Full summary: she grows up watching the person she loves most in the world love someone else. / first it's tommy hannigan in the first grade, then it's oliver mcminamin in third grade, then it's ash saito in sixth grade, then it's lucas friar in seventh grade, then it's edgard hantus in junior year, then it's alec crawford in senior year, then it's farkle minkus in college, then she's marrying lucas friar at 23. she doesn't say a word as they say i do.
A/N: Yikes, this one is long. Welp, I was inspired by a Tumblr post by americankidatheaart that went, "I literally see Maya growing up watching the person she loves the most, love someone else." And one of the tags was "its like karmy but worse because we'll see them grow up." So this happened. And indeed included some Faking It references.
i. you meet her and she makes your stomach hurt
Maya Hart is barely old enough to string full and complete sentences together when she pulls Riley Matthews' head out of a bucket of water. It's in that moment, as she's got her tiny fingers tangled in silky locks, that her stomach first twists and feels funny. "You have to wift your head," she informs the brunette.
"Ohhhh," Riley says once the air returns to her lungs, "I'm Riley."
"Who asked?" The blonde humphs.
"My mommy taught me it was polite to intwoduce yoursef," she says, slightly crestfallen.
Maya stops for a second. Her mother hasn't taught her anything of the sorts.
"Who are you?" Riley asks.
"Maya," she says curtly. It takes them three weeks and one sandwich to become friends but once they're friends, they're inseparable. The feelings persist in Maya's stomach whenever Riley smiles or hugs her or holds her hand. She decides they're perfectly normal feelings.
ii. she gets to know tommy hannigan and he makes her smile
It's not until Riley whispers about dirty blonde hair and sea green eyes and his black eye from standing up for her that Maya starts to question the feelings in her stomach. There's a fire in her bones that is misplaced and a sinking in her stomach that isn't right.
"Tommy Hannigan?" She scoffs back, "he talks like he's trying to swallow peanut butter." She does her best impression of him and hopes Riley will see how stupid he is.
Her eyes burn and her heart twists behind her ribs when Riley defends him. But then she sees the hurt in those doe eyes and she doesn't want to do that to her best friend. She shuts up for all of first and second grade about how much she hateshimhateshimhateshim. Riley never shuts up about how she likeshimlikeshimlikeshim.
But Riley Matthews is beaming like a complete idiot and that's all she's ever really wanted so it's okay.
(She breaks four pencils and a pen listening to Riley talking on and on about him.)
When she writes a letter to Santa for Christmas at seven years old (it's a tradition she picks up from the Matthews), all it asks for is "Riley Matthews' smiling." She seals the envelope shut (and it tastes as sweet as Riley's laughter sounds) and tucks it into the mailbox with the address Mrs. Matthews told her in the corner.
She never knows that her own mom reads it and works twelve extra shifts to buy Riley a pure silver charm bracelet with a little picture of her and Maya from the day they became friends in one of its silver charms. Riley smiles like crazy and so Maya smiles too.
The next day Tommy Hannigan admires the bracelet and shares his lunch with Riley.
Maya screams into her pillow and breaks down into tremors of sobs. She hates the way he smiled at her best friend more than she hates him. Most of all though, she hates the way Riley smiled back.
It kills her and she doesn't quite know why because Riley Matthews smiling is exactly what she wanted. (Later she'll realize that what she really wanted was Riley Matthews smiling at her.)
iii. she runs into oliver mcminamin and he makes her giggle
In third grade Tommy Hannigan moves to Michigan and Maya hasn't been happier since Riley refused to take the bracelet off no matter what. The elation dies down when Oliver McMinamin tells the funniest stories but Riley laughs a little too hard at them.
She has to coax the brunette into admitting her feelings and maybe that hurts more than the fact that she likes him and his stupid jokes. Even though she hates it, this time she doesn't insult him (at least not to Riley's face).
She forces them together by pairing up with his best friend Richie Goldman on a history project even though she hates Richie Goldman. Richie has to do all the work because Maya is too busy staring at her best friend smiling and giggling and babbling on too much with a red faced Oliver McMinamin.
"Are you just gonna stare at them or are you gonna help me?" He asks at one point. She glares at him until he goes back to their poster.
