.
He's not sure when it started.
He just knows it's at the bottom of his throat when he's sitting in bed and trying to sleep, the guilt biting down on his conscience. When he's tired of feeling this sickening downfall, he gets up from his side and settles onto his back, the plain black sheets allowing him a reprieve from the strangulating blankets he adorned moments before. His eyes open in the futility of closing them and going to sleep, and they look directly up.
The planetarium above him shines with the planets of the solar system and the stars beyond. The velvety darkness stretching far athwart it, the room is just as peaceful and silent as space itself. And there's Pluto. Right at the edge, but still in sight like Ceres, which sits in the Asteroid Belt. It's blue and a little glowing, and he can point it out to anyone as though they were asking where Mars was located, and he distinctly appreciates it. Although he would agree with many other scientists who claim it to be a dwarf planet, he cannot, because Riley frequents his room, and she'd be ashamed if he took it down.
She always says that Pluto for her means hope. And that in the darkest corners of the solar system, she still regards it as significant, thought it unjust that another designation be associated alongside it. She will shout from the rooftops that she will avenge it, that the treason committed against it would be reversed, the traitors would be turned. And if he were Pluto, he'd bask in the support.
But Farkle is right there with her; for he believes in the little planet that could for the same reason. Isolated and shunned at the edges, it dwells alone as he did before meeting Maya and Riley (and he loves them to Pluto and back). But it shines far from all others, and it has people supporting it even when others push him further into depths of melancholy and despondency.
Pluto will always be a planet in my room, he told Riley, and the wholehearted beam she offered him made him feel whole and warm the entire day afterwards. Even Stuart, who sparsely interacted with his son besides a few forgotten greetings and futile attempts at bonding, noted on his enthusiasm, and Farkle had been influenced to tell the truth. But he didn't. He didn't know his father as well as he knew his friends, and since he wasn't comfortable speaking with his friends about emotional skirmishes, he doubted that his father would be an accurate alternative to these confusing feelings. It was quashed by the time that he went to bed that night, suppressed into the depths of his mind, and only until now does he remember how happy he was.
And she still makes him happy. Even if he's lonely lately, and he hasn't come out of the house unless he's specifically requested by his friends to abscond from the household, she manages to boost his mirth from nonexistent to passing the maximum threshold a smidgen. Sometimes they get into civil arguments about the validity of her horoscopes and the recent memes he thinks are funny, and it usually ends with the both of them laughing at each other, telling the other how ridiculous the prospect of them fighting about something is.
He doesn't think that he would ever fight her. He's seen her get into it several times before, when someone tells her that something she believes in strongly is disproven by an unbeknownst asshole who cares about nothing more than being right, and he doesn't think that he can handle her reddened face looking up at him with any amount malice and contempt. He'd break, he knows, and there's no way he'd do that to himself.
He sighs. Pluto is still where it lies, and so he fixates his stare upon it with a distant look evident in his gaze. He isn't really focusing on it; instead, he thinks of what it represents.
Therefore, the last thing which crosses his mind before he sleeps comes in the form of Riley, and his dreams are a cesspool beyond that.
.
It's late at night, and they're both sixteen (he's turning seventeen in a few months). He's roaming through the streets of NYC to go up the rungs of her fire escape and leap into her bay window, and when he finally finds the apartment through the maze of ones which commonly populate the streets and chambers clumsily through the night, he quickly makes his way up into her room with the slightest of movements. He's always been light on his feet and lithe (although Maya would love to disagree with anything he says about himself for the sake of teasing him), so he makes it in without a sound.
She's on her bed, he notices when his eyes adjust to the darkness which surrounds them. Her eyes are puffy, her lips are quivering with a pout (they're red from her biting, and the bottom one that's out is split at the middle from the chilling cold outside), and she sniffs as she sees him through the light pouring forth from the enlarged window. The smile which graces her features at the sight of him warms his heart, and he slinks forward with precision, careful not to press onto anything that might make noise and awaken the sleeping Matthews.
She reaches out to him with her short arms as he plops himself to the right of her, and they wrap around his waist in a comfortable position the both of them know as familiar. Her face digs into the fabric of his NASA shirt (he always seems to wear his space attire whenever Riley is in need), her button nose tracing little circles into his arm. Then come the sobs.
