My December

Maybe

Maybe
I’m strong
But I break
I’m stubborn
And I make plenty of mistakes
Yeah I’m hard
And life with me is never easy
To figure out, to love
I’m jaded but oh so lovely
All you have to do is hold me
And you’ll know and you’ll see just how sweet it can be
If you’ll trust me, love me, let me
Maybe, maybe

Someday
When we’re at the same place
When we’re on the same road
When it’s okay to hold my hand
Without feeling lost
Without all the excuses
When it’s just because you love me, you let me, you need me
Then maybe, maybe
All you have to do is hold me
And you’ll know and you’ll see just how sweet it can be
If you’ll trust me, love me, let me
Maybe, maybe

I’m confusing as hell
I’m north and south

And I’ll probably never have it all figured out
But what I know is I wasn’t meant to walk this world without you
And I promise I’ll try
Yeah I’m gonna try to give you every little part of me
Every single detail you missed with your eyes
Then maybe
Maybe, yeah maybe

One day
We’ll meet again and you’ll need me, you’ll see me completely
Every little bit
Oh yeah maybe you’ll love me, you’ll love me then

I don’t want to be tough
And I don’t want to be proud
I don’t need to be fixed and I certainly don’t need to be found
I’m not lost
I need to be loved
I just need to be loved
I just want to be loved by you and I won’t stop ‘cause I believe
That maybe, yeah maybe
Maybe, yeah maybe

I should know better than to touch the fire twice
But I’m thinking maybe, yeah maybe you might

Maybe, love maybe
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Word Count: 972

Yoon Kang. Wow. That's a pretty name.

Prudence scanned the crowds in the airport, searching for her mother, whose plane was horrendously late. She had been sitting in that terminal for so many hours that she lost count. Eventually, she resorted to reading signs, such as the one the man in front of her bench was holding- Yoon Kang. She wondered what a woman such as her, with a name like that and a hired chauffeur, looked like.

She didn't have to wait long to find out. A young, Korean woman, sporting Dolce and Gabana sunglasses and carrying a violin case, three suitcases, and a Prada bag, greeted the driver with a smile. He took her bags.

Prudence couldn't help but wonder what her life was like. She bet that woman didn't fight with her parents. She bet her mother would understand if she got a divorce because her husband cheated. In Korea, family always came first...

"Prudence!"

She turned to see her mother walking toward her carrying a small suitcase. Normally, the trip from her parents' house in North Peak didn't merit a plane ride, but in this case, Prudence's mother was making the trip solo due to her father's schedule, and her mother didn't like to drive.

"Hello, Mom." Prudence would admit that she didn't try to put any enthusiasm in her voice. Seeing her mother was, quite honestly, the last thing she wanted to do.

Her mother smiled, putting on a happy face just as she always did when she wanted to pretend that everything was okay.

She took her mother's bag and focused on surviving the weekend.



~*~



Optimistic thoughts didn't last long. By seven that evening, Prudence was glad she had dinner to cook as a distraction.

Her mother sat at the dining room table, blabbing on about how Prudence was throwing her life away by getting a divorce and continuing to go on being single.

As the salmon sizzled in the pan before her, Prudence closed her eyes, clenched her fists, and gritted her teeth.

Her mother couldn't be serious. She couldn't seriously be lecturing Prudence on this, the same subject that caused Prudence to explode the last time they spoke.

"I know that you make good money as a publisher, but what if something happens and you can't support yourself?"

Prudence assumed that was a rhetorical question and flipped the salmon.

"I'm just saying that there is going to be a point when you want a man to support you."

Prudence scooped the salmon onto a plate, still trying to drown her mother out.

"And I know that you went through that before. That's why you married Jeremy.

Crash! Prudence slammed the plates on the table. "Mother, this conversation is over."

Prudence sat in front of her mother and picked up her knife and fork. She cut into the juicy, pink salmon and took a big bite. Her eyes met her mother's, whose were wide with shock, and she smiled, knowing that it mirrored her mother's let's-pretend-everything-is-okay smile.

Her mother still looked like a deer caught in headlights.

"Your food is getting cold," she said passively, and her teeth scraped across the metal fork as she bit off another piece of salmon.



~*~



Prudence stared at her ceiling in the dark before turning to look at the clock on her nightstand.

It was almost three in the morning, and there was no way she was getting back to sleep.

She threw off her covers and walked through the moonlight to the living room. She reached for the light switch before she realized that the kitchen light was already on.

Her mother sat at the table, her face in her hands and her curly, brown hair spilling down around her shoulders. As Prudence looked closer, she realized her mother's shoulders shook in the shadow that the soft light cast.

She was crying.

"Mom?"

Her mother's head came up, and when she realized the situation in which she found herself, she turned her back to Prudence and began scrubbing away her tears.

Prudence took a seat across from her and looked at her in the dim light of the kitchen.

"Mom? What's wrong?"

Her mother inhaled sharply and turned to face her. "I feel like you don't understand," she said, her voice thick with tears.

Prudence was surprised to find her own thoughts coming out of her mother's mouth. "Understand what?"

"That I just want what's best for you."

Prudence wasn't sure how to respond. How could her mother think that any of what she said was best for her? "The best thing for me is to be independent and not have to rely on a man."

Her mother nodded. "I know that's what you want, honey, but..." She trailed off.

"But what, mom? If I had relied on a man this far, I would have been in big trouble when Jeremy left."

Her mother's wet, shining eyes threatened to break her heart as she waited for a response.

Her mother took a deep breath and folded her hands in front of her on the wooden table. "I made a decision, when I married your father, to let him take care of me. He has supported me every day of our marriage, and I think that's one of the things that kept us together. It's a dominant male ego thing."

Prudence tried not to laugh. The last thing a woman needed to do was boost a man's ego.

But she guessed that there were just two kinds of people in the world- people like her and people like her mother.

She reached across the table and placed a hand over her mother's.

"I understand," she whispered. "And everything is going to be okay."

Her mother sent her a watery smile to show that she agreed.