1998
.
Despite their initial, blood-burning makeout, their relationship builds slowly.
Baby steps. September becomes October, and then November, and the farthest they've gone so far has been said blood-burning makeout.
It's both of their first, after all. Soul has kissed here and there, apparently, and he's certainly not a virgin (simmer, squirm, pout) but he's still new to the dating thing. He's still new to romantic hand-holding, if just because now he's allowed to press warm kisses to the back of her hand, and he lets her swing those clasped hands as they take walks together. It's like everything has changed and also hasn't, because they had been close while maintaining their just friends status - but now, she notes with glee, Soul will kiss her forehead after nights out (dates!) and - sometimes - shyly mumble that he loves her while they watch movies.
It's a pretty sweet deal. Maka's pretty sure she's never been happier. Soul's only a call away, after all. And even more so than that, he's literally just a house down - she can see his window from hers, and sometimes, when they talk on the phone and hog up the landline, he'll crack his curtains and wave at her, and something giddy in her explodes, thundering through her chest.
After months of pining and feeling irritatingly twitter-patted around him, it's so nice to finally be open. It's nice to not have to worry if he'll take her lovelorn stares the wrong way, or if he'll think she's funny for wanting to scoot extra close during movie night. There is such comfort in being close to him, in feeling his heartbeat so soundly beneath her cheek. No more pretenses, no more second guessing - just companionship, warm hands and extra long drives, with Soul's palm soft on her thigh.
Or Soul, strumming idly on his acoustic guitar, feet in her lap, while she turns a page in her novel. Such ease is comfortable, like tying her shoes or signing her name, and the way he keeps sending her little smiles when she peeks up from her reading is everything.
"What?" she asks finally.
Soul doesn't bristle. He doesn't even look affronted, just shrugs and strums again. "Gonna have to get you a flashlight here pretty soon. Not good for you to read in the dark."
He's such a mother hen. She shuts her book with a satisfying clap and sets it aside. Her slouchy boy picks at the strings of his guitar lazily, looking silly and lanky, stretched out the way he is in their old treehouse. At twelve, it seemed like such a great idea. And for Maka, at 17, and still petite and barely taller than five feet, it is still moderately comfortable. Soul, on the other hand, hit a growth spurt months after turning fifteen, and the rest is door frame head-bashing history.
He barely fits in the treehouse. Still, it doesn't stop him from crawling his way in, doesn't stop him from smooching the very tip of her nose and melting into the space beside her. Certainly hasn't discouraged him from stuffing his feet in her lap and doing his damndest to distract her from her assigned reading.
"It's fine," she sighs, grabbing at his feet. He jumps and squirms, mock-kicking at her. "I can see."
"You wanna go blind early? Let go, you menace," he hisses, squirming, squirming. Soul Evans is so ticklish, and she will never let him live it down, boyfriend or not. If anything, Maka thinks dating him gives her more reason to tickle and harass, if just because the look of his laughing face is preferable to the tense, stressed shell she's been left with more often than not, and his distress sort of makes her feel like a failure of a girlfriend. "Seriously!"
"Drama queen."
He squints at her. "Sounds like somebody doesn't want a lullaby tonight."
A game changer! He's so cruel, threatening to withhold such sweetness. He's got her heart on a damn leash and he knows it, too, judging by the slow, smug smile that curls along his lips. Maka gasps, dropping her hold on his ankles and presses a hand to her chest. "No!"
"Then behave," he scolds, going as far as to waggle a finger at her, mock-sternly. "And leave the feet alone, weirdo. Gonna start thinkin' you have a thing about feet."
The only thing Maka might have is for Soul Evans' mouth. Pink, she huffs, instead folding her arms over her chest. "Do not!"
His grinning face is handsome. And annoying. And, heck, they've been touchy-feely lately, and he clearly has no problem planting his big feet into her lap, so why should she have a problem crawling into his? If he wants to wage war, he best be prepared to fight a few battles. He grunts as she shoves his feet off of her lap and begins crawling her way over, and Soul raises a brow at the sudden change in position. There's not that much room, and they're sort of crammed in there together, but as she approaches, he still gets the hint and sets his guitar aside.
