AN: Starting a new story! Think of this as a quick prologue for an idea that has been rumbling around in my head for quite a while now. As usual, I'm picking a point out in girl meets world history and taking it in a different direction from the show. This one is set between season 2 and season 3. Once again, I'm playing with the triangle because I can't seem to let this storyline go, even though I absolutely hate it. I don't know when I'll be able to update again, maybe next weekend, but I am hoping for longer updates to make up for them not being as close together.
Any who, I own nothing. Please review if you feel so inclined. It really does make writers want to write.
Riley hated to admit it, but she couldn't wait for summer to be over. It wasn't that she was excited for high school. Actually, she was dreading the big changes going to a new school would entail. She didn't want to get lost in the hallways or meet new teachers or take a foreign language. She didn't want to have classes with kids older than her or even start contemplating colleges or majors or real life at all.
As horrible as it sounds, Riley wanted summer to be over because she couldn't stand spending so much time with her friends.
She loved her friends. She really did. They were probably the closest group of friends in the history of the world. They had literally spent every day together since school got out, pretty much from the minute they woke up until the minute they went to bed.
The six of them would spend long days having movie marathons sprawled out in the theater room at Farkle's. They would go to Topanga's and talk over coffee and muffins all day, almost like the college students from NYU, who would spread out in the back with their laptops and their thesis statements, only leaving the bakery to go smoke clove cigarettes that left the air smelling stale and sweet all at once.
They spent weekends going to movies or musicals or concerts or museums. The Minkus family had hired a personal driver for Farkle for the summer, so the only limitations they had were their imaginations and their own curfews.
It was fun, exploring the city she lived in for so long with the people she loved. It was especially fun to take Zay and Lucas to tourist trap places they had all grown bored of, like Time Square or the Statue of Liberty, and see it through the eyes of someone who wasn't a native to New York, someone who hadn't been there more times than they could count before the age of 5.
On particularly hot days, they would splash around at the beach or go to the water park, riding slide after slide. She would often end up alone, laying out with her big sunglasses on and earbuds in, pretending she was in a whole different world full of warmth and sunshine, watching her friends like she was watching a movie, an outsider to their merriment.
Riley knew how lucky she was to have the friends she did, to have the opportunity to have all sorts of adventures with them. Most people would kill to see Broadway shows and beautiful artwork whenever they wanted to, but still she was growing tired of it. It had nothing to do with the activities. It was entirely the company, two people specifically. The other two points in her very own pointy triangle.
The worst of it was, it was all her fault. If she wouldn't have lied to Lucas in Texas or if she would have been better at hiding her feelings, she wouldn't be stuck in this constant seesaw with Maya, evening things up and keeping things fair. Late at night when sleep alluded her, she played out countlessly ways she could have stopped all this before it started. She would have imaginary conversations with Lucas, where he would fall all over himself, claiming he loved her and only her, in a thousand different locations, times, and ways.
Sharing everything from her bay window to her family to her boyfriend with her best friend made her feel like she had lost a part of herself along the way. She wasn't just Riley anymore. She was MayaAndRiley! Never one without the other. One half of a whole person. If she showed up early to meet up with her friends, it was inevitable that someone would ask, "Where's Maya?"
If she came home for dinner, her own parents would ask, "Where's Maya?"
She loved Maya. More than anything in this world. She hated herself a little bit for resenting her, but she couldn't help but wonder why Riley, just Riley, never seemed to be enough for anyone. Not even Lucas.
Lucas. If she were being perfectly honest, he was the main reason she wanted summer to be over. It was Lucas who insisted they all couldn't be just friends. It was Lucas who almost kissed Maya in Texas. It was Lucas who made her feel all these things for him and then in turn made her best friend feel the same.
And it was Lucas, who agreed to date both of them, to care for both of them equally as much. If he said something nice to Riley or Maya, he said something nice to the other girl. Every single special moment they had shared since May had been tainted by the fact that he had either already had a special moment with Maya or was going to have to have one with her later.
After the whole month of June spent in limbo, she was exhausted, pushed past her breaking point. So when Farkle's family invited them all to spend the week of the 4th of July in the Hampton's, her excitement was quickly tempered by dread at the thought of spending a whole week in a house without having even a small break from the roller coaster ride.
A small part of her had hoped that her father's protectiveness would kick in and she wouldn't be allowed to go so far away with three boys. Mr. and Mrs. Minkus had known her parents since childhood and had quickly reassured Cory that there would be plenty of supervision from not only them but also the staff at the house, chefs, chauffeurs, and housekeepers, who would all be aware of the children and their hormones at all times.
When they first came up with the equality plan, she thought it was ingenious. No one would get hurt because they were being fair and diplomatic, but she never anticipated it would still be going on this long. Honestly, she thought Maya would get bored and move on to the next thing, or Lucas would man up and declare his feelings for one over the other.
