Redhawk Caldera If she gives you her heart don't you break it

If Maia was more reasonable, she'd have realized she could stay and they could move forward with the visit.  She could have gotten his mind off of things, made him laugh, and in another world, this could have turned things around for the better.  But in this world, she was so focused on all of the things she was convinced she did wrong, and so wrapped up in her own self-destruction, that she didn't even consider the alternative.  Her only thought was this is my fault and the only obvious response was to remove herself from the situation.

In a few days, she'd have even more reason to hate herself, as the ideas of all of the things she could have done finally came to mind.  She had more than enough right now regardless.

Yeah,  she answered, her voice raw.  What had started out as a trip to clarify and simplify things just turned everything into even more of a tangled mess.  She needed time too in order to sort through it, what this meant and how she was going to cope.  Most of all, she needed to figure out what the heck she was going to do, because bringing this up at any point in the future felt impossible now.

He'd almost said yes just to make her happy.  How could she trust he wouldn't do it again, only next time more convincingly?  She couldn't.  So asking again was out of the question.

Which put the decision in her court, because there was only one alternative.

Without saying anything more, Maia kept going.  She didn't make it far before the tears started again, but she continued to walk as she cried, feeling the weight of all of this crushing down on her.  How had she ever thought this was going to end up with both of them getting what they wanted?  More importantly.... how had she let herself get so attached to where she was when she knew, in her heart, it couldn't last?