It isn't until after she talks to Oliver McMinamin for Riley that she has a good reason to hate him. He talks too much about himself and uses made up words that don't make any sense.
She reports this back to Riley (who hasn't talked to him since the blonde forced her to) who makes excuses for how self-centered he is and finds his made up words cute. The blood under her skin boils and she breaks another pencil.
Riley squeals that they could double date MayaandRichieandRileyandOliver sounds golden to the brunette. But Maya has a crush on Olive Fitzpatrick (she hates the name similarities a lot) so she scrunches up her face.
She wonders why it is that Riley likes boys and she likes a girl once or twice. (In all honesty, that's why she never tells Riley the way Olive Fitzpatrick makes her heart flutter or about the time she kisses her on the swings.)
That night she tells herself it's just that Riley has bad taste in boys and that's why she's hated both of her crushes.
She pukes after eating old takeout and her mom tells her to stay home, kisses her forehead the way Mrs. Matthews would, and goes to work, leaving her the takeout menu and $30 in tips. Maya watches cars drive by and old, shaking men who are too skinny beg for money and get coins and lint instead until it makes her feel sick again. She throws up into the toilet and cries a bit.
The worst part is that she thinks she understands their pain.
She's always wantingwantingwanting the things she doesn't have and when she gets them they're not what she needs. The sobs wretch her body and she just sits there, her hands trembling in pathetic ists.
It's 11:10 when she crawls back into her bed, still shaking and clammy. The apartment is freezing so she tucks herself under thin blankets.
Twisting and writhing, she's as restless as her heart.
A minute barely passes by. "11:11, make a wish," she grumbles, remembering Riley whispering about how she keeps wishing for Oliver McMinamin to like her back and how sad she is that it hasn't come true. She remembers the way she held a crying Riley afterwards.
(She feels guilty for wishing he would never like Riley once.)
"I wish . . . I wish Riley would laugh more," she wishes, "I want that more than anything."
Her stomach rumbles and she grabs the phone, trying to brush off the humming in her bones and sloshing in her rib cage. She orders a pineapple pizza (it's Riley's favorite) and saves too much for later.
The next day she's eating it with her best friend and they're talking about how Richie Goldman was sick too so Oliver McMinamin spent most of yesterday talking to her. She laughsandlaughsandlaughs and Maya is torn between crying and smiling.
It's the first and last time she believes wishes come true.
iv. she sees ash saito playing soccer and he makes her melt
Riley takes three years to get over Oliver McMinamin (and she wouldn't have if he hadn't come out as gay in fifth grade). Maya's heart hasn't felt so at ease since she had Riley all to herself.
Sixth grade is hell on earth for them at first because Mr. Matthews is a teacher at their middle school and they're both tiny.
(Maya quickly makes sure people know that doesn't give them an excuse to push her or her girl around though.)
But then Riley sees Ash Saito (dorky loser Ash Saito from the second grade who used to eat his boogers and drool over Maya) in PE and her whole world (that is really still her father's world) stops.
Ash Saito is no longer the loser Maya makes faces at in that moment.
And in that moment, Maya's heart snaps into another fraction she can't count.
She goes home and just wants to be okay after listening to Riley talkandsquealandsighandshiver about him. But her mom is sobbing at the dinner table and her dad is nowhere to be found.
She never asks what happened to him and her mom is perfectly fine the next day. Gammy moves in with them and looks at them both with sad eyes that look too much like Riley's.
Her whole world is falling apart all over again.
(Riley hugs her tight and pinky swears not to tell anyone he left.)
Unlike her mom, Riley never pretends like he didn't leave though. Riley is always making sure Maya is okay and hugging her when she lies. It twists at Maya's heart and she has no doubts whatsoever that this isn't normal.
The way her heart flutters when Riley smiles at her feels too much like when she kissed Olive Fitzpatrick in the third grade and like the way Danielle Strunk made her feel in kindergarten.
She tries to push the feelings down but then Riley squeals about Ash Saito and his perfect smiles and everything hurts like a fresh wound.
It takes her three months to decide she must become complete iron to live with this. And sometimes that involves telling Riley she doesn't really care that much when she's droning on and on about Ash Saito.
