She finds her best friend, blonde hair and porcelain skin and tiny hands, sitting on the floor of her apartment. It's not the prettiest sight, despite the prettiest girl being the center of the picture. Riley steps in gingerly, pocketing her key. It's a moment like this that she's glad Maya thought ahead of time.
An extra key for a bad day.
Today's a bad day.
And it's been such a bad year.
"Maya?" Riley all but whispers, kneeling down; she brushes a few strands of loose hair away from the young woman's face. She's beautiful, really, with all the classic charm of an actress from a vintage movie; her wit is as sharp and refreshing as ever. She's the sort of girl one doesn't get over so quickly.
She's the beautiful, blonde artist. Stunning. Gorgeous. Incredible. Talented. Unforgettable. Unattainable. A little broken. A lot broken, actually.
She's so broken.
Maya looks up, all green eyes and honey hair, and she's been crying, and Riley pulls her into her arms so quickly. She shushes Maya, runs her fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp. It doesn't matter if her shirt's getting wet because this broken girl is falling apart right in front of her.
Then comes the sobbing, and the flood gates open, and Riley's eyes shoot open. "Maya, Maya, don't go there-" Please don't go there again.
But Maya doesn't stop; she's going there, downhill, too fast to stop herself, too recklessly to break her fall. Riley has to do it, and it hurts every time. It's worth it, though, because Maya deserves to be together. She deserves to be in one piece.
"I'm here, Maya."
There's a long pause.
"I know."
And then-
"Where's Lucas?"
Riley's breath hitches, and her heart breaks, and she positions herself on the floor so that she's more comfortable. It's going to be a long night, and her long legs will get tired of holding them both up if this goes for very long. She slides more, her legs stretching out, and this way is easier to keep her body around Maya's.
"Where's Lucas?" Maya is quieter this time; they both know the answer, know where he is, why he's not here. But she needs to hear it, to remind herself that this isn't some horrible dream. This isn't something she'll wake up from.
He's gone.
It's at a time like this that Riley is selfishly glad that she never let herself fall too hard for the boy from Texas with the dimples and the blue eyes and the laughter that could kill any temper. No, it was Maya - the short-fused and angry and ruined and still-vivacious songbird. And Lucas was her prey, and they worked.
They worked so well, and they laughed and smiled and bickered, and she made him loud and he made her vulnerable, and they were beautiful together.
And then he was gone.
"Riles…"
"Yes, peaches?" She says the nickname, the one she's used for Maya since they were little children without a care in the world, hoping it's okay to be so familiar.
"Why isn't he back? He said he'd be right back." Maya leans in closer to Riley, close enough to smell the perfume lingering on the brunet's body; their hair is tickling each other's noses, but it doesn't matter because Riley is the only thing holding her together right now. Maya curls into her best friend's side, snuggling up against her.
They're both silent for a few moments, Riley shushing and Maya sniffling and both thinking about Lucas. It's hard, Riley discovers, to try to remember everything wonderful about Lucas without faulting him for leaving Maya all alone.
"Maya...Lucas...he's not coming back."
"Why?"
Maya looks up at her, her eyes burning and her cheeks flushed, and she's so beautiful even when she's falling apart, and she's not even coherent right now, but Riley holds her close. So close.
And they both know the answer; it's simply a matter of who'll say it first, whether Riley will break it to her yet again, or if Maya will simply let it drop. It's not so simple, this...this thing happening right now.
Maybe Farkle said it best, that day, when he spoke so eloquently yet so robotic that Riley couldn't help but think back to when they were in middle school, and Riley was still wide-eyed and imaginative, and she used to think that Pluto was still a planet. She was young then, and she was allowed to be stupid and hopeful.
But hope has aged with her, with both of the women sitting on the ground, has grown old and shriveled and dried out from being used too much too quickly, and it is dead now. Hope has died, and so have all the stars that used to shine in Maya's eyes when she looked at Lucas.
"There's this thing about stars: there used to be this fable that the stars we're looking at are already gone, but that's...it's out of my realm of study, and it's not even part of my point, and I'm going to start over," he pauses, adjusting his jacket with shaking fingers. He has a habit of rambling, even in his monotonic voice, yet everyone is respectfully watching, except for Maya. She's curled into her mother's side, and Shawn's arm is around them both. Riley is with her parents, and her mom keeps dabbing at her eyes with tissues. Cory isn't much better; he really cared about Lucas, loved him like a son. Even Isadora Farkle is there, watching her husband, so proud of him and so concerned for him; he's strong, hasn't always been, but he is now. This woman really loves him, Riley thinks to herself in the midst of her mourning.
