a.n so i have no idea what this is, but i hope you enjoy!
Moments.
.
"Well I don't want that for Maya," he says, slamming his palms against the table, and Maya turns slowly, and he opens his mouth again to say something with his eyes on hers, murky and green and focused, as if he's seeing something that she doesn't, something new and fresh and unfamiliar— "I want Maya to be happy."
It surprises her, because she's just Riley Matthew's best friend, even after everything, she's just the girl who loud and outspoken and reckless, dark blonde hair and unrealistic dreams, sketchpads and old paintbrushes.
Because she's broken, and he's Mr. Perfect, and the only one who really fightsfor her happiness is Riley, not him.
"Thank you, Lucas," she says, her eyes rimmed with red, as she shakes her head slightly, because he makes her feel warm and good and there's a spot right above her chest that catches and spirals and clicks that makes her want time to freeze so she can stay in this split second infinitely. "But it's just an art class."
"I feel bad. They're taking away something you're very good at."
"You've never said that to me before," she says, inhaling and looking up.
"I've said it."
"Yeah, well not straight to my face when you were looking at me. I can't remember—"
"You're a great artist, Maya," he interrupts with a swift click of his tongue, and she has no words. "I want you to be able to get better and share it with people."
She stares at him for a moment, at green eyes the color of the sea, of the color of fresh oil paint smeared across a canvas, and she doesn't notice what Zay is saying in the background, because the world has faded, and they're the only ones left.
And then the feeling is over, and she's turning around, chewing the inside of her lip raw as she continues to listen to Riley and Zay talk, and she tries to push him to the back of her mind, but they words still linger.
I want Maya to be happy.
.
She's fourteen and they're graduating, and Riley is pacing in her purple graduation, murmuring are you sure? are you sure? as she bites the layer of her bright gold nail polish until it chips and falls to the floor. Farkle is memorizing lines in his head, speeches, snippets of Gettysburg Address and prime numbers as he lowers his head, and Maya wants to tell them all to stop, because it's just a middle school graduation, and that they'll all be together in high school, though it doesn't settle the feeling that rests itself on her stomach, and she doesn't want to admit that as she's chewing the edge of a chip and sketching across her arm, she doesn't know—
"You okay?" a voice interrupts her thoughts, and she looks up. "You're clutching the seat like you're on the edge of a mental breakdown, Maya."
Maya growls. "Okay, Mr. I'll Be Okay with Whatever Happens. I hope it won't surprise you that not all of us can be as calm as you."
He laughs and takes a chip from her bag and crunches it in his mouth, the bag of chips she has been holding for three hours straight, her fingers stained and salty and wrinkly.
"It's just a graduation. Just another stage of life. Nothing to be worried about."
"It's not," Maya inhales, and as she meets his eyes, she wonders if he knows the feeling, of being young and wanting to be something, be someone, but at the same time never growing up, always being fourteen and being able to sit in the Bay Window, and being able to laugh and be kids over raspberry macarons and hot chocolate.
"Why don't you go check on Riley over there," she asks. "I think her nails will be gone by the time we go out there. Or Farkle, who is now reciting who-knows-what while pacing and crashing into objects?"
"Because you're not pacing or reciting or even looking at your phone, you're just grabbing onto the arms of a chair and eating chips," he says, and he steps closer, almost sealing the space between them.
"I'm just…" Maya trails off. "not sure if we'll all be friends...after."
Everything is bubbling in her stomach and rising to a crescendo, and she swallows, trying to push back words and fears, trying to erase the bitter taste in her mouth.
"I just don't want...this to end," she whispers, as someone signals them and Riley murmurs something, and Farkle shouts Belgium 1831 into the air.
And then she is walking forward, the graduation gown whipping with the rhythm of the wind, and she doesn't notice when someone holds her back. Maya spins around again, and she is looking into green eyes.
"Everything will turn out alright," Lucas says. "We'll be here. I'll be here."
"You don't know that," she says, and she lowers her head, because god forbid Lucas Friar see her one moment of weakness. "You don't know that."
"I promise, Maya," Lucas says, and then Mr. Matthews is gesturing them again to get on the stage, and Maya feels temporarily the war inside her fade. He makes her think that leaving and goodbyes and high school aren't as scary as they seem. "Do you trust me?"