But the heart of iron disappears when Riley swoons over Ash freaking Saito.
Her heart is bleeding rust into her veins and her bones of steel are cracking. Then Riley is sighing about him (even though he's a little creep who stared down Maya's shirt last week) and she has to roll her eyes. She does and it feels like her skull is splitting with the effort.
For Riley's birthday, she gets her a lock and attaches a note she thinks is too embarrassingly cheesy but she knows Riley will like that. It talks about how she is Riley's diary and tells her that she can tell her anything because that's what best friends are for.
Riley hugs her tightly and tells her all about how Ash Saito makes her heart just melt and Maya feels sick but this is what she promised so she smiles and tells Riley that anything that makes her happy is okay. Even if Ash Saito checks her ass out in sixth period and Riley loses her bracelet during PE because of him (she's too distracted to see it fall off during volleyball and they don't find it after three hours of searching and Riley cries because she lost the reminder of their friendship that Maya's mom bought her until Maya takes her to get ice cream and tells her it's okay, she doesn't need it to prove their friendship).
She stays awake all night wondering why her dad left. She sobs for the first time in months when she considers the possibility it was because she likes girls and not boys like Riley does.
(She'd heard stories from Oliver McMinamin about how his dad still hasn't warmed up to him being gay so it doesn't seem like a stretch.)
Gammy comes and hugs her and offers soothing words until she stops shaking (her mom doesn't come the way Topanga would've because she's working latelatelate again and it makes Maya cry a little harder). They just sit there, breathing in the silence for awhile. Gammy asks if Maya wants her to call Riley. The answer is yes, a thousand times yes.
It doesn't make her feel better the way it should and then she feels guilty about the homework she hasn't done.
She barely passes history and math but at least she survives her world being destroyed.
v. she falls into place in lucas friar's lap and he makes her too happy
She thinks she hates Lucas Friar the most of all of Riley's crushes. She knows that's only because she can't find a good reason to hate him.
He's good for Riley. He makes her happy. He's a gentleman. He won't take advantage of her. He's sweet to her. He's aware of her feelings and considerate of him. He is everything Maya could ask for for her best friend (the most important person in the world to her).
That crushes anything reminiscent of hope inside her.
The absolute worst part of Lucas Friar (it still isn't actually bad and that frustrates her) is that he doesn't just take her insults. He returns them like it's a game. She wants to rip her hair out and hit him until he cries like he makes her want to.
But maybe it's Riley who makes her want to cry. She doesn't know anymore.
All she knows is that she doesn't feel like she should about any of this.
She hates herself a little more than she hates him the day she leaves Riley all alone at lunch. Of course, Riley isn't really all alone. Farkle and Lucas sit with her and make her laugh and smile (and she laughs and smiles differently at Lucas). But they all know it's not the same as her best friend making her laugh and smile.
Maya wishes she could say she left for a good reason. But making out with Olive Fitzpatrick and tangling her hands in those blonde, silky curls (she likes the feel of straight locks a lot more and part of her knows it's because of the day she met Riley Matthews) in the janitor's closet is not a good reason to abandon your best friend.
The worst part about it is that she never tells Riley the truth about why she left.
(She hates that she likes girls too much to admit it.)
She also never tells Riley that she had come back for her before lunch ended but then she saw how happy she was with Lucas Friar (and Farkle, but she never really thinks about Farkle) and hid in the library.
She cried to Mr. Matthews and said it was about how she felt like Lucas Friar was going to take her girl. He told her he was worried about the same thing and they bonded but it made Maya feel empty in a way. She thinks it was making him swear to not tell Riley about it that emptied her.
The realization that Lucas Friar can make her happyhappyhappy (which is all she's ever wanted so why does it hurt so much?) and that Riley might love him a little bit hits her when she sees them in the public library that night.
If Farkle understood that she liked girls, she would've cried to him then and there. But she has a heart of iron and he has all the understanding of a newborn baby. Nothing happens between her and him but she watches something unfold between Lucas Friar and Riley Matthews and tries to be okay.
The first thing she draws in Mr. Matthews' sketchbook is Riley getting married to Lucas Friar in a fairy tale wedding. Then she texts Olive Fitzpatrick with the phone Mr. Matthews was kind enough to buy her (he feels like the father she craves and she thinks he did this because of Lucas Friar) and they end up going on a date.
