Featured Fiction & Description

   Maya Carter and Kyle Jackman have rented an oceanfront home in Hollywood, Florida far away from the busy streets in downtown Miami. The ink on their annual lease is barely dry when they realize they both must face an upheaval struggle to rid themselves of a turbulent past.
     Haunted by failed romances, Maya struggles to keep a unified relationship with Kyle, even if the ghost of his deceased first sweetheart and wife Sandy seems destined to doom all chances of their new alliance. It is impossible for Maya to believe that she is being taunted by the memory of Sandy Jackman, and she sets forth to rid Kyle of his guilt-ridden devotion to a dead woman who can no longer show him love.
     After months of bickering, they soon must face that living together has deemed more stressful than either can tolerate, and to survive they must unearth what they both have forsaken for too long.

  Maya Carter said goodnight to boyfriend Kyle Jackman and retreated to her room. Kyle’s foul mood suddenly didn’t matter. For once she felt more concerned for her own unhappiness.
     Living together had achieved nothing. The only lesson living in the same house had taught was they could now be miserable together. And, even their togetherness was just an illusion; she knew, deep down they had never been further apart. A once loving romance was now shrouded and embattled by arguments, insecurity and worse, no intimacy.
     Absolutely none.
     In the past, they’d worked out their problems with meaningful eagerness, wanting to ease each other’s pain, sorrow or anger. Now, they both simply co-existed and neither appeared to care that they had alienated or pushed each other into a vast empty space.
     A space that they’d enjoyed sharing, furnishing and nurturing, once upon a time.
     A time that they’d moved forward as a couple and decidedly cohabitated, both embraced by each other’s mutual love and determination to succeed in the elegant house they now called home.
     Lately, the home felt like an empty box, sadly it was no longer full of laughter, pleasantries or treasures.
     Treasures they no longer cared to enjoy, use or cherish.
     Cherish, in what they both had accomplished, accomplishments neither wanted, or so it appeared.
     Appearances set forth by a public audience who branded and saluted them the perfect couple. They were the team to watch, and if fortunate, emulate. Admired simply because they shared expressive laughter and an envied loving gaze, Kyle and Maya were considered flawless to outsiders eyes.
     Eyes that no longer held anything as Kyle’s eyes held hatred and her own, frustration.
     Frustration upon failure and madness and anger. At what? she didn’t know, she only knew she felt alone and alone wasn’t fun, she didn’t nor hadn’t wanted to feel isolated, she’d changed her life for this man.
     A man who had become stranger and deeper in thought as each awkward day passed.
     Awkward in the sense that they couldn’t communicate unless a full-fledged war erupted. Spiteful and hateful words slung at each other, with the sole intent to injure and mane. The louder the argument the better, both Kyle and herself hell-bent and determined to destroy their unification and bond, a bond within the four walls that held the strain of their relationship.
     A relationship that was now tattered and torn, leaving them both forlorn, for what in the world could save them now if they couldn’t help or save each other?
     Maya was intensely aware of the dooming relationship that seethed in the barely furnished room of their new house. The cold, mostly unhabituated bed chamber was a bore with drab artwork and furnishing, even the plastic plants looked out of place. ‘so much for your interior decorating skills,’ she thought and scowled sickly. This is not what she had envisioned a spare bedroom to look like, there was no feeling of being welcomed, the room was dull, bland and ugly.
     She shook her head and opened a closet door. No hangers, she was not surprised. She had envisioned a different appeal when she’d set up the room, she had not expected to be an occupant. She kicked off her slippers and glanced at the window blinds, surprised she could see outside, which meant strangers could see into the room. ‘what a mess,’ she noted, stressed and dimmed the light. ‘your relationship is in a worse mess,’ she thought, her hopes bashed.
     It all seemed so vastly different, their time together, their house, their respect, their romance it was all lost. Lost in a sense that neither seemed able to or wanted to grasp the broken straws in their relationship and it had ruptured like a broken drain where water poured and formed a puddle that just kept growing and growing and nothing could patch the hole to stop the water.
     What on earth had happened to their respect? Maya sighed aloud and shook her head, knowing only the Lord above would know the answer to that question.
     Loss of respect, she admitted, silently. A mutual connection they had both held high for the entire world to see was gone. They had once stood publicly united, with a deep knowledge that burned deep inside, they could not be broken, they were as one, and each was proud of their twin like type of connection.
     Connection in that they had known each other’s soul and temperament for what seemed a thousand years, yet now they used the familiarity to hurt and taunt each other, if only to satisfy an ego of who is right and who is wrong.
     Wrong in that they had, and have been mentally killing each other. Maya understood. She knew from Kyle’s silence that he did too. They were killing each other in a way that didn’t cause physical harm, but emotionally, it was all too much.
     ‘What did it matter who was right or who was wrong?’ Maya asked herself. What could matter more than them fixing their life, their needs or their love? Nothing.
     Absolutely nothing at all.
     After their squabble, less than an hour earlier, Maya took her time getting ready for bed, the dark cloud of misery enveloping her making her movements apathetic. She showered, put on her bathrobe until she could find the pajamas she had stuffed in the bottom of her small suitcase. A suitcase she’d packed earlier when she’d planned to leave, before the night’s rampage had exhausted her mentally, but before she could find them there was a knock on the door.
     It could only be Kyle.