"Yes," she says back, even though her voice is barely audible, barely a whisper in the crowd. "I trust you."
"Ready?" Lucas says.
"Ready."
She steps out, and the world stills.
.
She's fifteen and finally one day she and Riley have a fight and Maya's sure it's the end of the world.
Because they have never not talked for more than two days, and she's left in the hallway, staring at Riley and wondering if she should've apologized.
It's about something so stupid and small, she thinks. About how Riley made another side comment about how Maya was broken, even though, Maya thinks bitterly, she is, and how Maya had flew into a rage and cursed and threw grape soda all over Riley's brand new daisy yellow blouse.
"Don't say that about me," she says, as Riley steps back, shocked and ice cubes sticking to her shirt. "Don't you dare say that about me—"
She is cut off by Riley, who says something in that hissed tone of hers, but she doesn't hear the rest of it, because she's pushing through the crowd and through the cafeteria and through the front doors of the school until she's standing out on the sidewalk watching the cars pass and the people beside her shift.
And then, he's here again, and all she can see is redredred as she rushes at him with clenched fists, because she knows he's going to tell her to apologize for hurting Riley and spilling soda all over her shirt—
"Maya, stop, stop trying to punch me in the gut—"
He's holding her by the wrists and she's staring back at him with red rimmed eyes and gold eyeshadow that bleeds under her eyelids.
"Let go of me, Friar. LET GO OF ME OR YOU WILL FUCKING PAY. I'm not going to apologize for what I did, so you can move and put your efforts in the homeless or some other charity—"
"Maya, calm down—"
"Let go of me!"
He lets go and she's reeling back and he's catching her, even if she's digging her nails into his skin and he doesn't know how they are so sharp, they leave red crescent marks that linger on his arm far after he steadies her.
"My life isn't a joke," she says. "My life isn't a punchline, 'Oh, Maya, yeah, she has a horrible life', 'Your family life could be better'"
"I know," he says. "I know, Maya."
"She doesn't know anything."
She comes closer and in one tilting motion, she's in his arms and he's holding her as she buries her face in his shirt and murmurs into his chest.
"Everything's going to be okay," he says. "Everything's going to be alright."
"Thank you," she whispers, when days pass and she and Riley confront each other at the same time and she apologizes and they are best friends again, and he stands afar. "Thank you."
.
Time goes faster than she expects. One minute she's still a scared little girl stepping into high school for the first time, and the other she's looking back and staring at what's left.
.
And then she's sixteen, and it's fall break and the four of them are spending the week in Texas, and even though she's been there once, once during eighth grade, it still feels new.
The leaves are starting to turn and they are red and yellow and orange and gold, and Maya can't help herself and drag him along the trails with nothing but colored pencils and a sketchbook because it feels surreal.
They drink apple cider and pick plump pumpkins and she carves lopsided triangles as Riley laughs in the background and she watches the Lord of the Rings extended version with Zay and Farkle while Riley and Lucas smirk but four hours in they join them in the living room with turkey and cranberry sandwiches because it's Lord of the Rings.
They walk through fields of hay and corn as the sky is golden yellow and the wind blows in their direction and she shivers, stopping at a place where giant rocks sit and they just sit and talk lazily with mugs of hot apple cider in hand, as they colors of the day fade and the sky is a map of glittering dots.
"Why are you looking at me like that, Sundance?" she says when she finds Lucas staring at her, a smirk plastered across his face. "Do I have something in my hair or something?"
Zay grunts in frustration and Farkle looks perplexed and Riley is furrowing her eyebrows in confusion as silent ensues.
"Nothing," Lucas sighs. "Nothing."
.
And then they're in junior year and she's out in a tall building somewhere out in the city with Lucas because Riley is busy on a Chemistry project and Farkle is busy practicing for the school play.
("Pippin?" Maya had asked when Farkle announced he had got the lead. "Of course." he replied, winking.)
They're eating cherry popsicles, juice running down her arm as she licks, down the side of her skin and onto the pavement below, down streetlights and alleyways and passing cars.
Her feet are dangling, and she feels a thrill when she looks down into the curves and edges of New York City. Everything is small up here, Maya realizes, everything is reduced to dollhouse size, Central Park is just a green dot in the distance, and people are almost nothing.
"What do you want, Maya?" he's asking suddenly and she tilts her head at him. "In...life?"