"Shooting stars aren't really stars at all; they're bits of dust from meteoroids that fall towards earth. That's it - they're all different parts from different meteoroids; no two are the same. And some burn brighter, and then they burn themselves out. But you can only see that one shooting star once. They're beautiful, but then they're just gone. I think Lucas was a shooting star..." The young man takes a shaky breath, and Riley was so impressed that he's so strong right now. She certainly isn't, not even sort of.
"He was so bright, and now he's just gone, and I can't seem to figure out why. I don't know if I ever will."
"Lucas was a shooting star, Maya."
Riley remembers when she thought she was in love with Lucas, when simply thinking of the tall boy would make her being shake with confusion and fear and excitement. Then she learned that Maya liked Lucas, loved him, more than Riley ever could. Maya was a troubled teen with a terrible life, and she knew little of love, yet she knew that she loved him. Riley stepped back, because that was the right thing to do, and it hurt more than anything else in the entire world.
Except for the time she realized she loved Maya more. Loved the way the girl could laugh, just throw her head back and laugh, even when the entire world had been trying for so long to break her down. And Riley loved her hair, her teeth, her gorgeous eyes, her nose – everything about her, Riley loved, wanted to worship, wanted to idolize. But Riley knew Maya loved Lucas, completely and wholly and without any sort of caution. And this realization hurt more than anything, burned and scalded, but it healed and scarred; and Riley was always there for her, even when it seemed to be physically painful to be around the blonde.
And except for now. Seeing Maya like this, so hurt and so lost and so out of breath because she's crying too much, this hurts the most.
"What're you talking about?" Maya finally looks up at her friend, hazel eyes clouded with curiosity. She'd look funny, if the situation weren't so sad. Riley smiles, bitterly, pulling Maya in a bit closer.
"He was a shooting star. He was…Lucas was beautiful." Looks and personality together, of course. Lucas was everything, he was all-American. He was practically perfect, and everyone knew it. "But…he was a shooting star. They don't last forever."
Lucas was too much all at once. The universe simply couldn't contain that much perfect, Riley thinks to herself. She twirls the ring around her finger – it's her friendship ring that Maya gave her when they were eleven. Not a wedding ring, though it's felt like that more times than she cared to admit, and sometimes Riley so desperately wanted it to be. Maya doesn't have a wedding ring, either. Lucas was going to ask, eventually, soon, even. But he hadn't managed to find the time, and now it's too late, but at least the girls have each other.
"I loved him," Maya whispers, her voice shattered.
"I know."
"He loved me."
"Yeah, he did."
"I need you, Riley."
With that, the blonde buries herself farther into her friend's hair, taking in a deep breath. Riley smells like coffee and rabbit bedding and leftover perfume. It's not the best smell, but it's so intensely Riley that it just works. She's always been like this, excitable and frivolous and so soft-hearted it's easy to take advantage of the brunette. But Riley is strong, too – she's strong enough to hold the both of them together, even when the tears start to slip from her eyes, too.
This is the moment that Riley has always wanted – something quiet and alone and together and needy – but it's not right. It's unrequited, all of it, and this is Lucas's fault, that shooting star. He left Maya alone, and he left Riley to pick up the pieces. But she can't indulge, not when she kisses the top of the blonde's head, holding her close; Maya sniffs, still crying, still gripping onto Riley as if she's the only thing in this entire universe that can keep Maya grounded.
"Please don't leave me-" she chokes, and Riley shakes her head.
"Never," she promises. They're both being a bit manipulative right now. Riley is keeping her close, keeping Maya in a tight grip that is too much but not enough at the same time, and she loves the blonde so much it aches; and she should be focused on fixing Maya, helping her heal, but Riley's only focusing on how Maya smells like nothing in particular, just good. And Maya – she knows how Riley feels about her, how Riley stares at her and loves her and never asks for anything in return; so she uses that knowledge now, knowing Riley would never leave if Maya asked her not to. They're both using each other, but their hearts are breaking and are being glued back together shard by fragment slowly; it will be fine. Eventually they will both be fine; the stars will eventually come back to Maya's eyes, and Riley will adore every single one of them.
"There's this thing about stars…the stars we're looking at are already gone…"