Sitting on him is still such a novel, exciting thing. Even just his knees - she knows these knees, sore, knobby things that crack noisily every time he stands. His legs wobble beneath her weight for a moment before he straightens out, all traces of mischief wiped from the curve of his brow. Instead, he watches her quietly, his hands reaching for her without presumption. He doesn't push, doesn't tug, just lets her come to him on her own terms. It's sort of why she likes him so much.
His hands are soft on her hips, gently cupping and holding the shape of her, unassuming and gentle. Her own hands get caught up in his hair, on the heated slope of his neck, as she greedily attempts to soak in his sweetness
"Hey," he mutters then, fingers drumming a lazy beat just along her lower back. It's right where the hem of her crop top falls, and each warm fingertip makes her want to wiggle closer and press a kiss right on the rise of his cheek.
He's so cute. Too cute for her to handle, and his sleepy eyes should not be quite as dreamy as she finds them. "Are you sober?"
"What's it matter?"
Her thumb brushes along the curve of his cheekbone, trails down to trace the shape of his jawline. She can still remember a time when his face was much softer, when he wasn't quite so lanky, wasn't quite so close to being an adult. To think she has known him through so many incarnations, so many stages of life - shy elementary school Soul, awkward, try-hard middle school Soul with the drooly lips and chubby cheeks, and now late high school Soul, nearly adult Soul, with that signature Evans (™) jawline and pronounced cheekbones - it's crazy, really, but also grounds her, in a way. Who else can she trust like this? Who else but Soul, who she has known nearly her whole life?
"It matters because I'm not going to kiss you if you taste like pot," she says matter-of-factly.
Soul pouts. "What."
"... And I don't want to go taking advantage of you if you're under the influence of something," she adds quietly, as Soul further cups her hips in his hands. She really, really hopes he hasn't been smoking anything, because tonight she is feeling brave, and if he's not in the right state of mind to make decisions, well, that will just spoil the fun.
His brows do furrow at that. "Maka, I'm still me when I'm high."
"But I'm not- not going to touch you and stuff if you're not sober." Her voice cracks a little, and his expression only pinches further, gently tugging her forward, now. "It's not right. You're Soul but you're still impaired. I don't want to do that to you."
She's close, now, to truly sitting on his lap. And maybe all of this slowness hadn't been such a great idea after all, because as nervous as she is about taking that big leap and sending her v-card through the shredder, there is also security in being with Soul. There is certainly attraction. Unmistakable heat. The way his red eyes seem to set her ablaze with nothing more than a low, smoldering stare.
Soul leans forward, just enough to press his forehead to hers. Each flutter of his pale lashes is quiet, and Maka wants to kiss the delicate space beneath his eyes just as gently. "You can kiss me, Maka. 'M your boyfriend. Or something."
"Or something," she parrots cheekily.
His pink cheeks are so satisfying. "It mellows me out, Maka. Makes things less immediate and panicky."
She knows this. He's told her before, once, after a particularly noisy fight with his father. His eyes had been damp and bloodshot, and she hadn't been able to decide if it was from crying or the high. It makes things easier for him to deal with, he'd said. He'd been fifteen at the time, still barely taller than her, still somehow looking impossibly small and defeated, curled up on the corner of her bed, watching the way her ceiling fan spun and blurred.
But it doesn't make her point any less valid. Doesn't lessen her resolve. "It's not right for me to touch you when you're stoned, Soul," she says, very seriously, and feels him exhale against her lips. "N-Not… you know, sexually."
"We haven't done that yet."
They've barely even talked about it yet. But she thinks about it almost constantly. What it might be like, mostly, but also things like this - if she'd be okay with sleeping with him while he's under the influence of something, be it alcohol or pot, his chill of choice. On top of that, there's still the underlying question of if she's ready or not for such a big, mature step. Condoms. Proper lubrication.