She inhales the scent of pavement, of freshly dried paint and him, and closes her eyes.
"I want to see the exact moment before the sun rises," she whispers, "where the world is dark and beginning, I want to stand on top of the tallest building of earth and look below. I want to...go to the bottom of the sea and… I want to run until my lungs give way and I'm standing in the middle of the city. I want to live."
And he's staring at her again with widened eyes again, and she doesn't notice as fondness crosses his face.
"What don't you want?"
The edges of her mouth curl. "I don't want to grow up."
.
"Don't ever change, Maya," he whispers when he's bending down during the end of the night, when the city goes dark all at once, when the lights of the city flicker for a moment before lingering and setting New York in a yellow glow. "Promise me you won't ever change."
.
He shows up behind her window one night when they're in sophomore year, when his eyes are red and he is wet.
"What's wrong?" she asks while she opens a pack of hot cocoa and adds hot water, stirs once and hands it to him.
"My parents," he says, taking a sip. "They're fighting...again. It's getting serious, Maya. They're saying they might get a divorce. And...I don't know where the fuck that leaves me."
"Lucas," she says, and she isn't sure if she should change the subject or not, but before she can say something, he's burying his face in his hands.
"Remember," she whispers as an idea crosses her mind, and her fingers rub his back hesitantly, "when you comforted me before graduation? You promised me everything would be alright, and you were right. I was fucking wreck, and you made me think that...it was going to be okay."
"So?"
She swallows. "I'm telling you now that everything's going to turn out alright, Lucas."
"You don't know that. You don't know my parents."
Maya closes her eyes and rubs her lash line until a single line of mascara smears. "Do you trust me?"
"Yes," he says. "With my life."
.
She's seventeen and it's the middle of the night, and she's calling him on Skype, just because she can.
"Maya," he says, yawning and the screen shifting and blurring. "It's two a.m. in the morning. Something up?"
"Well," she says, drawing a single line of the paper she's holding. "You're awake."
"Touche, blondie," he drawls. "I'm only awake because of you, for your information."
"Liar."
She's inhaling the scent of fresh pastels and yellow in her room, inhaling the scent of the city below, cigarette smoke and cheap perfume and the tang of alcohol.
"I couldn't sleep," she says into her phone, and she watches him furrow his brows at her. "I had dreams about penguins."
"Penguins? Really. Are they evil and trying to rule the world?"
"No," she says. "You know? This...this is a story better told in person. And, being the generous person that I am, seeing that you also cannot sleep, I'm inviting you over. Bring chili."
"Bring chili?"
"Yep. Kind of in the mood to eat chili."
"It's two a.m in the morning, Maya," he sighs.
"You live, like, two blocks away."
"Fine," he says, smiling when a grin creeps up her face. "You know you're extremely random, right? Who wants to eat chili and talk about penguins at two in the morning?"
Maya smirks. "Who doesn't?"
.
He arrives at her window with two bowls of chili and two plastic spoons, which she takes happily.
"You are a lifesaver, Huckleberry," she says, opening the lid with a pop and digging in.
He shakes his head at her and laughs. "So," he says, leaning against her white brick wall. "What was this about penguins?"
.
And then she's eighteen and she's at the school dance, half heartedly dancing with Farkle, who keeps stepping on her shoes while clutching her phone in her pocket with sharpened nails when she sees Lucas walk in with Riley, her eyes glowing as she takes step after step in purple heels and her dress sways in folds around her legs, Lucas with his hand wrapped around her waist like it's the most natural thing in the world.
Maya swears she stops breathing, and there's this burning in her chest that doesn't diminish after Farkle shakes her shoulders, a feeling of hollowness, like there's something missing, and aching feeling that she can feel from the top of her messed up updo to the six inch green heels that cut into her feet.
"It's very obvious you're staring at the both of them," Farkle says, and Maya doesn't miss the exhale of breath he takes when he turns towards Riley and his eyes linger. "I know...because I'm staring, too."
Maya sighs, and tries to ignore them, but the music slows and they begin to slow dance, Riley spinning in his arms as he holds her, whispering something into her ear as she laughs.
"I'm not staring," Maya says, retreating to corner with Farkle, punch in hand.