It's another thing she never tells Riley.
(Part of her wishes she would just to see what would happen.)
The year isn't complete hell even though Lucas Friar asks Riley out (she'd pushed him to and told him he had her blessing but it still hurts) and Riley kisses him and she has to go out with Farkle.
She finally likes a boy (so what that he's her best friend's uncle?) and she feels normal for once in her life! She writes her dad a letter that tells him about it and how happy Riley is with Lucas Friar and how she's sososo happy for her best friend.
The worst part is that she knows it won't make him come back (but then again, at least she's finally normal.)
vi. she dates edgard hantus and he shows her beautiful things
They're juniors when Riley loses her virginity. It's to the senior she's been dating all summer, for exactly three months, two week, and six days (not that Maya has counted since he asked her best friend out without her permission) and she's happy with this.
Maya isn't. At least Lucas Friar would've talked to her about it to make sure she was okay with it.
Edgard Hantus (but Riley calls him Eddie) doesn't understand that Maya Hart is every much a part of his relationship as he and Riley Matthews are the way Lucas Friar did and that makes her wanna punch him in the face.
But it wasn't until he laughed at how protective she is of the friendship ring Riley bought her that Maya hated him. He was nice enough but he didn't get it at all.
It didn't help Maya that she still liked Josh but that didn't make her straight (Riley still makes her heart race when they hold hands). It occurs to her that she could've liked Edgard Hantus if he hadn't been dating her girl.
She became friends with Oliver McMinamin once Riley stopped liking him after all (he went on a double date with her and Olive Fitzpatrick just three weeks ago).
Maya comes out—god knows as what—(with lots of encouragement from Oliver McMinamin and her ever so understanding girlfriend) to the entire school at homecoming and everyone applauds and Riley jumps into her best friends arms and asks why she didn't get to know sooner.
Edgard Hantus laughs at how affectionate his girlfriend is towards her best friend and Maya's girlfriend grabs her hand and they dance. She decides she's a horrible, horrible person for feeling Riley's soft little hands on her still.
Afterwards they have a sleepover with just them (though Lucas Friar and Farkle stop by to share chocolate covered strawberries) and Riley giggles too much about how Edgard showed her constellations she didn't know and named stars she'd never thought of as more than far off happy ever afters. Maya hums absentmindedly and draws all of the night sky for Riley as she talks and talks.
They all go camping together that weekend (they bring Olive and Lucas and Farkle and Edgard with them) and he shows her girl pretty flowers and they go hiking too early for anyone else to go too. Maya hates the way Riley talks about everything they saw together and all the birds and paths.
She almost pukes, she feels so awful.
Instead she kisses Olive Fitzpatrick as sweetly as they did in kindergarten as they make s'mores. The fire sounds too much the warmth in Riley's voice.
Farkle passes out and later says he's happy his girls are happy (Maya secretly hates the way he calls Riley his girl) and Lucas Friar agrees even though his eyes linger a little too long on Riley. They did date for almost three years.
The reminder makes Maya wanna scream.
She Googles what she is that Monday and there are endless articles about bisexuality and pansexuality and her brain has never felt so fried. It crosses her mind that her entire life would've been so much easier if she only liked boys like Joshua Matthews and she writes another letter to her dad about how confused she is right now.
Like the last letter, he doesn't respond.
Her mom is late home again and Gammy gives her another blanket for comfort. "This house is not a home," she whispers into the darkness.
As she falls asleep, her eyelids show her all the beautiful things Riley talked to her about Edgard Hantus showing her. It's a restless night no matter how heavy her eyes become.
The next day, Riley's widewidewide eyes are crying mascara and eyeliner. Edgard Hantus was cheating on her.
Maya punches him so hard her pathetic little fists bruise and her knuckles bleed.
She looks right into Riley's eyes, wider than distance, and promises Edgard Hantus won't hurt her again.
(She prays she isn't lying.)
vii. she kisses alec crawford and he makes her stomach flip
Riley meets a boy at an amusement park in senior year and he goes to a school near theirs. Maya almost likes him and then he kisses Riley and she wants to break him.