Oh, he hates it when she cries. He knows that she's an emotional person that has an abundance of naivete and empathy, but seeing tears stream down her face is the epitome of unjust. Someone as glowing and radiant as her shouldn't suffer by the hands of actions unknown, and the sight destroys him no matter the circumstance. Whether in the light or dark, he can't withstand the pressure. But his emotions are hidden most of them, especially with his best friend who's at his side, due to the fact that she may be hurt by all that is packed within his head. So instead, he keeps silent and allows her to bury her nose into his arm, wrapping his arms around her own shoulder as the shirt becomes soaked with tears.
She's not willing to speak until her voice isn't choked by emotion, and he waits. His patience wears throughout some conversations and situations, but with his close friends (Zay, Isadora, Lucas and Maya), he's able to withstand their inability to communicate for however long they need. They will say it eventually, and he never pushes.
He never pushes.
"Lucas and I had another fight," she says softly. He believes that the voice with which she speaks isn't to its highest regard, but he doesn't comment upon this. He knows how difficult it is for her to deal with emotional conundrums such as this. She continues, "It keeps happening, and I don't know what to do."
"Lucas has a bad temper," he replies, just as softly. He is afraid that if he speaks further than a whisper, she will break beneath his embrace. She looks up from his sleeve, sniffing slightly, and there's expression that she wears which he is not particularly comfortable with. As she looks up at him, he notices that her eyes are the color of a box of chocolates (he's known this for a while, and has made several different comparisons beforehand when she glanced nonchalantly at him for a brief moment and caught him red-handed in his staring). In the light, he can see that they're shot with little strings of red, glistening with tears at their edges.
And he envelops her in another hug, perhaps to rid of the broken look which occupied her face. She appreciates the gesture, nuzzling her face into the folds of his shirt, and whispers, "We're soulmates, Farkle. He knows that we're connected, and Maya, too!" She stares straight into his eyes, the chocolate candies swirling with slight pinch of caramel. "Do you know?"
Farkle himself doesn't believe in soulmates. He knows that Riley does, and surprisingly, Maya does, too (she claims that she can see auras which encapsulate the people around her, and that his is most commonly a light pink for whatever reason). He cannot believe in something that does not have enough significant evidence to prove its existence, which is exactly the reason why he refuses belief in things like fate, destiny and all things interconnected with them. Science dictates all which encompass this world - the immovable properties of gravity and physics, the concoctions of chemistry which make up the compounds which surround him - and soulmates are just as elusive as Riley's oh-so adored purple cats.
But as far as he sees, Lucas and Riley are tethered by Maya's inexistent strings of red. Their looks at each other are loving and welcoming, and their kisses are chaste and awkward (Lucas usually places his lips onto her forehead, and she does the same to his cheek more often the not). It's not too over-the-top with the two of them, and he's grateful for it. He dislikes any public display of affection from strangers that occasionally roam the hallways (there are always people that are pushed up to the lockers, and it's awkward when he passes them), but it's sparse that he is influenced by one of the participants into not minding it at all.
Seeing Riley being happy is a great sight, he thinks. She is always so jubilant without the stimulation he would need to become gleeful, but the act of her being fueled with mirth lights a fire in his soul and warms it. The frigidity of him is suddenly burst into color, a spread of white, yellow and red which coalesces amid the pit of his stomach. And she is happy with Lucas, albeit she is quite nervous around her boyfriend even after a few weeks of dating. She beams and grins and giggles that amazing sound Farkle loves whenever he speaks to her in the littlest of voices. He relishes in the smile that she relieves, because it looks as bright as a colorful rainbow after a rainy day.
So if anybody can potentially be soulmates, he assumes that Lucas and Riley are it, as much as Maya insists.
"Yeah," He whispers to make her feel better.
The small smile mixed with sadness and emotional distress she gives him breaks down his defenses, and he relaxes for a moment, seeing a glimmer of mirth spark in her irises. "He just acts like he doesn't," she says, sniffing. "It was a little argument, and he was being all passive-aggressive. Then he just stopped texting and I - and I - and I -" Each statement is punctuated with deep inhales, her words hitching in her throat, unable to escape its strained purchase. And she pushed her face into his sleeve again, sobs coming out instead of words or sentences, tears dripping from her eyes.