He gives her a pointed look and raises his cup. "It all makes sense. She's the princess, and he's the prince, and they'll live happily ever after. And there's nothing we can do to stop it. It was destiny from the beginning. And we're the characters who sort of...fade into the background as time progresses."
"But they're happy," she says, biting the outer edge of her plastic cup. "Riley's...happy, and that's all that matters."
He opens his mouth, and she can see him mouth the word. Liar Liar Liar. But he only shakes his head once.
.
"Hey," he says, as she is scrolling through her Tumblr dashboard again, pressing the reblog button on a post as she hears a murmured hey.
"Hey," she says, clicking her phone shut and looking up. Him. Again.
"You've been sitting here forever, Maya," Lucas says. "Don't you want to get up and dance?"
She wrinkles her nose. "Not really."
He shakes his head and holds out a hand. "C'mon, Maya," he says, snatching her phone from her fingers and sticking it in her pocket. "I know you want to dance."
"Lucas—" she begins, but it's too late, because he's dragging her along the dance floor, students turning and staring with polished nails pressed to lip gloss as they come to a halt.
The music starts, and her body moves with the rhythm, spinning and spinning and spinning, the wind ripping in her ears as he laughs and says, "See?"
"Oh, shut up," she grins as her hips sway and the world is blur of color and rhythm and music, Lucas laughing as he twirls her in a circle.
And then the music slows again, and she retreats, panting. Lucas opens his mouth, as if he's about to say something to her, but then Riley shows, blushing and heels clicking softly as she walks forward.
"I should probably go," Maya says, a smile plastered across her face. "You guys dance. I'm going to get some fresh air."
"Maya," he calls. "Wait—"
And then she is running, out of the door and into the hallway, her body numb as she plops herself against a locker. This is what she'd always wanted, Maya thinks, for her best friend to be happy. But if that's it, why does everything fucking sting? Why does it feel like there's not enough oxygen for her to inhale?
"I thought you'd be out here," Lucas says, a few minutes after she has sat on the bench and stared at locker combinations four three two three two four as he pushes the door open and steps out and steps next to her.
"You shouldn't be here," Maya says. "I'm not kidding. Go—"
He shakes his head. "You just ran out, what did you expect, Maya?"
"Just go, Lucas," she whispers, not meeting his eyes, because she can't. "Just go back to Riley, okay? I'm not a fucking character in a movie who needs saving."
He inhales. "I never said you were! I...just wanted to know what's wrong."
"Nothing is wrong," she says, suddenly conscious of the lack of her phone in her pocket and the fact that her nails are more jagged now than ever. "Just go back to Riley. She's probably waiting for you."
"Not until you tell me what's wrong. People aren't laughing one second and just storming out the door the next."
She stands straight, and a strand of hair falls out of her updo and frames her face in gold. "I'm fine."
"You're lying."
She finally breaks, and everything bubbles to the surface, emotions and boiling rage that comes to her all at once, and god, is it a fucking rush.
"Fine," she hisses, and Maya doesn't care now that her mascara is smeared and her lipstick is a single line of blood red across her chin, that her head is spinning and the world is blurring and she needs it, she needs it to just stop— "You want to know what's wrong?"
She lets out a rattling breath. "You. You." she says. "Because you make my heart throb in my chest and you make me feel warm and good and you make me question myself, you...and I don't know what the fuck I'm feeling. And it's all because of you."
"Maya—"
"Don't say anything," she says. "I'm just being ridiculous right now."
He stares at her for a few seconds, and then his hands are on the small of her back and in her hair, and his lips are on hers, and he tastes like hot cocoa and artwork and baseball and cheap cologne, and her pulse is pounding in her ears and she feels dizzy and she places a hand on his chest to push him away, but instead it just lingers. This is wrong, something inside her murmurs, whispers, but if it is, why isn't she pulling away?
"No,"she says as they finally pull away. "You like Riley. You've always liked Riley."
She doesn't let him speak the rest, because Maya's taking off the poison green heels that dig into her skin, snatching her phone from Lucas' pocket, and soon, she is running.
.
Maya calls a cab in the middle of the street, settling into the backseat and inhaling as the car swerves through a haze of traffic lights and tall, tall buildings.
