prompt: things you said too quietly
word count: 436

(i can't) speak up

Maya doesn't open up easily. She prefers to distract. To downplay. To shrug it off. Because laying it all out is scary; it's like opening up her chest and leaving her heart open to any and all attacks.

Falling for Huckleberry seemed easy at first. He was so good and nice and would never do anything to hurt her. She never thought about how she might hurt herself. How she would close up and swallow back her words and hide her edges. How she would pretend to be less. Less broken, less complicated, less Maya.

Lucas didn't fall for less. He fell for her. So when she starts pulling away. When she avoids the big conversations and she hides from the tough feeling, he notices. And there's only so long he can hold on until it feels like he's holding her back.

She sits on the edge of the bed, picking at dried paint on her hands, not quite watching as he gathers up his things. His favorite football jersey and baseball cap and the plaid shirts she likes to wear while she draws. He leaves all the pictures, all but a strip of black and white snapshots taken at a fair. He tucks those in the pocket of his shirt and she pretends not to watch from the corner of her stinging eyes.

He's slow about it, like he's hoping maybe she'll fight him. Jump up and say everything she's been holding back. But Maya doesn't want to be loud. She doesn't want to fight this if it was always going to be this way. Some things are inevitable, and hope is for suckers. So she lets him pack it all away in box after box and take it down to his truck. She lets him take away every little bit of himself until she can see holes and hollows that weren't there before. Spaces he used to fill. Places he used to be.

And then, all he's got left is him and a key. He puts it on the bedside table and stands in front of her, inches away. If she reaches out now, she can hook a finger in the loop of his jeans, pull him in, pull him back. Her fingers twitch but stay in her lap.

Lucas sighs. He bends and drops a kiss atop her head, and she closes her eyes. She listens to his footsteps as he leaves and the click of the door as it close behind him. And in the quiet of the room, she says, too late and too quiet, "I love you… I'm just scared."