_a/n: so i was given the prompt "first meeting without riley" and here it is. hope you like it!
gypsy talk
(he meets her and it all goes downhill from there)
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It takes you a glare from a businessman gleaming of impatience, a shove from a lady in a hat much larger than she is, a push, and the stares of multiple girls in flimsy pink skirts and identical braids, until you spot the empty seat on the subway. Trying your best to escape the discourteous New Yorkers your mother had warned you about once you had stepped out of your newly bought house in New Jersey, you claim the window seat with a sigh of relief. It had taken two buses to reach the subway and it'll take another two stops until you make it to your new school.
Your absent stare at the dark view of the window is subconscious and you can't help but wonder of your new house that you've been having trouble sleeping in. You think of Texas and home and things taken from you and have been stripped gone. You don't notice her, not yet. It's not until your first stop when you let your eyes wander from the window to the people (you'd been avoiding with reason) on the subway. That's when you see her propped on the seat right in front of you, facing yours; the vision of long blonde hair and a chin tucked under knobby knees wrapped in ripped nylons. Her combat boots are dirtying the already unclean seat and you're enthralled at how long her eyelashes are with her eyes closed.
Her head's leaning against the glass of the window and you begin to ponder over irrelevant things that make you forget about your own life for a little. Things like her age and how long she's lived in the city and what she likes doing on New York streets and how at-home she must feel if she's comfortable enough to sleep on the subway filled with the constant, incessant noise and crankiness. She must be down here quite often, you assume.
Your thoughts take a halt when a bitter voice is directed toward you and you decide that if she were coffee, she'd be black, "Hasn't your mother ever told you it's impolite to stare?"
She murmurs this with her eyes still shut, slowly fluttering open to meet your naïve, rimmed blue pupils. Her eyes look like the sky during those cloudless summer afternoons and it's an apparent contrast against her winter skin and light hair. It stands out. You take a moment to respond, because as cliché as it might be, you're getting lost in those pools and before you know it she's judging you even more.
"Cat's got your tongue?"
"I—uh, I'm new here," you manage to comment, trying to brush off the coldness of her gaze with that natural lighthearted smile of yours.
She looks bored with you, but you don't mind. Not much. She's been nicer than most people you've encountered today, anyway. "Where're you from?"
"Texas," you answer, and you know that with every word you say, the harsher she's going to think of you. It's in the way a glint of amusement paints the corner of her gaze. "Any advice for a newcomer in a big city?"
"Get lost," she sighs as she breaks your locked stare and shifts toward the window. She's cold and calm and cruel, but you've dealt with horses that kick harder than she does.
"Pardon?"
"Literally," she clarifies. "You'll never appreciate this place more until you're on a street you can't name and you're surrounded by people who won't help you and you inhale the polluted air of nicotine and hot dogs and you'll stop, stare, and realize you're totally okay with being wherever you are."
You think she's crazy, a gypsy in disguise of a young girl, one of those creepy, carnivalesque tarot card readers that'll steal your money and speak poetic nonsense that'll hypnotize you in return of said jacked money and will still persuade you to tip them after you've already been pulled in to hand them a forty. She knows you think she's strange; it's all in the skeptical look you're giving her. She only shrugs.
And when the train stops, she stands up and pats nonexistent dust off herself. Prior to making her leave, she looks over her shoulder, adjusting her intricately detailed scarf, and slips out, "Welcome to New York, Cowboy."
Before you have a chance to thank her and maybe get her name, she's gone—successful in threading her way through the fiasco of people, moving as swiftly as a pickpocket. At your last thought, you quickly move your hand to the side of your jeans to make sure your wallet's still intact. You notice it is and the subway begins to accelerate once again while you slowly reflect over the delicate-looking girl with a quick tongue and an ice-like exterior.
You don't realize you've missed your stop until you reach a station with names of streets you don't recognize and you bite your tongue before you curse aloud.
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You're forty-two minutes late to your first class on your first day.
But it's okay, because you explain to the attendance lady how you'd never ridden the metro before and she likes your boyish smile (you don't do this on purpose, you swear) so she hands you a mint green pass to give your history teacher.
His name is Mr. Matthews, and when you walk into the classroom, the man in the suit looks at him skeptically whilst muttering something like I don't know you, who are you? and you aren't sure if those are the right words because that's when all the students turn around to catch a glimpse of the new student. You catch sight of her, then—the familiarity of the blonde locks and the cruel gaze and the natural, condescending aura she holds so damned well. You take notice of the hint of a smirk at her pink lips.
You decide to take a seat behind her, and when Mr. Matthews asks why you're so late, you reply in all honesty and hidden irony, "I got lost."
She turns her head just a slight only to show you what her smile looks like, and you learn that her name is Maya Hart.
And one day, she's going to break your heart, you're already sure of it.
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fin.