The way her mama calling her papa a dirty, ungrateful whore makes her feel.
Soul senses the shift in her mood effortlessly. His hands slide up, one cupping the curve of her waist while the other brushes her bangs from her eyes. "Not that we have to," he says. "I'm in no rush, you know."
"It's just…" she trails off.
He kisses her nose. "It's cool, Maka. Really."
It's hard, constantly being pulled in so many directions. She wants to be responsible, someone her mother can be proud of, the straight-A valedictorian with a one-way ticket to a big-league school. It's who she's supposed to be, after all. This is the legacy her mother has left for her, the shoes Maka is left to fill. An (expensive) college education will make a respectable woman out of her, and scholarships will not earn themselves.
At the same time, though, she wants to feel whole. She wants to be young, wants to live in the moment. It's like time is just slipping through her fingers. How has she been dating Soul for nearly three months now? It still feels like she'd kinda-sorta confessed to him only a week ago, still feels the same excited butterflies whenever she passes by her Halloween costume in her closet. Everything is just moving too fast, and just for a minute, even a moment, Maka wants it all to stop.
She won't be seventeen forever. She'll barely even be seventeen for a few more months. Heck, Soul's already crowned eighteen. Did so last month.
Her shoulders fall dejectedly. "It's not that I don't want to… you know. Do it with you," she admits, blushing. Soul takes to gently kissing her forehead, then, right between her eyes and, after, right above her right brow, where she knows a particularly dark spattering of freckles lay. "I love you, Soul."
Time might be ticking away, but she will never tire of the way Soul looks at her, post love confession. "Dork," he says fondly. "I'm not into you because I think you'll ride me like a pony or something shallow like that. Take your time. Really. There's a whole lot more of you for me to love than just your body."
She might just cry. Who gave him the right to be so sweet? His words aren't even candied and she's still choking on cavities.
"Soon," she promises. More to herself than him, it seems, because he crooks a warm little half-smile at her and shakes his head.
.
Her lullaby is hardly a lullaby.
Music is not her strong point, but there is something strangely alluring about Soul's music, no matter how dark. He is soft in many ways, the type of boy who will brush her hair back while she cries and whines, but when it comes to his creative energy, he's almost depressing. Soul favors darker chords - whatever that means - and almost frantic, distressing melodies. Sometimes, Maka thinks it's a direct look into his mind, and when she hears him play, it's almost like she understands the storm that ravages him.
It is a lullaby only by name. The song is almost haunting, in a way. It could be sweet, but it still leaves a yearning, sad feeling deep in her chest. Perhaps they've only dubbed it her lullaby because he always tends to play it for her right before bed, and that only happens because she asks it of him. I want to hear your soul, she'd said once, feeling sleepy and thoughtful, seated across from him on his floor, and he'd complied, a curious, dark set to his brows.
He hums it, sometimes. Pounding like a heartbeat, rapidly collecting momentum until he's muttering the words, burning them into her neck as he takes rests only to press kisses there. She thinks it's an effort to soften the blow of his truths, but he should know she doesn't scare easily. The song is just as much hers as it is his now, and a joint, shared hurt is one they can nurse together.
She only asks that he never censors it. That he never sugar-coats the darker, deeper harmonies, the way his fingers pluck away at the strings and the chorus melts into the verse, because Maka is not afraid of his dark. How can she understand him if she doesn't truly know him? There are things about Soul he cannot express in any other way than his music, and she'll be damned if she lets something like a confusing, daunting boundary defeat her. What kind of girlfriend would she be? What kind of friend?
Soul watches her with bottomless, deep eyes. Her glow-in-the-dark stars freckling her ceiling do nothing to illuminate him - he's but a bleary, bleak outline, moonlight casting window pane-shaped shadows along what little of him she can see. Still, she can see the strumming of his fingers, outlined barely, the pale of his skin almost glowing.
The song winds down. Strums become elongated, spaced apart. In the quiet between his breath, she hears a car whizzing by, engine humming. Their headlights flash bright, gradient light wiping over him, over her hands, clutching her covers up to her nose.
