In all her life, Maya realised for the first time that hangovers weren't exclusive to after drinks. They happened after a kiss, too. And she was feeling it all over her body, an ache she could not very well describe.
Her hands were sweating continuously, only stopping after she took a cold bath. Her head hurt from the flashes of the previous day, a constant reminder that she still had things to settle on the hill. Her eyes were heavy even after a long and cozy sleep, mostly because dreams of Leo's face in the rain kept appearing.
The beginning of the day wasn't as she wanted it to be, especially when she was leaving the town the next day. Maya locked the door of the house and stepped into the tuck of the bright sun. Even if yesterday the rain had become overly comfortable, for her, the sun would always be dear.
The warm glister of a burning bowl over her head was enough to calm her a bit. Every time the homely wind rushed over her hair, face, and hands, it helped forget the sharp gust from yesterday. The hill was still adorned by the water left from a heavy shower. A symphony of visuals worth painting had formed from the muddled hill now shimmered by bright rays.
Walking up the hill wasn't troublesome when the rain didn't try to haunt her, and the paths appeared clearer. Or maybe, she just knew where to go this time. Every time she crossed a significant part of the hill, the town and its people became tinier. The higher she climbed, the more insignificant judgments seemed. Or maybe, they didn't even reach her this far.
And when the mind has no judgments to ignore, worries to struggle with, it decides to resort to the only thing that's bothersome and doesn't require any medium to crawl at your neck.
'Why?', a question that had been loitering in her mind since his lips touched hers till now, as she climbed to him to hear the reason from those very lips. There were a few reasons she could come up with for a boy his age. Even more for the kind of boy he was.
'Impulsive actions?'
'Drugs?'
'Maybe he himself wasn't aware?'
And yet, none seemed to convince her. Because every time she tottered around these conclusions, it reminded her of his wide, staring eyes. Even as he kissed her, his eyes never left hers. None of the guesses she had could explain those heavy eyes, and it all circled her back to nothing.
'Why?', as the question repeated itself, the top of the hill was now in proximity. In the bright day with no curtain of shower in her view, she had a good look at the place. At the charmingly calming place.
It was visibly different than the other areas on the hill. Wide, tidy, empty. 'Does he keep it like this?' she wondered. After all, the night she first came to the town, she had seen a figure at the hilltop. And from last night's view, she was sure it was Leo even back then.
With every step, her heart thumped louder in her chest. The trees seemed newborn, leaves as green as the troubles in her mind. Barks as lively as her rampaging heart. Yet her eyes were as still as the clouds, only focused on where Leo would be.
The view of that large rock halted her, stopping in its tracks. It should have been a muddied chaos, but the rock was strikingly clean. On it was a sketch, its pages hopping with the easy winds. Leo was nowhere to be seen, but his bags stated he was still on the hill.
Being at the same place, she had been robbed of the fear of rain and left with questions, and was astonishingly calm. The calm, however, was due to the absence of the very robber whom she couldn't figure out. Was it the rain or the boy? One couldn't give her answers; others possibly would not.
Amidst the blemished conclusion, her eyes darted to the sketchpad. It was like an interesting oddity in a place where Leo was. What does someone you don't even know properly, draw? What can you even imagine? And those doubts piqued her interest, leading her towards the uncaged sprawling of its enigmatic owner.
The black scribbles on it were visible the closer she got. At first, they made no sense. Closer she went, the features started to bend around her, every other stroke an essence she was familiar with. Sanding near, her eyes below on the flapping page, the white sheet was demanding to be a mirror. It mapped her face, her body, her smile. And yet, it appeared to the most fictitious mirror ever.
The face was hers, but the smile was too beautiful. The body was hers, but too elegant. The eyes looked like hers and still held too much affection. What illusioned to be her was anything but.
If she could, she would pull the woman from it and smack the sham of elegance out of her. This woman was everything people hoped she was. A caricature of her failed femininity, she always cursed. However, despite the tug of disappointment, she could not hate it. The drawing did not scream what she should be. It was stating what she was, at least for the one who drew it. And seeing yourself as the best as possible is a weird feeling. So weird, it made her wonder if she was falling in love with herself. Because the woman on the page held the power to make her.
Unknowingly, her fingers traced the scratches of rubbed off lines on the page, and yet none merged with the drawing. No line that was erased connected to the woman; a piece drawn without mistakes.
"Never thought rain would suit me..." she muttered as she examined the drawing more. The rain poured on her as mercilessly as it did last night. But she didn't look as confused here. Or maybe, he didn't know she was.
