Page 32 of Organized Chaos
“Yes, I remember that part.”
“Then you turned to look at the girl I was with. She was sitting right there.” I pointed at a bar stool. “I was talking to her all night long.”
Tasha/Farah frowned. “Brandon, I don’t remember you talking to anyone that evening.”
Her declaration ended the limited restraint I had exercised throughout that Twilight Zone of a day. The profanities I threw at Tasha/Farah... let’s just say my mother wouldn’t have been proud.
“You are such a fucking bitch and an ugly one at that. You saw her with your own damn eyes, but you’re lying to get back at me because I wouldn’t fuck you.”
This continued for several minutes until Tasha/Farah was in tears, and the security guards escorted me out for harassing the hotel staff and patrons alike. Unfortunately, I didn’t go down without a fight, landing my ass in jail.
Without any alternate options, I grudgingly called Milo to bail me out. He was in Greece for business. Luckily, Nice was only a short hop and a flight away.
Milo didn’t pose a single question about my state, judgmental eyes reflecting that finding me in jail one day was all too predictable.
Didn’t care.
The unnerving truth was boggling every cell of my being. Maya had turned my life upside down, only to vanish into thin air.Refusing to accept that truth, I forced Milo to drive us back to the place that started my demise—the stupid cottage.
It was in pristine condition, which meant that the groundskeeper had visited. All the sofa cushions were perfectly fluffed out. Dishes in the sink were put away. Beds were tidy. No trash in the house. Even the bathtub had been bleached. As if no one had visited in months.
The house appeared abandoned, further making me look like a mad man.
“Look, dude,” Milo started after I exhausted my search for any miscellaneous items left behind by Maya. “I know you have been going through a lot. Sometimes grief can make people see things that aren’t there—”
“I’m not fucking crazy,” I shouted.
Numerous sources had already echoed the sentiment—Aldo, the hotel staff, the police. Before releasing me, they recommended a psych evaluation, suggesting that I made Maya up to cope with the loss of my dad.
To be honest, there were indications throughout the weekend to suggest Maya was a figment of my imagination. She was too good to be true, checking off the boxes I desired in a woman. And she often verbalized words exactly how I wanted to hear them.
She even resembled a favorite of mine from the past—Mia.
Mia was the only kid I could connect and relate to. The only one who had the brains to challenge me and kept my mind occupied for hours with her eclectic observations. The only person I had drawn a correlation between my sad childhood and hers.
Who better to commiserate with after losing my father than Mia? If someone understood a complicated relationship with their father, it was her. Or, in her case, it was a complicated relationship with Milo—her father figure.
Was it in the realm of possibility that I took the best of Mia’s qualities and turned her into an imaginary character able to console me during this time of need? Was all of this my twisted way of dealing with Dad’s death?
I quickly dismissed the notion.
No, Maya was real.
Correction.Maya is real.
She was more real than anything else on earth. I could still feel her... her touch... the warmth.
“I’m not saying you’re crazy,” Milo placated. “I’m saying that last weekend was a lot to process.”
“Doesn’t mean I made up an imaginary woman to bring back to this cottage.”
“Brandon, think rationally for a second. In the past, you described this house as your favorite place in the world. Why would you bring a woman here after meeting her once at a bar?”
How the fuck was I to explain what happened to me? Everything with Maya was so out of character for me that it only fueled the story's implausibility.
“I-I just did,” was all I could mutter.
“That’s what’s confusing. You never even look at a girl twice. And now you want me to believe... what... that you are in love with this woman or something?”