And then, it's over. He sighs. Lets the guitar fall into his lap and the weight finally drag down his shoulders. There's something to be said about a lullaby that's nearly therapeutic. Maka blinks up at him, hoping he understands what each meaningful flutter of her lashes is trying to say. I love you, I love you, I love you. I'm here for you.
He exhales, long and slow, bones almost liquid as he reaches out to press her bangs from her eyes. "Night, bookworm."
"Soul."
"Hm?"
Is there a chaste way to suggest he spend the night? The tense, dreadful glances he keeps sending his own house through her window makes something sink deep in her gut. Will he even be able to comfortably sleep through the night in her tiny twin bed?
Maka grapples for his hand. She finds his wrist, instead, and gives a tug. "Sleepover?"
"I- I don't have pajamas, Maka," he says. "Your dad will skin me alive if he finds me in bed with you."
Silly Soul. Papa won't be home tonight. It's Friday. He works overnight on Fridays and comes home Saturday afternoon smelling like his secretary's perfume. Saturdays are the hardest, as of late, because now Mama makes herself scarce and Maka can't handle the sniveling, pleading love her father showers her in when he steps foot in the house. It's strangling. Blood-burning. Makes her want to scratch out her last name on her school ID and maybe hurry up and make Mrs. Maka Evans a real thing, not just a daydream scratched out in pink glitter gel pen.
So she tugs again. "He won't," she says meaningfully, hopefully. Can he read her eyes in the night?
His thumb finds her lower lip. Her heart pounds in her throat and suddenly she's wide awake, wide green eyes basking in the cover of his hovering. There's just something about his sad, crooked smile that gets her choked up, makes her hands itch.
"Are you sure?" he asks.
She's unsure about college. She's unsure about where her future is taking her, what her true destiny is, whether or not her parents' marriage will last the year. But this - but Soul - well, she's never been quite so sure about anything. Maka nods and he sets his guitar down delicately on her floor, leans it against her wall.
He then glances at her, biting his lip. "So. Uh."
His hands are on his belt and Maka's eyes drop to the loose denim. Ah. That can't be comfortable, now can it? Who likes sleeping in jeans? Not her. She's currently wearing silky, cloud printed pajamas. It's not like she can just offer him a pair of her sleep shorts, because as leggy as she is, he's longer - and he might have those narrow boy-hips, but he's still too big, and he- well, Maka just blushes, swatting away thoughts of just what Soul keeps inside those jeans of his. Things she certainly doesn't have.
He swallows thickly. Maka watches his throat, inhaling, deciding. "Okay."
"Okay… what?"
"You can get comfortable, it's fine." Can he hear her blush in her voice? Her covers blanket her all the way to her nose and she burns. "I trust you not to do anything weird."
It's just sleeping together. It's not like they're sleeping together. Soul and Maka have had slumber parties plenty of times, even well into their teens. But they're dating now, and that's got to mean something, right? He touches her, sometimes, so gently that she thinks she might cry at the sheer heart of it. For someone who works so hard to appear careless and aloof, he's so darn mindful with her.
His sock-clad toes bump with her bare ones. Her original assumption had been correct - he is a little too tall to fit comfortably, and the blankets crinkle and ripple as his legs curl and bunch in order to keep his feet on the mattress. It only feels natural for her to mold herself around his shape, to curl her legs around him, turn onto her side so that he may sling an arm around her waist and hold her close. This is spooning, isn't it? And he's definitely not wearing his pants anymore; his hairy legs tickle her shaved calves, and Maka presses her face into the rise of her pillows, blushing.
Lips pressing to the back of her neck is the last thing she remembers before falling asleep.
.
Mama clicks her tongue as Soul shuffles out the door, flipping his hoodie up.
If she were wise, she'd keep her mouth shut and bury her nose in her book. A good girl would not question her mother's intuition, or some other maternal know-it-all bull - Maka hugs her knees to her chest just thinking about it and mindlessly stares at the television as Saturday morning cartoons flicker with color.