Riley tells her all about how her stomach is still bubbly like after she kissed Lucas Friar and how she thinks she might love Alec Crawford and his sandy blonde hair and surfer accent.
Maya has never wanted to hide under her bed and scream until her throat is hoarse so badly. But she isn't five anymore and she knows this won't solve anything so she just smiles like it doesn't kill her.
She cries to Oliver McMinamin later and he holds her even though they both know he should be telling her to break up with Olive Fitzpatrick.
(He tells her that later and she does with tears in her eyes and more "I'm sorry"'s than she can count.)
She's almost okay again and then she finds out that Gammy has cancer and she breaks down. Her mom still isn't home on time to hold her so Gammy does.
She writes another letter to her dad about how fucking scared she is now and he still doesn't write back.
Riley holds her tight all night when she finds out. The brunette cries like Gammy is her own grandma and Maya thinks it makes her feel better.
Then she sees Alec Crawford hugging Riley and telling her that it's okay after school one day. She knows right away that it's about Gammy.
Her dad gets sent yet another letter he doesn't reply to.
Depressed and with bullets in her heart of iron, she goes to Shawn Hunter because she thinks he'll understand (he usually does). She ends up drunk and telling him everything. It breaks her heart that he understands because he loved Mr. Matthews that way before Angela and when he tells her even more about how broken up his family was.
They cry and drink together even though he grumbles about how he shouldn't let her drink (he says it's like pouring salt water into her bleeding veins and that he's an awful father for it and she hugs him because she hasn't had a dad in so long).
He tells Mr. Matthews about it (but leaves out the details neither of them want him to hear) and Mr. Matthews hugs his other little girl and tells her it's going to be okay even if it hurts now.
She thinks the thing that kills her is that Mr. Matthews and her end up exchanging too many secrets and suddenly she knows that he loved Shawn at one point too.
Riley and Alec Crawford cuddle in front of her on the couch as they watch movies with Auggie (who's too grown up now and still with Ava). Her heart is bleeding out but at least she has a dad (or maybe dads) now. She knows she has a mom in Topanga and she wishes she had one in her own mother too.
They get the call that Gammy died and Riley clings to Alec Crawford with one hand and her best friend with the other. Auggie joins in their tears and Alec Crawford makes him smile afterwards so Maya doesn't hate him too much.
She still wants to claw his eyes out when he kisses her girl though.
Maya thinks it's strange that Riley doesn't take Alec Crawford to the funeral with her (but she thinks it's out of respect) and that her body curls into Lucas Friar's as Farkle holds her hand and they just cry. Maya is torn from her dads and mom to be in the embrace and she thinks she's kind of okay again.
Then she sees Auggie crying in his girlfriend's arms and her real mom sobbing and her dads and other mom holding each other and Maya knows what it feels like to have your heart ripped from between your ribs.
She'snotokayshe'snotokayshe'snotokay.
She writes one last letter to her dad and he doesn't write back one last time.
Lucas Friar drives her to the middle school afterwards and they sit in the field in the pouring rain, not talking. They simply understand each other. They understand the way they both look at Riley and they understand that she is their girl.
He steps on something and she screams when she sees what it is.
Her friendship ring feels heavier than ever on her hand when she picks up the rusting bracelet. There are charms missing but the picture is still intact and she doesn't quite know what she feels. But then she's shaking and crying in Lucas Friar's arms and thanking him and calling him a cowboy and he's laughing and crying with her because he simply understands.
They give it back to Riley together and she cries too and she smiles so wide (Maya swears it's wider than distance, like those doe eyes) it hurts.
Farkle hears all the commotion and stops by and they end up calling Maya's real mom together and telling her what happened and none of them have been this happy since before Gammy was diagnosed.
Maya's real mom cooks her dinner that night and they celebrate.
She really thinks she'll be okay so she uses the wish she doesn't believe in on Riley, not herself. It feels just like being a little kid again when she wishes on the shooting star.
"I wish Riley will stay bubbly," she says. Her mom smiles softly like she knows and Maya almost feels bad. Instead she comes out to her mom as bisexual.
(She'd talked it over with Topanga and Mr. Matthews and Shawn and she knew now.)
