Chapter Text
Two people sit together in an empty room, sipping coffee quietly.
These two people have been separated for over two years. There was no contact with each other for the entirety of that time. Two people have lost and found one another countless times over the years, and have been bound to each other by the universe, the cosmos, God, or whoever you want to believe it is.
It would seem that, after so many moments of being alone together, laughing together, after feeling that binding force for so long that these two would immediately reconnect after some time apart. This is not the case with Marisol Gonzalez and Maritza Ramos.
Exactly two-and-a-half hours ago, Flaca took Maritza completely by surprise and showed up in Colombia at her cousin's house (these same cousins had never even heard Maritza mention Flaca around them before). There were a lot of tears and hugs at first, making it awkward for the other cousins in other rooms who were just trying to get some sleep, and then there was confusion. So much of it.
...
"But how did you find me? How could you have even guessed the general area I was in?" Maritza had questioned the other girl while the two sat together on the living room couch.
"Well, it took a lot of leads. Mostly from your mom and sister, and they told me everything I needed to know about your cousins and your mom's side of the family. I actually had three cities I was going to check out, I just so happened to get lucky on the first try, I guess..." Maritza paced around the dimly lit kitchen, her hand glued to her forehead as she tried desperately to understand how to feel about all of this. She felt conflicted, she was supposed to be relieved, right? She should be jumping into Flaca's arms at this very moment and showering her with thank you's and telling her all the words she left unspoken when they'd last seen each other.
None of it was happening, though, and it was the strangest sensation ever. Flaca, on the other hand, was calm and collected on the outside but freaked out intensely in her mind. Years of waiting, searching, asking around and connecting thousands of tiny dots to get an idea of where Maritza was located had finally led up to this moment in time. But all Maritza seemed to be doing was worrying when they both should've been rejoicing and celebrating their reunion. And for the first time, since they'd first met, they were on two different planets...
...
The night ended with the two women crawling into Maritza's small bed together. Creaky and lumpy as it was, Flaca felt like there was no place she could feel more at home than when she was with her. Mari, her best friend. God, five years ago she would've never imagined searching around the world for one single person, but she gets it all now. Every romance book and movie that described love, every shitty "baby, baby, baby, I love you," song, all the things she'd grown up watching and listening to made sense to her now. Like the stars aligned and all the letters on the pages of schoolwork that she was so slow to read clicked and gave her a new sense of knowledge completely different from anything she'd felt before.
And as she rolled over to face the love of her life, expecting to find smiling lips and crinkling eyes, she found a turned back, curled up into a ball and leaning off of the edge of the bed so much that the laws of physics were completely thrown out of the window. Maritza seemed to be avoiding her touch, or her presence as a whole, and that came as a shock for Flaca.
Never in her life would she have thought that she wouldn't be close to her best friend, whether that be physically or emotionally. But, they were lacking in both areas as of this point in time.
She must be tired or something, it's not like her to avoid me like that... My Mari would never do that. Would she? No, no...no, right? Well, it has been a long time since we saw each other, but she's still herself, right?
God, just need to get some sleep. Sleep will make this all better. In the morning everything will be back to normal and we'll hold each other and go back to being a 'we' again.
Surely.