The sun was slowly setting across the city. The view was gorgeous from the roof of Riley's building. Maya was trying yet again to capture that sunset light with colored pencil, paper, and a little bit of hope. First she drew deliberately. Then slowly. Then hesitantly. Then she quietly set down her pencils, including the one she'd been holding in her teeth. She gently tore the page out of her sketchbook. She gazed quietly at her work. Then her muscles clenched and she scrunched it into a ball.
Actually, she only scrunched her hands into a ball. The paper had been pulled out of her hands at the last moment by Lucas.
"Hey!" she screamed. "What the heck gives you the right to do that?"
"This does." Lucas replied. And he gave her a tiny little peck on the cheek. It might have been a nice moment except that at the same time that his lips reached her cheek, her thumb began to sting. And then to really hurt. She looked down to see a cute little bubble of blood coming out of the paper cut he'd caused.
"Typical." She thought. "It's like the universe is trying to tell me something." Resisting the impulse to scream or say deeply inappropriate things that she'd heard people saying on the subway, she instead just stuck her thumb in her mouth. At Lucas's quizzical look, she pulled it back out – showed him the cut, and then promptly put it back in her mouth.
Lucas flinched. "Oh my gosh, Maya. I didn't realize that doing that might cut you. Can I get you a bandage or something?"
"Nah." She replied, talking around her thumb. "This is fine. Plus it's all salty like."
"What are you, a vampire?" he replied, trying to lighten the mood.
"Of course I am; didn't you already know?" She replied. Then she made little bat wing motions with her hands but since her thumb was still in her mouth, it came out pretty lame looking.
From his eyes, she could tell he wasn't actually amused. But he played along anyway. That was how things worked nowadays. In a monotone voice he replied. "Yes, oh queen of darkness, forgive me for not already knowing about your magnificence and undeadness. I know that you rule the night. Enchant us all with your power." His tone went back to normal. "Seriously, can I get you something? Ice?"
"Don't bother Lucas. This isn't the first time I've been cut. It won't be the last." Maya didn't mean a lot by saying that but Lucas reacted to the comment like he he'd been the one cut. She stood up and held out her hand for the picture. "Gimme." She said. He handed it over warily. She smiled sweetly at him. "Lucas. Let's get something really, really clear. My life. My art. My decision." She crumpled the paper into a ball with one hand and then tossed it into a trash can. Then she walked over to the stairs and opened the door.
Before she could start down, Lucas called out. "Hey, why do you keep calling me Lucas?"
Maya looked back. A thousand flippant answers flew through her head but only one of them stuck. "Because it's your name." Then she headed down to Riley's.
When she got there the door was locked. So she reached into her pocket with her good hand and pulled out her key. Fumbling a bit since was her left hand, she got it unlocked and pushed it open. Mr. Matthews was sitting on the couch grading papers. He looked over.
"Umm, Maya? Why do you have a key to our apartment?" he asked.
She breezed on by him heading for Riley's room. On the way past, she patted him lightly on the head. "Because it's 'our' apartment, silly." She went through the doorway by the kitchen and then stopped. She poked her head back into the main room. In a far more contrite voice she said. "Look. I'm sorry. Riley gave it to me a long time ago so that, well, I'd always have somewhere to go. Do you mind? Is it okay?" It was obvious from the hesitation that she was expecting him to yell at her.
He smiled gently. "Yes Maya. It's okay. You're always welcome here."
Maya ducked her head back through the doorway and continued on to Riley's room. Mr. Matthews never acted the way she expected him to. Strangely, it had become something that she counted on. His unpredictability was actually one of the few solid rocks in her world because whatever unexpected thing he decided to do, it was always exactly what she needed. Riley, of course, was her other rock.
As she entered Riley's room, Maya absently put her thumb back in her mouth. Riley looked over from the window seat and noticed immediately. She put her thumb into her mouth as well and then proceeded to talk through it. "Why is your thumb in mouth Maya? Is it a new game? Are we pretending to be babies? Can I be your twin?" With each sentence, Riley's voiced had gotten more and more excited.
"Sorry hon." Maya replied, pulling her thumb back out and showing the injury. "Just a paper cut that I got from the picture that I was working on. You know what they say. Being an artist is all about pain."
Concern overtook Riley's face and she suddenly became a flurry of activity. Gauze, bandages, and antibiotic ointment appeared as if by magic and in a thrice, Maya's thumb was neatly bandaged. That part wasn't so bad. The tiring part was that after Riley was done, Maya had to sit quietly while Riley signed the 'cast' she'd made and then tried to draw a little happy flower on it. But since the bandage was pretty tiny, the drawing looked more like one of Riley's purple cats.
In other words, it was a just a blob of purple ink.
"Do you love it?" Riley asked. "It's my masterpiece. Tell me you love it. Please?