Her wish comes true in the worst way, like it always has.
She walks in on Alec Crawford's tongue down Riley's throat and knows about the bubbly butterflies in her best friend's stomach and she wants to cry.
Instead she calls Joshua Matthews and ends up sticking her tongue down his throat. She doesn't feel any better.
She feels even worse when she walks in on Alec Crawford with his tongue down another girl's throat and has to tell Riley why she kicked him in his balls and slammed him into a pole.
Riley forgives him because "it was an accident" unlike Edgard Hantus and his two other girlfriends.
Olive McMinamin comforts Maya the same way she comforts Riley and it's okay until they see Riley and Alec Crawford kissing sweetly with cotton candy.
(He holds her hand and tells her to be brave but she's already iron.)
viii. she goes to college with farkle minkus and he romances her
They don't go to the same college and that's okay. Riley goes to Arizona State for psychology because she wants to help people and Maya goes to Steinhardt for art therapy and they FaceTime every day and laughandlaughandlaugh.
Alec Craword cheated again so Riley dumped him and they're both okay with that because he's going to some community college far away from them both.
Maya thinks she's okay being this far from her best friend until her best friend starts talking about Farkle Minkus like he's the world. Apparently it started when he took her to prom (which is a longlonglong story that upsets Lucas Friar and Maya Hart both). Maya stops being content with being so far from her best friend the moment Riley sighs about him.
She wishes so badly that Farkle Minkus had gone to Harvard or Yale like he should've (he got accepted into both but instead he chose Arizona State because of Riley).
She cries to Oliver McMinamin (and she thanks the Lord and all the night sky that he got accepted into Steinhardt too) and he whispers calming things into her hair like Gammy would've and her mom had just started learning to.
It's almost okay.
Then Lucas Friar (who got into the New York University School of Medicine) comes to her campus to tell her Farkle Minkus had asked for his permission to ask out Riley.
They both drink too much and lean on each other for comfort that night.
Farkle Minkus asks Maya for her blessing that morning.
She hates herself for giving it but would hate herself even more if she didn't. She can't stand the way it sounds when Riley cries.
It kills her to hear about how great Farkle Minkus is later.
It kills Lucas Friar too, the day they're all on FaceTime and Riley and Farkle Minkus are too cute together he cries after they hang up. He kisses Maya but it doesn't feel like anything so they both apologize.
"Why do you think you still love her?" Maya asks him.
"Probably the same reasons you still love her," he murmurs, "I've never really thought about it. I mean, she's beautiful and she always wants to help everyone and she fixed me, she made my secrets okay and my flaws beautiful, she makes people so happy and that makes me want her to never be unhappy . . ."
"Yeah, that's Riley," she replies. She's never been very good with her words.
"Hey, Maya," he says.
"Yeah, sundance?" She turns her head.
"Can you draw me a picture of why you love her?" He asks. She isn't sure why she says yes but she does.
Oliver McMinamin tells her it's a bad idea and she knows he's right but she does it anyways.
It makes her cry so she calls Shawn and he comforts her. She hears Topanga's voice telling her to pick herself up because it's going to be okay one day and Mr. Matthews (she's finds it funny that she still calls him Mr. Matthews even though it's been so long since he was her teacher and he's one of her dads) telling her that she's gotta do good now and make them even prouder of her. Then she hears her real mom tell her she loves her and wants her to do better than her.
She's determined to do this so she calls Riley that day and listens to her talkandtalkandtalk about Farkle Minkus the way she used to talkandtalkandtalk about Tommy Hannigan and Oliver McMinamin and Ash Saito and Lucas Friar and Edgard Hantus and Alec Crawford. It still hurts but now it's somehow better.
He sounds like a great boyfriend, at the very least. He's taken her to see plays and Broadway shows (they'd come to visit New York a few times) and to private concerts and all kinds of wonderfully romantic things Riley has always dreamed of. It's strange to think that maybe he's Prince Charming and not Lucas Friar like she'd always thought.
She redraws Riley's fairy tale wedding that night and there's a familiar longing in her.
Lucas Friar and Farkle Minkus never find out that she's imagined both of them as Riley Matthew's Prince Charming.