Perhaps she's not half the studious, bright daughter she thought she was. Maka bites her lip and asks, "What?"
For her part, Mama seems just as surprised at Maka's wise tongue. She turns her stare to her, taking it all in - Maka's blonde braids loose around her ears, wearing Soul's socks, knobby knees pressed to her chest. It's almost a defense mechanism, cramming herself into such small, fetal shapes, tucking her limbs in close. Any excess inch of skin is dangerous. At least this way, she's a harder target to find and judge.
And yet here she is, opening her big mouth and challenging authority. Always so contrary, she is. Maybe her stubborn pride will be the death of her someday, but it's learned behavior. Mama's raised brow and clenched fists are proof enough of that. Maka has learned from the best.
"Nothing," she says airily.
It's never nothing. Maka's chin rests on her knees as she awaits her judgement.
"His dad yells a lot," Maka mumbles, training her eyes on the television set instead of her mother's laser-sharp stare. Her dark eyes are much less relenting than Soul's. Much more imposing, too. "I told him he could spend the night. He didn't even ask, I just offered."
"You just offered to let your boyfriend spend the night. Alone. In your bedroom."
When she says it like that, it feels like an interrogation. Perhaps she should've been born with Papa's red hair; she's already got his green eyes and freckles, after all. When she's sitting tiny on the couch like this, it's easy to feel like the villain. And by all means, for the past few years, Papa has been the villain.
She's just never seen herself as the villain. It'd been a nice thing. And Mama hadn't seen the dark staining beneath Soul's eyes, the sleepy, exhausted way he'd scratched his neck and pulled his hair. It's not fair, she thinks. It's not like she'd opened her legs for just any boy - it's not like she'd even opened her legs at all. They'd done nothing but slept. And maybe cuddled, just a bit. But nothing naughty, nothing sexual. He'd pressed his lips to her cheek in the morning light and made her feel special and whole.
Maka chews her lip. "Nothing happened-"
Her mother sighs spectacularly. "Boys can't be trusted, sweetheart. Has your papa not taught you that yet? Look at him - you give him an inch and he takes a damn mile-"
Maybe if she sinks far enough into the couch cushions she'll disappear. Being on the opposing end of Mama's tirade is demeaning, and discouraging, and Maka wonders if it'll always be like this, if when she hits eighteen she will be free from her mother's judgement. She knows it's not unwarranted - or, at least, it's not coming from nowhere. Mama had been just seventeen when Papa had knocked her up. Maka's parents married at the tender age of eighteen, with a bouncing, grinning baby in blonde pigtails on a hip.
She's seen the wedding pictures. She knows she drooled all over Mama's poofy sleeves and she knows Papa paraded her around like the crown jewels.
"I didn't have sex with him," Maka blurts.
Such adult words. A big girl claim. Mama's eyes narrow, and Maka knows just what she's about to say. How can she not, when she's just the same, just as bossy and stubborn? She's her spitting image, after all. Papa says it, aunt Marie says it. You have your mother's lips. Your mother's smile.
She wonders if she has her mother's frown, too. Wonders if it scalds just as much.
"Good," she says, and Maka's never felt quite so much like a mistake. "The last thing you need is to get pregnant before you've even settled on a college. Which reminds me, Maka, this came in the mail for you…"
She doesn't even look up from Pokemon. "Put it in the pile with the rest of them."
.
Maka decides the internet is a suitable distraction.
AOL dials to life, screen flickering, and just like that, the world wide web is at her fingertips. Technology is amazing, she thinks, clicking automatically on the little icon that chimes, "You've got mail!"
Scrolling through her inbox lasts her about fifteen minutes. Mostly junk mail, a few replies here and there from Crona about how they've been doing (e-mail is less anxiety-inducing for them than instant messenger, apparently), a handful of spam mail - nothing too demanding. Another ten minutes or so are dedicated to crafting out Crona's reply, complete with oodles of colon-parenthesis and colon-capital-d, to especially soften the blow of the incoming notification. Besides, they're cute, and Maka could use some harmless, childish cute in her life right about now.