There are a million unread texts from Riley and Farkle, she knows because her phone is buzzing every single fucking second and she can barely concentrate.
tired. she types. didn't feel well and went home. Maya doesn't feel like typing anything else, and anything but the comfort of her own bed nauseates her, and just thinking about what happened with Lucas makes her head spin.
She finds a handful of dollar bills in her pocket and hands it to the driver and walks into limp steps to her apartment building and presses the button to her floor and hums as it gives a ding and the doors open.
Everything will be alright by morning, Maya thinks as she turns off the light and slips into the covers. Everything will be settled.
.
Except they're not.
She stares at the mirror, at red rimmed eyes and sharp edges and dark blue eyes that are crusty with sleep, and she knows.
Things aren't okay, and she needs to escape.
.
Lucas finds her in a bar with bright fucking neon lights, all maroon lipstick and platinum blonde hair, in a haze of cigarette smoke that nearly chokes him.
.
He orders a shot and slides into the seat next to her, and he barely notices that her straight white teeth are bared and clenched and her fingers tighten around the watery Vodka Tonic smeared with amber colored eyeliner and blood red lipstick that she has in her grasp as he opens his mouth and speaks.
"Hello, Maya."
She doesn't fall, she doesn't choke, she doesn't even turn towards him, she only raises the glass to her lips and takes the wedge of lime in between her teeth.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she asks, washing down the lime with the swift tilt of her fingers. "You aren't twenty one."
"Neither are you."
She shakes her head and pulls out and ID, a girl with blonde hair and eyes the exact shade as hers appearing in the picture. "Touche, cowboy."
He taps his fingers on the table, and he suddenly remembers the school dance, of her breaking down in the hallway, of you make my heart throb and kisses that tasted like art and lead and fruity punch. "I've been looking for you for days. You've avoided my texts, and every single time I've some up to you, you've found some convenient excuse to leave. It this about what happened at— "
"You need to go," Maya says, and if he hadn't known her for years, he wouldn't have even noticed the cracks in her voice. "You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't have come and found me—"
She stands up, and the glass of Vodka Tonic falls and breaks and shatters as she smooths her tank top and pushes the door of the bar open.
He rushes after her, but he is too late, he realizes, as raises her shaking fingers and calls for a cab, which comes hurtling her way as soon as she does, the yellow body swerving and curving and halting to a stop in front of her.
"Aren't you tired, Maya?" he asks, running forward as she opens the door to the car. "Aren't you ever tired of running?"
"Yes," she whispers as she steps into the car, turning around finally and facing him, eyes widened. "Yes."
The car is gone before he can say another word.
.
Her eyes are the color of the sea, and Lucas Friar is sinking.
.
Lucas meets her again when he needs to study for an exams, at a cafe that has perfectly smooth black tables and old, faded posters that reminds him of the past.
She is sitting at the table, wearing a T-shirt and wearing black framed Ray Ban hipster glasses and her hair piled into a bun atop her head, while she jolts a curve across blank paper.
"Hello again, shortstack," he says, settling down into the seat next to her. "Remember, you can't avoid me forever."
She sighs. "I'm trying to," she says, a ghost of a smile gracing her lips. "But you're making it awfully hard."
"I get it," he starts. "You need...space and...time. And I respect that. But, if you don't mind me asking, will you ever come back?"
"Of course I will," Maya says softly, and even in the space of a few weeks, he can tell that she has changed. "If this path leads me back, I'll welcome it with open arms."
And then he's standing up and picking up his books, waving a goodbye as she raises her hand back in response.
.
Maya thinks she is now a wanderer.
She was smoked cigarettes with a stranger and stayed and re-read Harry Potter in twenty-four hour bookshop and sipped cappuccinos in Central Park in the middle of the night.
She doesn't know what she's doing. All she knows is she likes the feeling of the wind in her hair and she likes the way the city come alive at night and she likes sitting in cafes and contemplating her next move.
She's running and hiding and escaping from the truth, she knows, but when she's riding a bike and the handlebars are crumbling beneath her fingers, and she can almost feel the hum, the slight hiss of the air as she's whizzing through the air, she's never felt more alive.
Maya knows she's looking for something, for herself perhaps, but as the wind whips around her as she walks home and pushes open the door to her apartment, she only wishes she knew who that was.
.
She finally breaks down and calls him in the middle of the night, because she knows he's up and he's the only one who would really understand.
