When Riley had gone into Maya's school bag for her Social Studies textbook, she hadn't expect to find a bag of pills thrown in the bottom.
In her panic, she had confronted Maya, who had angrily grabbed for the bag in her friend's hand. It was lucky Lucas had been there to hold her back, though in retrospect, she never really could have hurt Riley, even if she'd tried to.
It was a long, awkward talk in the bay window. Riley wanted to know why, but in all honesty, Maya had had no clue what to tell her.
They hadn't noticed how long they'd been there, until three new faced entered Riley's bedroom. Unbeknownst to the girls, Farkle had left the apartment and had called Mr and Mrs Matthews to come home from work early with an urgent request that they bring Shawn on their way.
She knew they had the best of intentions, but the stream of questions from everyone was beginning to suffocate her. Eventually, she couldn't take it anymore and stood up. "Can we just stop?" she shouted, shocking the room into silence. "Thank you," she breathed, sitting back down. "It isn't like was gonna do it."
No one dared to utter another word, but minds were racing with questions. The silence threatened to go on for hours, until someone finally decided to speak up.
"Y'know I thought about it too when I was a kid." Shawn stated, avoiding Cory's eye.
"Really?" Maya asked, surprised.
Shawn nodded.
"Shawn -" Cory began.
Shawn didn't take his eyes away from Maya.
"I was feelin' real low, my mom'd ditched, dad'd gone, I mean what do you do when you're not even good enough for a trailer park?" He shrugged, "so I went to the drugstore round the corner after school, filled my pockets with as many bottles as I could and took myself back to Mr Turner's apartment."
When the room found nothing to say, Shawn continued, "I went up to my room and over to my desk to grab a pen and a piece of paper."
"What did you write?" Maya asked cautiously.
"I wrote 'Dear Cory," he replied, as if the answer was obvious.
Riley glanced to her father, whose eyes were glistening with unshed tears.
"And then I sat there and stared at the page. I had no idea what to write. I mean, what do you tell your best friend when you're about to kill yourself? I thought for a long time about everything I'd ever wanted to tell him. I'd been drafting the damn thing in my head for months, but when it came down to it - I started with telling him how sorry I was. How I hoped everything worked out with Topanga, to tell her I was sorry too and that I'd miss her. I apologised for leaving him, for not sticking around to meet the kids they'd one day have," he draped and arm over Riley's shoulder. "I said I was sorry for being such a screw up."
Shawn couldn't bare to look at his friends directly, but out the corner of his eye, he could see Topanga rubbing small circles on her husband's back.
Riley, who was surprisingly composed piped up again with another question, "so, what stopped you? I mean obviously, you didn't do it."
A smile ghosted across Shawn's lips, "your dad happened, Riley." He finally allowed himself to glance at Cory, who was on the edge of his seat.
Shawn stood up and moved over to Cory, clapping his hands down on his friend's shoulders. "He called just as I'd opened the first bottle, asking if I wanted to come over for dinner. His mom had made meatballs, and when I got to his house, he answered the door with two breadsticks shoved up his nose and told me he was a walrus. And I tell you what, I laughed harder than I had in months."
He felt Cory's shoulder's loosen, the breath he'd been holding finally being let go.
"You see Maya, what you really need to understand is that even when you're at your lowest an you feel totally and utterly helpless, your friends are always there to pick you up again, even if they don't even know they're doing it."
Maya shifted in her seat, "yeah, Riley always manages to pull me back."
"She gets that from her dad," Shawn confirmed.
"Thanks Shawn," Maya offered a small smile.
"Hey, I'm just telling you what I know. And Maya," he turned to face his audience, "Riley, all you guys, don't ever forget you always have people who are there for you."
Shawn, having said all he'd needed to say, stood to take his leave.
Topanga reached out and grabbed his hand, "Shawn, would you like to stay for dinner?"
"What're we having?"
"Meatballs," she offered.
"Sounds great."
Topanga looked back at the kids, "what about you guys?"
Farkle nodded.
"Thank you Mrs Matthews," Lucas smiled.
As the was family gathered around the kitchen table, laughing together, Maya felt a warmth inside her she'd not felt in a long time and with her family around her, she realised just how thankful she was to have each an every one of them in her life.
Maya hadn't realised just how deep in thought she was, until she felt a tap on her shoulder that snapped her out of it. She turned to see who had tapped her and was faced with Shawn, who had chosen a seat next to her, with two breadsticks shoved in his nose. She laughed, a genuine laugh for the first time in a while, and put two under her top lip, "see this way you can eat 'em after. They're not all boogery."
"Hey hey, let the masters handle it ok?" Cory added, breadsticks in hand.
Maya smiled and took the breadsticks out of her mouth. "I'm glad you're still here, Shawn."
Shawn wrapped an arm around her and looked at the faces around the table, "me too, kiddo."