He holds her tight, and soon repositions himself to properly accommodate her lithe, small form in his gangly, skinny limbs. She doesn't push away from him in the movements he makes. Moments later, she's between his legs, her back against his front. His arms wrapping around her waist, he thinks that they shouldn't be this close to each other while she's dating someone else. But she's so warm in his embrace, and she's breathing as normally as she should, so he's happy. She isn't crying any longer, having drained her tear ducts to its barest minimum, and he's leaning forward to rest his chin against her shoulder, painfully aware of the liquid seeping through his sleeve. He doesn't mind it, though; she needed it, and he provided. And she doesn't protest the situation at hand, thankfully; instead, she appreciates the warmth he exudes, and exhales a sigh.
"Thanks," she whispers so softly that Farkle strains his ears to pick up her low voice. Her head is down, her eyes ardently staring at her pink-socked feet and the colorful cuffs of her pajamas. "For coming," she elaborates further, feeling a need to explain herself. And her hands start moving in rapid movements, which he recognizes from whenever she's anxious and has nothing to compensate for her sudden bout of anxiety. He wonders if he's the one doing this to her.
(He probably isn't.)
Farkle nodded; thus her shoulder dipped down an inch in response to him. "I'm only one call away, Riles," he says confidently, right in her ear. And there's a chill which runs up his spine as she turns her head towards him with the visible part of her lips. She's so gentle and tender now, as though all the things which affected her beforehand have gone away without second thought. He can see the split in her lip from his position, and he basks here, with her. Never has he felt more comfortable than with her in his arms, relaxing upon her bed, both in an unfocused daze.
He hopes that Mr. Matthews doesn't come through the door to find them in this position, because he'd have some explaining to do, and so would she. And elaborating upon this situation won't be the greatest to relive in his next life after Corey strangles him to death.
.
"Y'know, telescopes are constricting. They pinpoint you to a specific spot in the sky, but the rest of what's out there is divided from small circle."
"You could just swivel it around to look at everything else."
"But then all that you saw before would be obscured."
"... Huh."
.
Riley and Lucas always make up. Farkle has learned that throughout the months of their relationship (it's only been over half a year), and he can't complain. He hates it when his friends are disagreeing with each other and being vindictive about it.
It's perhaps due to the fact that his parents argue enough already and he doesn't wish to want anybody else to be like them, but the main reason he despises it is because arguing is different than debating. Debating requires thought and insight upon a topic which is drenched in information, and arguing is its dumbed-down version, being catered to persons who don't think before speaking and whose voices are inherently loud. Unfortunately, the majority of people he encounters are of the latter category.
And Lucas is included within those people.
He is a kind-hearted, calm boy whose true anger is only provoked by certain circumstances, and thankfully, Farkle doesn't frequently engender this frustration. He comes from Texas, worlds apart from what Farkle's accustomed to (even with all the science fiction novellas and novels he's read throughout his life), and the slight southern drawl that he has is slightly unnerving to the effluent teenager. He came just a year ago, when they were fifteen and beginning freshman year, and he attended some of the same classes that the main three were in.
Riley and he hit it off the bat, and Maya was the first to point it out to him.
They sat at the lunch table with their food a week or two after Farkle met the tall, blonde boy, and Maya just said, "So how about them?"
Farkle gave her a weird look. "Who?"
She rolled her eyes. "Riley and Lucas," she said. She pointed at the two of them speaking to each near the vending machines. Riley was entranced by his features as she glowed her grin, her lips stretching so far apart that Farkle was scared her face wad going to split. "They look perfect together, don't they?"
She took his silence as a yes, and continued. "And did you know that we met him on the train before we figured out that he came here?" she added, tapping him lightly on the shoulder with her index finger with a conniving smile. "She went right into his arms - thanks to this girl. Just wait, Farkle. Their auras tell all. There's a crimson that surrounds them, and it's pulsating quicker and quicker. They're soulmates."
He thought he heard a slight crack enter her voice, but he must've misunderstood, because the next moment, she was going on and on about how many kids they would have, about their wedding and how she would be the best bridesmaid ever, and the smile which crossed her face was one of happiness for her best friend. He glanced at them again, frowned, and shrugged, saying "I guess" under his breath.
But he was happy for her, and happy that she was happy. He is always happy when she's happy.