Maya rolled her eyes but then couldn't help smiling. "Of course I do Riles. Thank you for taking all that trouble. Oh, I forgot to mention that Lucas is probably still up on the roof if you wanted to talk to him."
Riley looked away. "But I thought he was there to see you?"
Maya sighed. "Yes he was. And now he's seen both me and my bleeding finger. But he hasn't seen you yet so, go on, scoot." She made a shooing motion with her hands and winced a bit when she moved her injured thumb. "Just go on before I have to shoo you again. It hurts too much."
Riley bobbed her head with a combination of 'okay' and 'I'm sorry' and then skipped lightly out of the room. The sound of her shoes thudding across the floor of the living room floated back to Maya, as did Mr. Mathews yet again asking Riley not to skip in the house. But he only asked nicely and Riley kept skipping so all was right with that part of her world. She leaned back into the window seat and sighed.
"You'd think we could figure these things out, wouldn't you?" She asked the faceless bear sitting on Riley's bed. "Riles is still so happy to go see Lucas that she can't help herself but to skip. And that's even after she forces me and him to get together whether we wanted to or not. And I can't find a way to be comfortable in his company anymore. It's not fun like it used to be. But Lucas and I are officially a thing and Riley won't hear otherwise. And Lucas. You poor, poor bumpkin. You've finally given in and accepted being with me instead of Riles and I don't know if it's ever going to work between us. And if it doesn't… Dear lord, if Riley and I spin your head around again you're going to start whapping at us like we're piñata's." She closed her eyes and just lay back into the pillows.
When Riley got to the top of the stairs, Lucas was just opening the door to come down. He brightened as soon as he saw her. "Hey Riley! I've missed you!"
Riley leaned against the wall and kind of ducked her head. "What do you mean you missed me? You saw me in school this afternoon."
"That's not exactly what I meant... Well, nevermind. Look, I've got all of Maya's art stuff bundled up for her. Could you take it to her? I think she's kind of mad at me for trying to stop her from crumpling up a picture. Plus I gave her a papercut."
Riley pulled back. "You gave her the papercut!?" she asked in a dramatic voice. He nodded reluctantly. She continued. "How dare you, you beast!" Then she let go of the act and she smiled. "It's okay. It wasn't that bad and I got to bandage it and sign it with a happy purple flower! That makes it heal faster, you know."
Lucas smiled and laughed at the comment. "Better than purple cats?"
"Lucas" she said in her mock serious voice. "Cats are for pictures. Flowers are for healing."
"I suppose you're right. That must be why people bring flowers to people in the hospital. You've got an amazing heart, Riley. You always take such good care of your friends." He glanced down at his watch. "Shucks, I've got to get home for dinner. Talk to you later?"
Riley's face lit up. "Definitely. I mean, unless you're busy talking to Maya or something. I wouldn't want to interrupt you or get in your way."
"Riley, we're still friends. We're allowed to talk anytime we want. And, like I said before, Maya's mad at me so you wouldn't be interrupting anything anyway. Look I'm sorry but I've really got to go."
"Okay. Later then Buckyboy!" Riley tried.
"Later. And, um, Riley? Please. No 'Buckyboy'. Or anything else. To you I'm just Lucas."
His tone caught her attention. "Does it matter?" She asked.
"Yes. It actually matters quite a bit. Hey, sorry. I've got a lot of homework tonight. Maybe we should just talk tomorrow." And with that he headed down the stairs without another glance back.
With no one left on the roof to visit with, well other than her imaginary playmates that still hovered up here building rainbows for rainy days, Riley returned to the apartment. When she passed her dad, she stopped and looked at him.
"Daddy? I'm confused. Lucas doesn't want me to call him by any nicknames. But Maya does it all the time. I think he used to like it. This not liking something you used to like… It's a boy thing, right? And he's a boy and you used to be a boy. So you can explain, right?"
"Umm, Riley… I'm still a boy. Well, technically a man but I'm still male."
"No you're not. You're not a boy. You're my daddy."
Mr. Matthews smiled. "There's that word again. Daddy. And, don't get me wrong, I love hearing that word. But I'm also Mr. Matthews. Or Cory. Or Johnny Baboon if you ask our school janitor. We all have a lot of names in this world. Who we are sometimes depends on who you ask."
Riley shook her head. "No no no. You're Daddy and that's all there is to it."
Mr. Matthews gave her one of those 'teaching looks.' "It means a lot to you, doesn't it? To call me daddy I mean?"
"Of course!" Riley was shocked that he even had to ask.
"Then I want you to think about why it's so important to you. And then maybe you'll figure out what's going on with Lucas."
Maya overheard the entire conversation from the hallway. It was sobering. She'd never really thought about things that way. She sighed. Then she smiled instead and thought to herself. "Wow Riley. This may be the first time that I'll know the answer to one of Mr. Matthews's questions before you do." Then she turned to go back to Riley's room.