And then, ugh, distraction over. It's like she can't stop thinking about the disapproving look on her mother's face, the blatant disappointment the moment Maka had spoken up. An iron-clad nerve is as much of a blessing as it is a poison, and this is proof - she's certainly taken a few steps down in the daughter-of-the-year listings. Pretty soon, she'll be deeper on the shitlist than Papa.
That's saying something. Papa sleeps around like it's his job. Maka just invited one (1) boy she trusted and loved and worried about to spend the night with her. Clothed.
... Mostly clothed. Okay, so Soul hadn't been wearing pants exactly, but he was in jeans! Nobody likes to sleep in jeans! It was innocent! It's not like his cooties can seep through his boxer shorts and penetrate her sensitive virgin-skin and turn her into a floozy. Or… whatever it is Mama thinks will happen, should Maka actually, truly sleep with Soul. Like, go all the way. Let him hit it.
Ugh.
Groaning, she holds her face in her hands and plants her elbows right on her computer desk. What a headache. What is a girl supposed to do when she's being pulled so many directions? By all means, she wants to get into a good college - maybe even one on the east coast - but at the same time, she doesn't want to have to sacrifice her relationship in order to do so. And it's true that Soul is in no real hurry to get into her pants, so to speak. But would it be so wrong if he did? And if she wanted it, too? Would it really be that bad?
Maka likes to think she's a smart cookie. A bright girl, who knows to use a condom, who knows that Soul can be trusted with such vulnerability.
Well, she's online for a reason. Her answers are just one AOL-keyword away. If, uh, she can manage to word it correctly. Will sex with her boyfriend at 17 make her a dirty, stupid slut?
Can she get into college if she's not a pristine virgin? Will letting Soul go all the way with her lessen her status? And - most importantly, she thinks, squirming in her pink computer chair - will it hurt? Because she's heard - well, read, mostly, in school, that it does hurt the first time for a girl, and something about blood, too, because of broken hymens - and is it really worth it, for a little hokey pokey? Does she really want to bleed all over Soul's expensive sheets?
Maka bites her lip and really thinks about it. Mostly, she thinks about Soul's nervous smiles, long, long fingers, warm eyes and that tongue, peeking out from between his lips. And yeah, okay, maybe she does get it. For Soul, it might be worth it. Only for Soul, though.
Maybe flipping through her Papa's Playboy magazines would be easier. But then she'd have the evidence on her hands, and Mama would be able to sniff the stench out on her fingertips within moments. Besides, ergh. Who knows where those things have been? Maaaybe she doesn't really wanna put her hands anywhere near them, actually. Scratch that thought.
It should not be this hard! She's nearly eighteen, for goodness sake. Liz has no problem sleeping with whoever she wants. Liz had no damn problem sleeping with Soul. High, too! They'd both been high, and she'd had no issue riding him like a noble steed.
At the same time, Liz deals with not-nice rumors, and only fights them off with an intense eyeroll and a middle finger waving in the air. Liz pays for her sexual identity with an unsavory reputation - to be labeled as easy while still in high school is social suicide. More than that, if Liz really, truly does like Tsubaki the way Maka's been led to believe - and she's pretty sure she does, if that faint lipstick stain on Tsu's collar is any evidence - then she's in for even more of a headache.
She's brave. And Maka respects that bravery. Admires it, even.
She's inspired enough to finally work up the nerve to break out the ol' search function and see what answers she can uncover herself. Because dammit, if Liz can reclaim her body for herself, and if Liz can punch societal norms in the face and love who she damn well pleases, then Maka can sleep with the boy she likes and still be Mama's brilliant little shadow, too. It can be done. It has to be done.
When the time comes, of course. In a few weeks. Or months.
(Blushes, squirms, slaps her cheeks. Stupid girl.)