But he hates it when Lucas makes her unhappy. He does it more often than Farkle likes, and it's usually associated with arguments which sprout conspicuously from nowhere. And it's probably unintentional, because Farkle cannot find any reason why anybody would want to harm such a little innocuous girl into submission. This doesn't change the fact that he does it anyways, however, and he witnesses these excursions almost two times a week (maybe both in the same day if he's lucky, and another one on top of that if he believes he's cool to win the lottery).
The arguments start from the stupidest things sometimes.
It's either Farkle or Maya to pull them apart, but no matter the circumstance, no matter the depth of the wound caused by Lucas's aggravated words towards Riley, they always make up. Lucas begins to notice how harsh he's acting, he stops it and they live peacefully for the next few days. She's so easy to forgive him, because she believes that he will change his ways, and her doubts are miniscule compared to the ones which broil beneath Farkle's cranium, large and nebulous and out-of-proportion.
Even after all the arguments, he finds it somewhat strange that they always make up. The easiest solution (the one that Maya takes it upon herself to mention ever so discreetly into his ear) is that they're meant for each other, and that even though their fights and spats are indeed maligned, they grow stronger and stronger with each lasting struggle. Yet Farkle doesn't believe in hopeful things (unless it's Pluto), and wants solid evidence proving exactly why all of this is occurring. He knows that the proof he wants is unavailable to him, due to the fact that it's none of his business. Moreover, it's an invasion of privacy (Riley's privacy), and he's not one to invade much, unless the situation arises where he is the middle-man and must complete actions which others cannot. So he must sit around, make his observations from the sidelines and continue on his path wherever it may lead him.
It doesn't help that whenever he tries to sit down and pay attention to things that purple (her damn cats) dances along the sides of his eyes, makes him distracted. He cannot make himself look to the side, however; for his attention must be focused on the couple he needs to figure out. He chances short little glances to his left whenever he has the opportunity (usually when Riley and Lucas give one another a chaste kiss on the lips) but whatever is there goes away moments later, and he is bewildered every time.
(He confides in Maya about this, and she tells him that he's seeing a bit of his aura. He doubts that's the majority of what she has to say, but she's biting on her lip to prevent herself from laughing and he hasn't the slightest clue about what.)
.
"Space is a void without sound. No one can hear you, and that itself is the greatest punishment to the human psyche."
.
Farkle loves when it rains. The sounds of the rain soothes him, lulling him into a stupor where he lies on his bed with his book on his chest and a swell inside it. The large windows which surround him are all-encompassing with dew drops that patter and pitter. The heavy clouds cannot hold their weight, thusly creating the precipitation that falls from the sky.
Yet as much as he loves it, Riley doesn't. She's at the edge of his bed, looking up at the planetarium with focus and precision. She's usually not as silent as she is when she's in his room, but he knows her fear of thunder and lightning, and the way that her eyes are widened to the size of plates display displays to him that she's waiting for it to come, waiting to scramble from the floor and make a mad dash into his walk-in closet (the one he didn't ask for, but got anyway).
He's roused from his torpor when the bed beside him moves, and he groans a little as he turns to his bed, his book falling from his chest and landing next to his abdomen on the covers. He slowly opens his eyes, and Riley's right there, her eyes focused straight on him now. Her elbows dig into the covers, her hands pressing into her cheeks, and he wonders what he wants from him that he already hasn't given her. He'd be prepared to give her the world if she wanted it, but she's evidently uninterested in receiving much from his effluence, due to the fact she enjoys being independent and paying for herself. He does buy her a few dresses when they go out to the mall, and she occasionally wears them to school, which makes him smile all the while.
"Hm?" he grumbles, a guttural sound that warrants no more than a few words of answer.
She's slightly smiling, and that little split in her lip is still there. He knows how much those things hurt (especially when one is smiling too much for their own safety), and he wonders how she can withstand the agony piercing through her lips with such ease. "You look peaceful whenever the rain is going," she says, and the lilt of mirth in her voice cheers him up. Then: "How do you do it?"
He gives her a strange look. "What do you mean?"
"How are you peaceful while the chance of thunder and lightning are high?"
He wants to tell her that rain doesn't always incorporate with those frightening sounds and sights, but he decides against it, wanting to be as compassionate as possible with her. He clears his throat, and says, "Well, I just think about how pleasant I am here in the safety of my own bed, and listen to the sounds of the rain whilst it falls down my windows." He pointed at the dew drops. "Watch it," he adds, "and you'll be entranced."