But every day that went by and neither one of them said anything was a day where Riley questioned whether or not she should be the one to break away. Maybe this jealous feeling in the pit of her stomach would ease up a bit if she knew she no longer had a chance with Lucas, if he belonged to Maya exclusively. Maybe she was the only one who felt the weight of the triangle pressing on her chest day in and day out. Maybe Lucas didn't feel as strongly for her as she did for him if he could go all this time just going along with everything like
She knew as much as she wanted to throw her hands up in defeat, she couldn't get off the ride. She tried that in Texas, to step back for Maya to have what she wanted, the happiness she deserved. She didn't have it in her to step back again. She loved Lucas. Real, true, romantic, love. Big, scary, messy, love. She had to see this to the end even if it ended badly for her, but she knew she had to protect her own heart, even if just a little. She had to prepare herself for Lucas to realize what everyone else eventually saw, that Riley, just Riley, wasn't good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, mature enough. She just wasn't enough.
So, she did her best to stop having moments with Lucas. If they didn't share anything intimate or special, he didn't have to even it up with Maya. More importantly, she wouldn't have to watch him even it up with Maya. She wouldn't have to feel two inches tall when they gazed into each other's eyes or when he told Maya he loved her smile because he had said he loved how she laughed.
Any time he attempted any closeness with her, she made sure it seemed platonic, so innocent that Maya didn't feel threatened, that she didn't have to request her turn.
It seemed to work, like the day they went and watched a scary movie a Farkle's. She started to grab for Lucas' arm when the zombie attacked, but she stopped herself. She pulled back from him when he reached for her hand, knowing she would be terrified, and leaned into Smackle who was sitting on the other side of her. Sure, Smackle acted like she was insane and promptly refused to sit next to her during any movies from that point on, but she didn't have to watch Maya cling to Lucas.
She started getting closer with Zay and Smackle, so she wouldn't feel lonely when it was Maya's turn to sit next to Lucas. She found out she and Zay had similar tastes in music, so during long drives she would often volunteer to sit next to him, an earbud in one ear so he could use the other.
She stopped asking for Lucas to even things up in hopes that Maya would stop asking, too. She pointedly ignored when Lucas told Maya her dress was nice the night they went and danced to live Latin music in the park. She pretended not to notice how closely they danced together, trying not to make sure she was within the same distance when it was her turn to dance with him.
After one dance in which she felt like she had held her breath the entire time, wondering if because her arms were longer than Maya's did that mean she was further from him because it was easier to wrap her arms around Lucas' neck or if it was because Lucas had wanted to be closer to Maya, she claimed Zay as her dance partner for the remainder of the night, claiming she wanted to learn the authentic Latin moves that he had learned in his dance classes. She did everything she could to not look their direction as Zay guided her hips to the salsa beat.
The only problem was Maya didn't stop asking for balance. If anything, Maya made sure to ask more on her own behalf, and she'd even taken to asking on Riley's behalf as well. Every day Maya seemed to come up with more and more ridiculous ways that Lucas was being unfair to them from how long they interacted to whose jokes he laughed at to where they sat at dinner. Her persistence and tenacity made Riley realize that she was just as invested in this as she was, that she had just as much potential to get hurt as she did. Her heart hurt, and she didn't know if it was for herself or for Maya at this point.
It was much too much for Riley. Her head was spinning with it all, and whenever Lucas looked at her helplessly, she felt like she had no choice but to go along with Maya. Their sisterhood solidarity was the only way they were going to get through this unscathed, she couldn't turn her back on it now. She knew that even if she didn't have Lucas in the end, she would always have Maya, and she would do whatever it took to protect that.
Riley tried to shrug it off when Maya insisted that she sit next to Lucas on the way to the Hampton's to make up for all the times she got to sit with him, but Lucas seemed insistent as well. She didn't know how to beg off without making it seem like she genuinely didn't want to sit next to him. Sometimes she wondered if Lucas was jealous at the time she had been spending with Zay because he even jokingly claimed she had to even up the attention she was giving his best friend with him.
She tried to laugh it all off and agreed to sit next to him, but Maya had glared daggers in his direction at the insinuation about her and Zay, so the laughter quickly died her throat. She felt awkward standing there between the two of them, literally and figuratively.
Needless to say, Riley was definitely ready for a break. Even as she packed her bags for the week long trip and kissed her parents goodbye, she was making a plan to feign sickness or to maybe convince her mom to come pick her up midweek.
She thought if that didn't work, maybe when they got back she could ask her parents if she could go to Philly to visit her grandparents. As long as Maya didn't insist on coming with her because if she asked, Riley couldn't tell her no. Especially if it stopped Maya from being alone with Lucas in New York.
God. She couldn't even come up with a plan to get away from it all because getting away from Lucas and Maya would only push the two of them closer together. She definitely didn't want to worry about the things she would imagine them doing while she was gone, surely her imagination would be worse than the reality, but what was she to do?
She couldn't keep going the way they were going. Her insides were twisted up in knots, and her heart felt like it would break in two if she had to watch Maya hop on Lucas' back one more time. Then, she, of course, had to deal with the overwhelming guilt brought on by feeling the way she was feeling.
She had never had so many negative feelings toward Maya. She was her best friend, her sister, the single most important person in her entire universe. Maya wasn't doing this to intentionally hurt her. Maya was entitled to her feelings, too, and she deserved her own happiness. How horrible of a friend could she be that she didn't want Maya to feel that joyous feeling she got when Lucas stared deep into her eyes?
How was she ever going to survive this week? And if she couldn't survive this week, how was she going to survive this triangle?
Riley didn't know a lot, but she knew one thing for sure; by the time this week was over, she would figure out a way to either move forward or move on. With or without Lucas.
