection didn’t tell the whole story.
She still carried it in her body, in the restless nights, the way she flinched when someone grabbed her wrist too fast at the station, the guilt that came roaring up when she remembered how Carina’s eyes had looked the day she’d been taken away.
“Amore?” Carina’s voice was soft, groggy, padding closer.
Maya’s throat tightened. She didn’t want Carina to see her like this, shaking, haunted. But when she slid her arms around Maya’s waist from behind and pressed her cheek between her shoulder blades, Maya felt something in her chest unclench.
“I can’t-” Her voice cracked, thin and raw. “I can’t get it out of my head.”
Carina kissed the back of her shoulder, patient as always. “I know. It was traumatic. Of course it comes back.”
Blue eyes closed tightly. “I don't want it to come back, I feel like I’m still there sometimes. Like I’ll never get free of it.”
“You are free, no matter how long it takes to feel that way.” Carina murmured, tightening her arms until Maya felt held, anchored. “You are here. With me. No straps, no locks. Just us.”
Her breathing came uneven, but she leaned back, letting herself be caught.
For a long while they stood like that, Carina’s warmth pinning Maya to the present, until the memory began to loosen its grip and they slowly made their way back to bed.
It happened a few nights later.
The house was dark except for the faint glow of the streetlight filtering through the curtains. Carina had already fallen asleep, her breathing slow and steady beside her. Maya should’ve been asleep too, but something about the quiet made her chest feel tight, like the air itself was pressing down.
It started small, the faint hum of a car engine outside, and a low rustle that sounded too much like a restrained being fastened. Her pulse spiked before her mind could catch up. The room around her blurred, edges softening, light warping.
She knew this feeling. The slide backward. The moment where past and present blurred and she was back there, the air too thin, her voice gone.
Usually, this was where she’d slip away quietly, into the bathroom, into her head, anywhere Carina wouldn’t see her unravel. But tonight, Diane’s voice echoed through her mind: “You don’t have to carry it alone anymore.”
Maya turned toward Carina. Her hands trembled. “Carina,” she whispered, voice barely there.
Carina stirred, immediately alert in that instinctive way she had. “Hey… what’s wrong?”
Maya shook her head, eyes glassy. “Just- just a sound. I’m okay. I just-”
“You don’t have to be okay. What did it sound like?” She replied while sitting up, gently cupping her wife’s face.
“It just- it- it sounded like the restraints, faintly.”
Carina’s heart clenched, a part of her couldn’t help but feel like she did this, like she was the reason her wife was still fighting with this, even now, but rationally she knew she did what she had to.
She didn’t try to fix it, it wouldn’t help either of them, not really. “Thank you for telling me.” She just said softly instead.
Maya’s breath came fast, her body taut, every muscle braced for something that wasn’t coming. So she slid closer, slow enough that Maya could see every movement, and offered her hand. “Can I hold you?”
Maya nodded, a small, jerky motion.
Carina’s arms wrapped around her, loose but certain. Not confining. Not restraining.
Just steady.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “You’re home. No straps. No locks. Just us.”
Maya buried her face in her wife’s shoulder, her breath uneven against warm skin. “I didn’t hide,” she choked out, half a sob, half relief.
“No,” Carina said, pressing a kiss to her hair. “You didn’t.”
They stayed like that, the minutes stretching, until Maya’s breathing slowed again. Her body softened against Carina’s, and for the first time, the space between them felt safe, not because Maya was pretending, but because she’d let herself be seen.
When she finally whispered, “I’m still here,” Carina smiled in the dark.
“I know, amore,” she murmured. “You always find your way back.”