And she listens and watches as the water drips down the window, slowly, deliberately until they fall to the sill. By the time that Farkle turns back to his original position, Riley is readily engrossed, her eyes relaxed and her face serene, and he smiles happily at the prospect. He stares at the ceiling peacefully until -
"It's not working, Farkley," she says, a little irritated. Before he can turn back to her and ask her how it isn't, she's already on his bed, shifting a lot and disturbing him from his calm almost-slumber. She lays next to him comfortably, and he knows that he should be telling her all about how Lucas would be uncomfortable with this whole set-up, yet he doesn't. He just stays silent and hums in response, waiting for her to continue. "It's just as rumbly and scary as it was before. Imagine if the winds pressed the rain onto the windows so much that they broke it. Then the glass would cover the ground, and we'd have to pick it all up with nothing but our bare hands, and -"
"Riley."
The utterance of her name makes her quiet. Farkle turns his head to look over at her, and when he does, he can see the fright which covers her face, the pale-and-red complexion she wears only when the fearful things from beneath her bed stretch their hands upward and clench their grotesque fingers around her conscience. Her eyes are scared and widened again. Her bottom lip is under attack by her teeth, gnawing at the skin there. She shouldn't be doing that, he thinks, and he tells her that.
"Oh." Her teeth come off her lip to reveal its reddened state. The bashful look on her face grows as she adds, "It's just something I do."
"I know," he says. "I've known you for years, and I've seen you do it before. We all have our idiosyncrasies, y'know. You have your lip-biting, I have my scientific rambling, and everybody else has their own defining features as an individual. So you needn't worry about it, Riles."
She huffs. "Well, I do," she says adamantly, and crosses her arms across her chest with a tenacious expression covering her features. Good, he thinks. At least now she isn't focused on the rain anymore. "I'm a worrier. And I worry."
He smiles at her. "And I appreciate that more than you could even know."
She smiles back at him. He loves it when he's able to make her do that, because it shows him that he's important to her happiness (or at least he believes that he is, although this may be untrue). The key to her mirth was in the hands of her friends and the things that she loves, and he thinks he's in both of those categories.
.
It's cold outside, and she's wearing his jacket because she was cold and he was a fool. He offered to take her to the park for some fresh air after being grounded for a week (she had snuck out of the house to see Lucas after Maya pressured her into doing so, and got caught red-handed down the street just as Corey was driving to get some late-night groceries), and she gladly accepted the offer with open hands. He checked the Weather app earlier, thinking that it would be a pleasant yet chilly day that would warrant only one jacket, but as it seemed, Riley believed it to be otherwise. She was scolded for the decision but stuck out her tongue at him childishly when he suggested that she go back home and switch out of her skirt and short-sleeved shirt.
He reminds her of the mistake now as they're making their way through the paths to get to the nearest shelter. He's wrapped his arms around his shoulders, rubbing up and down to generate enough heat for him to not catch hypothermia in this unbearable cold. He's just glad that he wore a long-sleeve beneath his jacket, because otherwise, he would have regretted the single decision to venture outside. "Y'know," he says, looking down at her looking comfortable in the white NASA jacket that covers her torso in bags and bags, "you should have listened to me when you had the chance."
And she sticks her tongue out at him again, her face curled into a mirthful expression. "You're just jealous that you're cold and I'm not."
"Well, I was the one that handed you that jacket. So I can take it back at any time, Riles."
She smirked at him, shaking her head. "I know that you won't take it off me, you big baby."
And he smirks right back at her, because that's exactly what he wants to do. But he lets her have her moment of sunshine as the cold winds batter his arms and her barren legs, and they reach the entrance of the park two minutes later, their faces rosy and their smiles wide. Then, in a rapid movement that could be anticipated hitherto, Farkle strikes, launching himself to the side and tearing at the sides of his jacket to remove it from her lithe body. She shrieks as he does so, moving to the side with adamance as she attempts to get away from him.
"No!" She wriggles away, and her shrieks are more jovial than fearful. She tries to get away, but he's already got his arms around her waist, nuzzling his face into her shoulder as she thrummed with warmness.