(And absolutely no one but her ever knows she tries drawing herself as Riley's Princess Sarcasm and it doesn't work out.)
viv. you watch her marry prince charming and it hurts so much
Somewhere along the way, she realized she still loved Lucas Friar. Farkle Minkus was okay with this and, unlike Maya Hart, he was genuinely happy for his best friend Riley.
Lucas Friar had asked Maya for her permission before he had even asked Mr. Matthews before proposing.
He had told her she didn't have to say yes just because it was him and Maya wished she hadn't. But she wasn't selfish enough to take that happiness from them.
She said it was okay.
She hate herself as she stands next to the bridesmaids and across from Farkle Minkus (of course, they were the best man and maid of honor). She hates herself for saying yes, for wishing she'd said no, for loving Riley so much, for not being Princess Sarcasm, for everything.
But she smiles because Riley is smiling so much and Lucas Friar has never looked so utterly, helplessly in love.
She's happy for them, really. But she also hurts so damn much.
Shawn looks like he wants to cry for both his little girls from his seat and Mr. Matthews looks like he isn't sure if he wants to kill Lucas Friar or hug his daughter. Then he looks at Maya and his eyes are soft and hurting every bit as much as he thinks she must be. Maya can tell Topanga wants to run up and hug them both. Her real mom is halfway in tears already.
She tries not to cry too.
It turns out Riley cries enough for the both of them during the vows. Lucas Friar asks if her she remembers what he said on their first date. About those moments you know you'll remember forever. She nods so much her neck looks like it'll break and he smiles and tells her that his last one was the moment he asked Maya Hart for permission to ask her best friend to marry him, and that now, this is undoubtedly one of them, that is going to be the best one in his entire life.
She tearfully tells him that she's so, so happy her best friend in the entire world pushed her into his lap that day on the subway. Tells him all the cheesy things only Riley would say and and says she's glad she's kept her deal with Maya to never settle for less than Canada and mentions the day he and Maya found her bracelet and then she says that that's the day she knew he and her were soulmates.
Maya thinks she can actually feel her iron heart shattering.
It breaks down even further when Riley tells Lucas Friar that he was her fifth crush, that that is why five is her favorite number, and he tells her she was his fifth crush too and then Maya sees the number engraved on their wedding rings.
And the number is on Riley's finger and Maya almost cries. Then she sees Farkle crying (but it's tears of joy and pain) and she says screw it and cries too.
"Hey, other one," Farkle says to her with a soft smile that sends her back to seventh grade when things were simpler.
"Hey, Minkus," she nods.
"Wanna dance?" He asks.
"Sure," she shrugs.
They spin and they talk and they laugh like they're kids again. And then Riley wants a dance with her best friend and Lucas Friar dances with his.
"I love you," Riley smiles.
"I love you too, Mrs. Friar," Maya smiles right back. She resists the urge to make a joke about what Lucas Friar would say if he heard his wife say such a thing.
"Shut up," the brunette giggles.
"Nah, you always liked when I called you that," she sticks her tongue out.
"It was ten years ago," the other girl whines.
They tease each other like that for three songs straight and Maya thinks this is her moment to never forget. That thought makes her want to cry all over again. Instead she dances with Shawn and then Mr. Matthews and then she sits with her moms and holds their hands like everything is going to be alright.
Lucas Friar asks her to dance and she says yes because she can't stop saying yes to the stupid cowboy. He thanks her a thousand times over and tells her he's so so sorry and hopes she can forgive him one day and promises to help her find someone who makes her happy. She ends up dancing with Joshua Matthews next and kissing him.
Riley gives her a thumbs up and she excuses herself.
When she grabs hold of Riley's hand, the wedding ring feels strange against her fingers. They talk and she makes sure it's okay and then she continues dancing with Joshua Matthews like he's Riley. She feels like an awful person but Oliver McMinamin tells her it's okay because she has feelings for Joshua Matthews.
She feels queasy when she counts over how many boys Riley Matthews has liked after realizing Lucas Friar being number five didn't seem right. No matter how she counts it, Lucas Friar is number four.
Riley Matthews has things she never told Maya Hart.
(She's a hypocrite as this makes her vomit.)
reviews are love. give maya some.