She wondered what her past boyfriends would say if they looked at this drawing. Would she still be too plain for them? A mocking laugh escaped her mouth, a surprise to herself. Being confident about her looks was the last thing she ever imagined would come true. And yet here she was, a drawing doing the job for her.
Immersed in appreciating his perspective of her, Maya did not hear the rustle behind her. Leo walked out of the denser greenery with a few fruits in his hands. On the hill, cooking breakfast seemed unnecessary since the hill itself made sure he wouldn't starve. Despite the prepared material for cooking food, he mostly relied on the fruits for breakfast and evening snacks. It was a routine.
What wasn't in the routine was her. However, it wasn't a surprise either. He knew she would come back, be it her sanity as an adult or something neither of them could spell out.
"I lack the skills to do justice to that drawing..." he spoke, his voice a floating cumulation of all the emotions in the drawing. Maya turned around from the unexpected voice, a narrative demeaning what she already considered a compliment.
Maya knew not what to say. His eyes always made her wonder more than chatter, a voice that dissolved her thoughts, leaving only empty questions. But today she _had_ to speak.
"I will get straight to the point," Maya moved away from the drawing, an indication that she wasn't going to entertain this uncertainty. Leo's lips turned up at the corners as he placed the fruits down on another rock.
"Sure," He walked to her, an instinctual movement he didn't know was this familiar. Maya stayed her ground, looking directly into his eyes. "What happened yesterday was a mistake. What you did was wrong." The sentences she spoke contrasted with the look in his eyes. As if he were mocking that very sentiment of being wrong.
"Hm..." he nodded, his eyes never leaving hers. All his attention was hers.
"I am not expecting an apology." It wasn't the line she had decided on. But seeing his behavior, it seemed plausible. "But are you reflecting on the mistake? And why did it even have to happen?" her voice might have become a shout if not for the husky wind. It carried her words with ease towards him.
Maya expected yet another reclusive, unexplanatory reply. However, even that avoidance of her confrontation would help her settle with it being a 'mistake'. Anything else just seemed...
"Yes, it was." But he did not wish to be reclusive, it seemed. Leo spoke with a clarity in his voice that had been building up ever since he first saw her back on the hill.
Because her face now wasn't just strangely familiar, it was a memory. Every few seconds, he felt like he saw a new side of her. But she wasn't acting any different.
His memories and speech started to merge, meaning and reminiscence overlapped. "It was a mistake."
Yet again, Maya was wandering his deep blue eyes. Even when they were hollow with nothing to say or now with too much to say, she had always felt lost in them. But his words made that drifting even more sad. A mistake that seemed intentional, emotions in his eyes that betrayed the thoughts in her mind. And yet, if it was accepted to be a mistake, she could only sigh. Sigh in a mixture of relief and, again, uncertainty. 'Why?' Maybe the question would always remain unanswered.
She looked away, wondering if some missing words had tracked off because of the wind as he spoke.
"It was a mistake to let you go." But they had not. They were clear, resonant, and heavy in her ears. As heavy as her hands felt, as her shoulder weighed. Leo's fingers lingered on her palm, his head almost resting in the crook of her neck. His breath fluttered on her skin, making her wonder; was he inhaling or exhaling?
"There have always been consequences for letting you go..." Another puzzling line could not help but leave his lips. And still she didn't feel odd hearing it. It sounded the most reasonable sentence he had ever spoken. His hands rose with hers, their fingers locked together. A reddish shade had dared to put his words into proof on his arm. She couldn't fathom the bite it would take to bruise one's own hand.
Her eyes instinctively shot up, looking at his face. The nonchalance was gone. Leo's face looked like it was holding all the confessions in her life, all the affection in the world. As if he would drop his heart on her hands and she wouldn't be able to refuse.
"It's going to rain..." his voice dug deeper, weighing more as he leaned closer to her ear. A lofty chuckle escaped her lips, carried by a sigh. The weather report for today was - 'Clear Skies'. It would take serious luck or magic to assume rain, and for it to happen. But his voice didn't show either. No guessing, no assumptions. It didn't sound magical. He was simply informing.
Because when the chuckle escaped her mouth, the wind picked up its humidity. Her skin didn't feel free anymore. She didn't feel the distance in their bodies. The rain didn't seem impossible. Because a drizzle blessed her with the heat, Leo's breath was forming on her skin.
"No one's leaving today..." he voiced what she wished.