Chapter 2

2

MAYA

" S ylvia?" No response. Dr. Maya Monroe's knocking grew louder. "Sylvia, please it's me!"

She dropped to the floor, exhausted. Her disheveled bag lay in the middle of the corridor, turned upside down in search of her keys to no avail. Her digital wrist watch displayed 02:34 a.m. like a mischievous ghost, taunting Maya. She banged on the door again, and with every dull sound, she grew even more painfully aware of her trespass.

Miraculously, the door creaked open, and Sylvia's tangle of hair peered out.

"I don't want to be a bitch, but aren't you getting too old to be doing this?" She yawned, watching Maya scramble to collect her bag's contents.

"You know how it works at the hospital," Maya whispered, running to get inside the flat.

Sylvia locked the door and went into the kitchen. "I'm making tea. Do you want some?"

"You're an angel." Maya sighed. "I'm so sorry. Once I move out, you'll finally have some peace."

"Yeah." Sylvia's voice reached her through the sound of boiling water. "You'd think out of the two of us, I'd be the one asking to be let in at 3 a.m."

Maya giggled to herself, massaging her temples. The dull, pounding pain pulsed through her body. She dreamed of nothing more than a hot bath and clean bed sheets, but her bones felt stuck to the dining room chair.

"How are your finals going?" Maya asked, wanting to remedy her disastrous interruption.

"You know, you sound like my mother." Sylvia came in with two steaming cups of green tea.

She was a law student from Germany, almost ten years younger than Maya. At night, thrown out of deep sleep, Sylvia's accent would grow stronger, adding a foreign lilt to her words.

"Sorry." Maya took a sip of the tea, burning her tongue and hissing like a cat from pain.

They sat at the dining table in the light of the moon, amidst elongated shadows and blue hues. Maya finished her tea and got up to take the cups back to the kitchen. Her joints wildly protested in pain, making cracking sounds on the way.

"You move as if you're fifty." Sylvia yawned.

"Go back to sleep," Maya shouted from the kitchen. "I don't want you failing exams because of me."

"Whatever you say." Sylvia trotted-off to her bedroom.

Maya let her face completely relax, releasing all the built-up tension from the day. Her hands felt sore from multiple surgeries, even after two painkillers, and she knew the only remedy would be to rest. There was no time to do so, however, with the entire moving business. Her belongings lay around half-packed in the particular chaos of changing where one calls home.

She made her way to the bathroom, keeping the light as dim as possible to ease the stinging behind her eyelids. The bathroom was never as clean as she'd like it to be. For now, she convinced herself it was due to Sylvia's messy nature, but in no possible world could Maya herself keep her surroundings clean. On her free days, she wanted either rest or exhilaration unrelated to home or work.

At this point, she'd saved up so much by sharing a flat, that she could easily afford to hire someone to clean her house every day. But the concept made her feel strange. No, she was saving up to acquire real estate. Something her parents could never dream of but she'd finally achieve.

The bath melted her soreness away, and content, she quickly fell asleep.

"I think I found the perfect flat for you," Maya's real estate agent, Arthur, filled each word with the perfect mix of professionalism and joy they teach at business school. Or so she imagined.

"Send me over the pictures and everything, and we'll talk once I get to the city, all right?" Maya looked around her empty room. "I still have a lot to do regarding the move."

"No problem," Arthur chirped. "Good luck moving!"

For now, Maya was moving into an empty rental of her old, high-school friend. She didn't have much to transport, since she didn't own any furniture besides her silver-framed mirror, but she didn't have a large car, either, and Phoenix Ridge was located basically at the other side of the state.

"Need any help?" Sylvia popped her head into Maya's bedroom, chewing on a carrot.

"You mean can I help you, so I can procrastinate studying ?" She flashed Sylvia a warm smile. "Sure, I'm not your mom. I need to carry the boxes in the corridor downstairs."

Sylvia eagerly followed her to the corridor and grabbed a box.

"For fuck's sake, what do you have in there?" she panted.

"Books. Have you ever seen medical textbooks?"