"Hey," he says when he sees her face on the screen, his voice softening as she hears her voice crack on the other end. "Are you alright, Maya? Did anyone hurt you?"
'No," she says into her phone and rubs her eyes. "I just..wanted to hear the sound of your voice."
"Is that it," he says, laughing. "You think my voice is sexy, Maya?"
She laughs. "Not in your wildest dreams, cowboy," she says. "Your voice is just…"
She can't finish the sentence, even if she can hear the words in her mouth. You voice makes me feel like I'm home.
"Are you alright?" he says, and she hears the crack of static through the phone. "Are you coming back yet?"
"No," she whispers. "Not yet. I..think I'm still...searching, for something. Something like a midlife crisis. But I'm eighteen. Does that make sense?"
Strangely, it does.
"You know, Maya," he says, his voice husky and low with sleep. "I'll always be here. In case you need me. No matter what happens."
He hears her exhale sharply on the other side, sees how she is closing her eyes and biting the inside of her cheek.
"I know," she murmurs, and she doesn't have a clue how she has someone like this in her life, because she knows she's not even close to deserving him. "I know."
.
Maya arrives in Josh Mathews' apartment in ten p.m on a saturday.
He doesn't jump when he sees her in his crumpled up bed, drawing on her palm with a marker, he only tilts her head at her and waits.
"Maya," he scratches the back of his head. "What are you doing here?"
"It's a saturday," she begins, laying down and sinking into the stained blankets. "And I needed somewhere to crash. What better place than yours, Matthews?"
He shrugs. "You're lucky that my roommate isn't here. Then I wouldn't have to explain what an eighteen year old girl is doing in my bed."
"I would actually love to hear you explain that," she says, her face buried beneath sheets. His bed smells like Josh, she thinks. Like crusty pretzels and the cheap beer and the occasional scent of femininity.
"You're the weirdest person I've ever met," he says, plopping down on the bed. "You know that, right?"
.
Josh orders Chinese takeout and they sit on his bed and drink cheap beers while watching music videos on his phone.
She likes how she doesn't have to explain to him how she's here, or how Riley isn't with her, or how she's been at school, because she really doesn't think she has the heart to answer any more questions.
Instead she makes him laugh with telling him about Farkle, even if her heart aches when she talks about her friends, any of them.
He tells her about movies, about Interstellar and the Dark Knight and Guardians of the Galaxy while she sips her chow mein and dips her chopsticks in soy sauce and licks her lipstick stained lips.
And then, she's sketching on his bed with a handful of red colored pens, and he doesn't care that ink bleeds into his sheets and that lead leaves markings, because his bed was already dirty enough to begin with.
"I don't know how I ended up here," she says, when she's lounging lazily, spinning circles in his desk chair. "But I guess I'll thanking you for taking care of thirteen year old me."
He's smiling, and then he's leaning closer, until she can feel his breath on her chin, and in one swift, tilting motion, she's grabbing him by the shirt and she's kissing him.
He doesn't taste like Lucas, he tastes like college, like beer and dumplings and toothpaste, and there's something unfamiliar about him, something that makes her pull away abruptly and there's that aching in her chest again, the pang of nostalgia that comes with kissing him, and she feels sick, because she's searching for Lucas in him, seeing if she can see a glimmer of green eyes —
"I need to go," she murmurs, and she wonders why she is always running, always running.
She leaves.
.
Maya walks home alone.
The wind is blowing her hair back and forth and her breath is nothing but a white puff of mist in the air as she exhales, and again and again there's this thought in her mind that keeps resurfacing.
I want to go home.
.
She sneaks into the Matthews home at seven in the morning with only a bobby pin and makes herself pancakes.
"Maya!" Riley squeals when she sees her. "Peaches."
She is a blur of blonde as she launches into her best friend's arms, and Riley's crying into her hair and saying I was worried about you. So much. again and again.
"Are you back?" Riley asks.
"Yes," she closes her eyes and thinks of Lucas. "Yes."
They eat pancakes in the Bay Window, and Maya tells her about everything, about bars and clubs and smeared red lipstick, about running and him.
"He likes you," Riley says when Maya asks him about Lucas. "And...I'm okay with that."
Maya squeezes her arm and says that she'll find someone, though she doesn't mention that someone has been there all along, and that he looks at her like she has stars in her eyes and she holds the sun in her fingers, like she is the sun, and that Maya wishes someone would look like her that way.
