Page 59 of I Love to Hate You
“You’re lucky I like you,” she says before turning to the side so I can dab the towel on her eye again. “Just give me a warning before you press the towel down. That shit burns.”
“Oh, my god. Fine. I am now about to press the towel on your exposed skin. Please brace for impact. Commencing pressing of the towel in five, four, three—”
“Kendrick,” she snaps, and we both laugh. Her laughter turns to a groan when I press the towel down again, but her smile stays intact.
After everything went down last night, Maya and I stayed in the living room talking for quite some time. We had to take a minute to get cleaned up because she had my cum all over her belly, and each of us had a cut open up during sex, so we had to wipe blood away before we could totally relax, but it was worth it.
Maya told me more about her parents, which made me feel bad for her, although I didn’t tell her. She doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who wants sympathy, so I kept it to myself while still trying to be supportive. That part of our conversation started off great, with stories about places she went with her parents, who were such a happy couple. But by the time we came to the end, the feeling had changed. Her father grabbed the happy story by the legs and dragged it down into the murky depths of his perpetual grief and mourning. Everything has been dark for Maya since her mother passed away, and it breaks my heart to know she spends every day in a house with a man who blames and despises her. I don’t know if my father is dead or alive, but I know my mother has never blamed me for him walking out on us, even if I really was the reason in his head. There are some things that good parents just know not to do to their children, and blaming them for something like this is definitely one of them.
As for my side of the conversation, I didn’t have anything to say about my father, good or bad. Instead, I put the focus on the people who cared for me after he was gone—the ones who picked up the pieces and made sure I was good. Simon was the non-family member who was there for me, but mentioning him only brought tears to my eyes because his untimely death is still too fresh for me to talk about. My mother, on the other hand, is a topic I’ve never been ashamed to discuss.
I told Maya all about my mother and her battle with cancer, and she was glad to hear that my mom is doing much better now. While she’s not in full remission, things have been looking good for her, and we’re optimistic about the outcome. I’m not happy about the Mount Everest of medical bills we’ll never be able to scale, but I will take on that task as long as my mother is okay.
I also told Maya what I did to the men who attacked her. I had been curious if she saw anything that went down, but she informed me that she was facedown the entire time and could only hear the shuffling of feet and the slamming of bodies. When I told her about the scream she heard at the end, she looked both petrified and proud. She tried to hide her satisfaction, but I could see it in her eyes as clear as the hazel color in her irises. Try as she might, Maya loves the idea of me fighting for her, and that’s perfectly fine with me because I always will. As far as I’m concerned, any man laying a finger on her as of last night will have that finger snapped in two.
We listened to each other talk for hours before moving to the bedroom. While my mind was on a second round of sex, both of us were exhausted from everything that went down, and we ended up cuddling and falling asleep wrapped in each other’s arms instead. When I woke up this morning, the first thing I noticed was the blood on the pillow, which brings us to her complaining while sitting between my legs.
I finish taking care of the bleeding beneath Maya’s eye, and she thanks me with a kiss that could easily lead to more. If our relationship wasn’t so new, I think it would, but we’re still defining this thing between us. While I would love for Maya to shower and get cleaned up here, I’m sure she needs a change of clothes and makeup to feel like herself again. She has been through a lot, and I would never pressure her to stay here just for me. Instead, I swat away all ideas she has about getting an Uber to take her back to Club Asylum and insist on taking her to pick up her car myself.
The drive back to the club is quiet, but when we get to the parking lot, Maya’s eyes bulge at the amount of blood on the pavement.
“It looks like a murder scene out here,” she says, kneeling down next to two small pools of blood that have congealed into blobs. “Whose blood is this?”
I shrug and smirk. “I don’t know. Not mine.”
Maya smiles as she stands up and walks closer to her car, inspecting the ground like a crime scene investigator. She points to a barely visible streak on the ground leading up to her driver side door.
“This is where I crawled, dragging myself on the ground to get away from them,” she says. She stops next to her car and turns around, imagining the scene playing out in front of her. “I remember wondering if they were going to try to kill or rape me, then I heard one of them say, ‘Oh fuck,’ or something like that. Then the sound of your voice hit my ears and I froze.”
“Why’d you freeze?”
“Because I knew you were here to save me,” she replies. “I worried for your safety, but something told me you’d be okay and that they wouldn’t be. I didn’t have to crawl anymore because the threat was no longer towering over me. So I laid there and tried to listen to it all without passing out, and I could tell that the screaming I heard wasn’t your voice. I had no idea you’d broken all ten of a man’s fingers, but I knew you’d handled the situation, and I was grateful. I still am and always will be. I didn’t get a chance to say it last night because we clearly were busy doing other things, but thank you so much, Kendrick. For all I know, you saved my life last night.”
Tears fill Maya’s eyes as I speed walk from my spot over to her and wrap her in my arms.
“My life has been really hard, and the only person who has ever fought on my behalf is me,” she says, her voice trembling. “No one has ever had my back the way you did. I have always been my only defense, my only protector, my only savior. But you changed everything last night.”
Through the tears, Maya suddenly begins to laugh. I pull back and look at her smiling face.
“What’s so funny?” I ask.
“It was a joke when I said it at the club,” she says, “but you really did become my superhero.”
“Oh, god,” I blurt before both of us fall into laughter together.
After another few minutes of checking out the scene, Maya finally opens the door to her car and drops down into the front seat, groaning from sore ribs.
“Okay, so I’m going to follow you,” I tell her. “After last night, I just want to make sure you don’t have a concussion or something, so I’m going to drive behind you.”
Her smile reaches her eyes and lights up her face. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
I get into my car and crank it up, pulling in behind Maya’s as she turns it onto the street and heads up to the highway. I roll my window down and let the breeze brush my face, and while I’m a little sore, it feels so good. There’s a happiness in my chest that is uncommon. It feels like I have a companion after feeling alone for so long. Maya fills a void that Simon couldn’t. While he was my best friend, there’s nothing like having someone you could fall in love with—someone you could take home to meet your mother.
The trip to Kensington isn’t very long, and when we pull into the neighborhood, I immediately recognize the familiar symptoms of a place where all of the resources have been dried up for decades. The roads are falling apart, the buildings are in ruins, and the entire area has a gray filter over it like it’s always in the shade even when the sun is shining. Somehow, even with no outside assistance or care, the people here are still living, still celebrating birthdays and finding laughter in dark corners, still going to church and singing praises for their perceived blessings. If there’s one thing the people in these neighborhoods deserve, it’s praise for their ability to survive and live happily, even when the world turns its back on them.
Maya’s house isn’t a whole lot different from mine—a ranch style home, no more than fifteen-hundred square feet, with a tiny yard that never needs mowing because it’s mostly dirt. There’s a small porch with just three stairs that look like they should be skipped when entering or exiting the house, and the spot where Maya parks her car is a patch of dirt slick with oil stains. I pull my car up next to the mailbox and get out at the same time Maya exits her car.