"Yes," he whispers into her ear.
Another few moments go by with her screaming like a lunatic.
Then comes the instant where Farkle suddenly finds himself lying on the ground with his back slamming against the hard concrete beneath him. He nearly smacks his head upon it, too, but he's quick enough push out his elbows to prevent this from occurring, even if it does scrap up his elbows and leaves nasty burns upon his skin. His vision is blurry when he sits up, and he sees that a middle-aged man with a business suit, graying hair, and sunken eyes attending to Riley. He hears him talking to her, hears something about her well-being, and instantly, he knows exactly why he was thrown so suddenly to the ground: that man thought he was assaulting her. If he were in the same position as that man must've been, he, too, would act in the same manner, but seeing that he is in the juxtaposing predicament here, having all the innocuousness of a little flying bird, he wants to defend himself.
And it seems like Riley is doing just that for him. He hears her say, "Oh, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, sir, but that's my friend." Farkle holds his head for a moment, thinking he heard her wrong. Then she excuses herself from the man and walks over to the teenager on the ground, her face in an awkward smile that was concerned and apologetic all at once. "You all right?" she asks.
Farkle spares a glance over at the man who threw him aside, locks eyes with him, then says, "Yeah, I'm good. Just a little scuffed up, is all."
' "Sorry about that, Farkley," she whispers, and she's adorable whenever she worries about him. He loves it whenever she does, even if his elbows are burning, or if his eyes feel as though they're crawling with insects, and he relishes in the attention. "He just -"
"Thought that I was doing something to you that I shouldn't have, yeah," he finishes for her. He shrugs his shoulders. As long as she's still here, he thinks, I'll be fine.
Her apologetic smile doesn't go away; for this, he's glad.
The man, too, comes up to him, and Farkle defensively backs away, scooting backwards to prevent himself from being injured once more. The middle-aged individual raises his hands awkwardly, and says, "I'm not gonna hurt you, little buddy."
Then why are my elbows scraped to oblivion? Farkle thinks, but does not say. He simply takes a deep breath, looks deep into Riley's brown eyes (they're the color of sweet, salty caramel), looks back at the man. "It's all right, sir. I understand why you may have thought ill of my intentions. I looked out-of-place and manic with her, and if it were me, I suppose that I would have done the same thing. Neither of us is in the wrong here."
And the man nods in agreement, which angers Farkle. He awaited an apology for his actions, or something along those lines, to appear from his lips, but nothing of the sort made a fleeting escape, even as he bade farewell to Riley and clacked his heels down the sidewalk. Farkle watches him go, and swears beneath his breath. "Asshole."
"Hey, are you really all right?" she asks, and the breathless disposition of her intonation is evidence of her worriment.
He looks at her. "I'm sure that I am, Riles," he says, getting up from the ground. "I'm a little cold, and my arms are really banged up, but I'm sure I can deal with it."
She still looks concerned, but the way wherein he peers at her deters her from expressing her worry further. A slight flush is taken upon her cheeks, the red filling inside the lines of them.
"Do you want to get some ice cream, Farkle?" she asks suddenly as they go on their way down the routes, the minute chattering of their teeth broken by her exclamation.
He turns on her, watches her face as it goes from confident to slightly uncomfortable, and to remedy this, he says, "Sure, Riles."
.
He wonders what life would be like if he never met Riley.
There's always the thought that she would never be interested in the kid sitting at the edge of the playground, reading a textbook with a spine thicker than his forearm on quantum mechanics. That she would ignore him and not think him worthy enough to give a flower crown made of ripped-up daisies and ragged tulips, which she placed on his head when he grimaced slightly that the social interaction she displayed, the abrasively innocuous disposition off-putting and uncomfortable.
He probably would have never talked to anybody, he thinks. He would've engulfed himself within the textbooks handed down from his father, worn at the seams and the brittle pages plucking together. Riley would never have got him into the act of communication, because his father wasn't too big on conversation with his son and his mother was too busy arguing with his father to even bother thinking that her son needed to learn how to do more than argue and counterclaim and persuade someone to do your bidding.