Instead she only grins and hugs her best friend tight, because Riley is the best best friend that a girl could ever have, and when they embrace, Riley whispers into her hair, Lucas is at the zoo in Central Park. Go get him, peaches.
.
She arrives at Central Park and he's standing in front of the Polar bears.
"Hi there, cowboy," she taps his shoulder and he spins around.
"Maya," he says. "It's sure been a while. Are you still —"
"No," she shakes her head. "No. I think it's the end of my wandering. At least for now."
Maya takes a rattling breath and her nails are digging into her skin again before she continues. "I think that I have to...find myself and see the world, at least see the city, figure out how big the world is and how small I am compared to it all...before I could stand here and realize what was missing in my life."
"And?" he raises a brow at her.
"And all this time I was searching, and I realized what was missing, was you. I know we've been through a lot, and I know I'm just being ridiculous right now, and feel free to walk away —"
He cuts her off by leaning towards her and she's standing on tiptoe as she places her arms on his back and he has his fingers in her hair again, and he's kissing her.
He tastes like hot cocoa on a fall day, he tastes like the look he gave her under the stars when they were fifteen, and she remembers it all at once, of laugher and chili and Skype calls at two a.m and how he held her by the wrists and whispered Maya and how he made her feel like the world wasn't as scary as she thought it was and there's this rush in her chest and there's the countdown in between her chest as her heart ignites, she can hear it as her pulse quickens and Lucas pulls her closer, closer still. Three. two. one.
And then her hand's on his chest again, except this time it isn't to push him away, it's to pull him closer, because he's warm and familiar and she just melts into him and she thinks everything else in the background fades as he cups her cheek with his rough, calloused fingers, as he whispers lowly, I've missed you and she laughs back in response. He tastes like the sea, the saltiness of ocean and skin and friction as his breath mingles with hers, like a warm afternoon and she remembers, she remembers the way he looked at her under the stars, remembers the way that he's always there without her realizing, holding her as she clings on to him, like the warmth and light that you don't notice when you have it in your palm, bright and glittering, but you miss it when it's not there.
He tastes like home.
Because she's not the girl who runs and hides and cowers, she's the girl whose pulsing and real and alive as he presses his lips to hers, as a shock, a jolt runs down her spine and makes her shiver.
Maya pulls back, breathless, and Lucas smiles down at her. "Okay there, blondie?" he smirks.
"Fine," she says. "I feel….light."
She inhales sharply, feels the hiss between her teeth, and she knows, because there isn't a space that she is used to next to her ribcage, she doesn't feel hollow.
"Let's go home," she whispers. "I want to go home."
.
She had found herself and found him, and somehow, that was everything.
.
It's graduation, and she's sipping a grape flavored slushie as Lucas paces around the room, his face pale and his fingers trembling as he murmurs condolences under his breath.
"Relax," she says, rubbing his back in circles. "Everything's going to be alright. It's just high school graduation, not the end of the world."
He gives a grimace. "It might be."
She laughs. "But it's not. It's just a stage of life, we grow up and we move on and I promise you, we'll do it together."
She really has changed, Lucas realizes as she pushes his hair back in one swift motion. She's different, he thinks. She's still sharp edges and six inch heels and bright red lipstick, but there's something, something that he couldn't quite explain, that caught him in his steps and made him wonder what had changed.
She interrupts his thoughts by launching herself into his lap, and he makes a noise at the back of his throat in protest.
"And since when have you been afraid of something?" she asks, tilting her head.
"I'm afraid of a lot of things," he exhales. "Of moving on, of Riley or Farkle or Zay getting hurt, of losing you."
Her breath hitches, and she realizes she is close, a little too close to him, so close that she can feel his breath, hot and warm and familiar against her skin, and she can feel her heartbeat pounding across her chest as he pushed a strand of blonde behind her ear.
"You don't have anything to be afraid of," she says matter of factly. "Because all of us are here. No matter what happens."
She extends her hand to him. "I know because someone told me, and he was right. And even now, I'm pretty sure about what I'm saying."
He swallows. "Yeah."
"Ready?" she asks.
"Ready."
.
Because it was the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end, and as they stepped onto the stage, they knew they were ready.
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