Maka checks over her right shoulder. Then her left. Peeks her way out the window to make sure no roaming neighbors or stray cats are eavesdropping on her imminent sexual discovery. Double checks behind her, just to solidify her suspicion that yes, her door is closed and yes, that is the lock, switched shut, no stray mothers will be wandering into her bedroom anytime soon.
Deep breath. She can do this. She is nearly an adult. In less than year, she'll be in college, for goodness sake.
Maka gets as far working up the nerve before the phone rings and she jumps out of her chair, as if the keyboard had burned her. She shoots a glance upward, toward her fading, glowing stars and winces. The fates have spoken. They are watching and they have spoken.
"I've GOT IT," she shrieks, hands shaking as she rips the phone out of its charging port and clicks talk before Mama has the chance to bang on her door. "HELLO."
Blake's cackling is about the last thing she needs right now. "Someone's buggin'."
"You have the worst timing in the world, do you know that?" she asks, aptly x-ing out of her fizzling AOL session. For a brief, fleeting moment, she considers tossing her monitor out the window and thereby demolishing any evidence of her sinful ways, but then reason floods back through her and her nerves turn to steel. "What do you want?"
"Yo!" he shouts, then laughs. "Your boytoy's here and wants to know if you're down for pizza tonight, his treat."
Her traitorous heart does an excited flutter in her chest. Maybe even a loop-di-loop. Christ. "Why didn't he just call me himself, then?"
"Yer mom's scary."
That gets her to cringe. Yeah, that's fair. Her Mama had sort of given him the stink eye this morning. Definitely had eyed his discarded jeans on Maka's carpet with something akin to murder. Mama can be like a bear when she wants to be, and although Maka finds it both admirable and inspiring, at times - like this morning - it's a little… discouraging, for lack of a better word. And sure, she can see why Soul might want to avoid communication with Mama Albarn for a while. Any normal person would.
Heck, Maka's sort of avoiding her, too. The disappointment is poignant, and Maka thinks, just for a moment, she might understand why Papa spends so many nights away from home.
Only a little. Cheaters never prosper and men are the salt of the Earth, still. Especially married men, with insecure daughters and beautiful, powerful wives. Disgusting.
Scrubbing at her face, she sighs, "Yeah," and then drops down to sit on the edge of her bed. The blankets are still delightfully russed from Soul's long legs and she can't stop looking at them, as if they're a piece of abstract art meant to be admired and studied. He'd been there, only hours ago, long arms looped around her like a protective veil. It'd been warm, and safe, and - she's hopeless, really. Maka stuffs her feet into her boots and sets to tying her lace instead of sitting and stewing on it further.
"Is that yeah, you'll come, or yeah, your mom's a tyrant?"
"Hey!" she gasps, "she's not a tyrant!"
"Cockblock, though."
She ties her boots with crudely-controlled aggression. Little does he know, she's been internally waffling over such conflict for the better half of her day. "She's just looking out for me," Maka says through her teeth, still unprepared to accept such judgement of her idol.
"Whaaatever, chica! Pizza, hour. Be there or be square."
The dialtone hums into her ear and Maka sits, one shoe tied, with the phone pressed between her shoulder and cheek. From through her closed door, she hears rustling in the kitchen, whispered-threats that carry through the halls like the ticking of a grandfather clock. It's not that she tries to dwell on the impending doom, but it hangs thick like fog and it's damn near impossible to wade her way through it without feeling at least a little discouraged.
Papa's home. It's about that time, after all. His sniveling is unmistakable.
She's already a wildchild today, so she takes the window again. Ties a hoodie around her waist, stuffs her wallet into her pocket and clicks her computer monitor off before worming her way through the makeshift exit. Dealing with her parents crumbling matrimony just isn't in the stars; Maka can only deal with so much turmoil at once, can only split her heart so many ways before she starts to fray, and this is about it. She cannot do it all. College, Soul, Mama's disapproving stare - Maka's already booked.
Perhaps Blake is actually a blessing in disguise. Outside of the tomb she calls a home, it's already easier to breathe.