She would have been in the background of his mind, too; for the moment he saw her, he was fascinated by her. He was intrigued by the first-grader the first time he saw her prance about the playground with a small blonde girl in pigtails following behind her, telling her to stop running away. Farkle had his eyes fixated on the two girls as they raced across the mulch, their feet kicking up the brown shards. His textbook was ignored in the wake of the two children, and he thinks that nowadays, if he did anything remotely close to that, he'd be considered a pervert. She appeared to give off an aura of mystique and curiosity that emanated so brightly amid the gloomy day where the mulch absorbed the stray drops of water and puddles generated in the divets within the concrete, and as she gamboled across the pavement with the littlest care of what others might have thought about her, he found her an oddity, a rarity amongst the divisions of rude kids and bullies double his size. He watched, waiting for her to say something in response to the pigtailed-girl that chased her, and wondered if she would talk to him.
Eventually, she did. She walked up to him and placed a haggard thing on his cranium with little care of what he thought of the situation, and asked him, "You are now a king."
King. Ruler of a kingdom. Upholder of civilians who depended upon their leader to bring them through throes of prosperity, those of which would bring them great riches. He was not a king, he thought. This was his father, whose affluent influence made him valuable to the political landscape of the corporations he partnered and associated with. If anything, he was a prince, the son of the king and heir to the throne. "I'm not a king," he said.
She smiled that innocuous smile, the one which pierced through him so thoroughly that the cogs which turned in his mind and the veins that pumped blood were exposed for all to see. "You're crowned by Queen Riley, the ruler of Rileytown!" she exclaimed loudly.
Farkle looked around to see if anybody had noticed the declaration bespoken by the small girl. Hal Anderson was playing with Charlie Gardner, throwing a red rubber ball to each other after bouncing it against the ground. Joseph Undell was speaking to Miss Miller at the edge of the playground, tears streaming down his face. Gordon Billingsley stood a little ways away from the young boy, his hands running through nonexistent hair as he awaited his punishment from the slim, tall teacher advocating for the victim of his threats and promises. Morgan Kelley, Veronica Holt and Melinda Quinn were standing near the play equipment, with Morgan and Melinda flicking a jump rope side to side as Veronica struggled to keep herself upright and above the thin plastic wire. But no one seemed to notice Riley at all; in fact, they all appeared to ignore her existence entirely. His eyebrows scrunched together considerably, and he closed his textbook, putting it aside to the mulch.
"I'm no king," he said again, the conviction in his voice rising a little higher.
"Well, now you are!" He winced at the level which she yelled. "You are King of Rileytown now."
Farkle sighed, and picked the crown from his head. He pulled it into his hands, examining the deadened flowers between his fingers. She must've picked them from the edge of the fence, where the only flowers available in the courtyard sat withering and dying from lack of water and nutrition. The stems were a darkened brown, but she seemed to wind and entangle them together as though the stalk was ripe and easily malleable. "This crown isn't real," he said to her, looking into those amber eyes of hers. That was the first time he had seen them up close, after examining them from afar whilst the blonde girl attempted to stop the wild brunette from running all about. At the sight, he felt relaxed. For the first time, a sensation that reached his lips made them quirk upward.
"It's just a flower crown," he added. "It's not . . . ." He tried to find the right word. He was only seven at the time, and his vocabulary was very limited, although his interest for information about science was retained throughout his young years; for his father drilled it through his mind that Farkle was talented in the sciences, adept with understanding of those complicated equations and comprehensive of the intermolecular forces apparent in different types of household substances. But words struggled to come from his mouth. His father only spoke in short-tempered sentences, those which were cut off by the end a significant bit. And his mother . . . well, she never spoke to him much. He cleared his throat, thinking for a few moments to find the word he was looking for, then continued: "It's not official."
Riley just smiled at him like he said the funniest joke he had ever heard, and he decided that he likes that smile. It's warm and soft, like her cheeks, and the dimples which affect her features are nothing but adorable. His mind went through the possibilities of how to respond when she responded to him. "It is, though," she said.
And he thought that he couldn't argue with her smile. So he put the crown back on his head and said, "I am the King, then."
"What's your name, King?" she asked sweetly.
His throat clammed up with a ball of stress which suddenly generates within it. He pulled at his collar a little. "Uh. . . . I don't have one."
Riley's smile went sour, and he wanted it back the moment it was gone. It was like a stream of sunshine that peeked through the clouds of sadness and unstable home-life, and it shone upon him with the warmth of the Sun, as though the large star was right there in front of him. "You don't have a name? Doesn't every boy and girl have a name?" She seemed puzzled by his declaration.