"Didn't you finish school like years ago?"

"Law and medicine have this in common—we never stop learning." Maya winked and descended the stairs with piled up carton boxes in her arms.

The day welcomed them with a clear sky and warm sun rays dancing along the road. The truck Maya had ordered was late, and the driver called to apologize for an hour and a half of delay, to which she could respond with nothing besides no problem.

"Do you want to go for a goodbye coffee?" Maya suggested as they carried the last box to the lobby downstairs.

Sylvia nodded, and they headed toward the only cafe nearby, which served bitter coffee to exhausted adults and half-melted ice cream to crying children. Gossiping teenagers sat around slurping on banana smoothies, their straws getting stuck in their braces.

"I'll miss our once-in-a-month movie nights," Sylvia confessed, savoring her iced latte.

"Me ,too." Maya nodded. "We can do them online, though."

For a moment, she sat in silence. All her formative memories were contained within the city of Phoenix Ridge, and now she'd be moving back to it all.

"Why'd you leave in the first place?" Sylvia asked after a while. "Isn't Phoenix Ridge a bigger city?"

"Bigger doesn't always mean better." Maya sighed, "But in this case, yes. I didn't get the position I applied for there, but I got an offer from Forest Vale Hospital. After I settled in at Forest Vale, I was learning a lot working under Dr. Roman, I really saw no reason to go back. But now that the opportunity has arisen at Phoenix Ridge Emergency Department, and with a much better salary…it was a no-brainer."

The other reason remained unsaid, emotions lying dormant for years lazily stirring in Maya's chest, preparing to wake up once she returned.

They enjoyed the nice shade formed by the alley trees, watching toddlers crawl around the lawn and parents chasing after them. Maya thought fondly of her time at Forest Vale, but she had no doubt she wouldn't look back. Part of her regretted not taking steps to move back to Phoenix Ridge earlier. The opportunity had come to her as a true blessing. Phoenix Ridge was home.

"Do you miss your parents?" Sylvia prompted.

"Hmm… I wouldn't say so." Maya smiled. "I think we work best when at a distance from each other. I like to call from time to time, but we have our problems," she concluded.

Sylvia nodded. "I get it. But also, it's a sad thing to say."

"Not necessarily. They have tensions between each other, and that can sometimes affect the kids, too. I'm really close with my brother, though," Maya remembered with fondness the adventures she and her older brother had gone through together. "I can't wait to see him."

The truck driver called, and they quickly ran back to the apartment. Packing went smoothly, the truck turned out to be more than big enough, and it was time for Maya to part with her life in Forest Vale. She hugged Sylvia tightly, promising to stay in touch even if she went back to Germany.

"I don't think I will, though." Sylvia laughed.

"Well, you never know when or where you might come back."

Maya got into the driver's seat of her own little Fiat and embarked on the journey home. As she drove through the serpent-like highways, she almost felt herself going back in time, unravelling her life and tracing the various paths stretching out like asphalt in the sun, melting and twisting together like a bunch of roads with destinations yet unclear.

"I want it." She sighed, standing in a gorgeously lit apartment hidden away in a quiet alley minutes away from the city center. "I really want it." There was a lovely view over the city and the forest to the south. She could even see the sea out of the big window in the bedroom.

Arthur, Maya's real estate agent, pressed his hands together. "Well, you can easily afford it. Your financial situation is strong, and you've already prequalified. Shall I prepare all the documents?"

Maya nodded, enchanted. This was real. She was about to buy an apartment entirely on her own, to furnish it on her own, and do whatever she'd like with it. Even the sun streaks seeping in through the windows took on a celebratory shape in her eyes.

Having taken the documents to read later, Maya headed straight toward the Main Phoenix Ridge Hospital. Blood pumped through her veins at an insane speed. This was the dream, the place where she'd wanted to work from the beginning.

The apartment and the hospital together seemed to her such a pinnacle of achievement that they almost overshadowed an icy sensation rising in her chest while passing certain corners of the city.

No time for that . She shook her head decisively. It was time for her to get to work.