"I do have a name," he said quickly, attempting to remedy the wrong he created, "but it's a little -" Odd. Weird. Stupid. Laughable. Forbidden. "Goofy," he finished, the tip of his tongue ripe with the taste of his bile.
Farkle, he thought. Why would someone want to embarrass their kid the moment they say their name aloud? The name itself was something that seemed to be told by a drunkard who stumbled outside of the bar as soon as their child was born and was the first comprehensible thought to come to their mind. He imagined that this was what precisely happened, as his sophisticated, pristine father was most known for his voluminous drinking after many bouts of argument. He never knew what exactly happened, however, and had to make his own guesses about the occurrence, but all he really knew at that time was that he was cursed by its mere existence - his mere existence.
Miss Susie was hesitant to say it aloud in class, refraining from even thinking it to be serious. She asked him on the first day whether or not this was a joke. He shook his head violently at the tall woman, hoping that she didn't assume that he was the one that was doing all of this. Even after he had denied the fact it was a joke, she disbelieved him, and went about her way marking his name off on the roster without speaking it aloud. The other kids assumed - naturally so - that he hadn't a name, and they called him "A" for a little while. Kindergarten was a struggling time for him then, and he just went along with everybody calling him "A" until they . . . didn't.
And now that many of the people knew that his name was Farkle Minkus (two very silly names crunched together to create the insecure individual sitting with his textbook splayed across his lap), they strayed from him. He was diagnosed too weird for them for his name alone, and his odd mannerisms pushed to the far side of the playground. Now that she was questioning him with those beady eyes of hers, he didn't feel like he could even remotely mention his name. He knew that she only meant well, and that she perhaps wouldn't laugh like the rest of them did when he was called to the front of the room to receive his name tag (that only made it significantly worse, as though the fates converged upon him and believed him to need more suffering), but he simply . . . couldn't.
But then he looked back up at her face, which was on the verge of too much happiness that it was contagious.
(He would learn that she would always manage to make him happier simply by facing him and giving him an appreciative glance.)
"You can tell me," she said.
No, I can't. I can't tell anybody because then they'll laugh at me. I'll be left alone. I won't be accepted. He sighed. He had to take a chance, though. She had fascinated him for so long, like an undisturbed specimen examined from afar. She deserved it.
A shuddering breath escaped him. "Do you promise not to laugh?" he asked.
Nodding vigorously, she held out her pinky.
He looked at it strangely, transfixed by the gesture. Gingerly, he held out his own pinky, and in an instant, Riley stepped forward. Her pinky went around his, and locked together in what he imagined as a cult-like gesticulation.
"Pinky promise," she said, holding tightly onto his pinky.
And he simply said, in a monotonous intonation that expressed nothing but pure terror, "Farkle Minkus."
She burst out laughing. He had expected her to (even if she had pinky-promised him she wouldn't) but there are pricks of tears at the edges of his eyes. He wiped his eyes quickly, and said, "You weren't supposed to laugh."
"I know, but I can't help it!" she exclaimed loudly.
And Farkle knows that he shouldn't be too mad about it now. He's a teenager, and that was about ten years ago. He still is friends with Riley to this day, and, soon after the excursion way back when, made friends with Maya. He stares up at his ceiling and wonders if she didn't laugh. If she didn't think that his name was a joke like the lot of them. If she didn't allow herself to let the chortles out of her mouth to preserve his feelings. But she didn't mean anything bad by it (she even apologizes about it from time to time, reminding him of how cute she looked and how those chocolate eyes burned in the sun of the courtyard). So he forgives her.
He doesn't forget that he was the King of Rileytown, though. He was her king in those times.
He doesn't forget that Lucas has now taken his spot there. He sits atop the throne alongside his queen whilst Farkle wears the clothing of a jester and tells lame jokes that fall flat for the lot of them.
He doesn't forget how grueling it was to see him wrap his arm around Riley's waist and wear that withering, almost-dead crown around the school all day before taking it off and placing it atop her head.
He doesn't forget.
He just wonders what life would be like if she never entered it.
.
He eventually forgets one day when he's sitting in his room with a bottle of Valium at the edge of his bed, but it comes back. It always comes back.