A/N: Last chapter was winter. This chapter is spring. You get it.


2: Girl Meets Negative Space


A gentle breeze rolls through the bay window, filtering in the distant sound of windchimes, honking cars, and laughing children. Clothes hang on wire in the alley outside the Matthews' Lower East Side apartment.

"Joy."

Riley adds her favorite orange scarf to a steadily growing mountain of clothing beside her. She picks up a pair of old jeans and holds them tightly to her chest. After a moment-

"Joy."

The jeans join the scarf atop the pile.

Farkle swings through the window and plops himself down on the bench.

"Joy." Riley adds a faded graphic tee ("I Love Mondays") to the heap.

"Naming emotions?"

Riley turns dramatically to face him and smiles in greeting. "I'm sparking joy, Farkle."

"Of course." Farkle scoots down to the floor to join her. Riley holds up a pair of cheap plastic sunglasses with cracked lenses.

"Joy!"

"I'm attempting to draw any sort of conclusion based on what I'm seeing here, but I got nothin'."

Riley slumps her shoulders dramatically, like it's so obvious, it shouldn't need explaining. "The KonMari Method? You gather all of your objects in one place, pick up each of them one by one. If it sparks joy, you keep it. If not, POOF! Gone forever."

Farkle nods, surveying the colossal "joy" pile beside her. "And what have you gotten rid of so far?"

"My toothbrush," she laments.

Farkle can't help but laugh. "This should be interesting."

Riley reaches for a sparkly tutu. "Princess Sparkle Butt!" Riley hugs it like an old friend.

"From the 2nd grade talent show?"

Riley nods. "Maya and I did our Hannah Montana routine. Definitely joy," she says.

"Even in 2nd grade, I knew. 'Those are my women.'"

"The best of both worlds," Riley quips.

Riley reaches for a dress. She turns it over in her hands. Purple and beaded and shiny. Riley's scrunches her nose. "This is the dress I wore on my first date with Lucas."

"I remember. I thought you looked very handsome."

"And you were beautiful, Farkle."

"Thank you."

Riley turns the dress over again, examining every detail.

"Huh."

Farkle looks at her with concern. "What?"

"It's not... Uh. What's the verb?"

A moment passes between them. "Sparking?" Farkle offers.

"That." Riley carefully folds the dress into a neat package. Folds it down to nothing. She sets it aside and moves on to the next piece from her consideration pile.

"Riley."

"I'm fine," she says, placing a well-worn pair of socks in the keep pile.

"Riley."

"What, Farkle?" she snaps. "Sorry," she says, immediately softening. Deep breaths. Farkle reaches out and squeezes her knee.

"It's okay to be not okay."

"I am. I mean, it's been so long. We've moved on," she says with a shrug. "I just thought there'd be... Anything."

Riley lets go of the jean jacket Maya forced her to try on at Demolition. She stares blankly into her lap.

"When Smackle and I broke up, I thought the whole world would stop and acknowledge it. But the next day came, and the next day. Time only moves in one direction. Well, time is an illusion. That's not the point."

Riley swats him on the shoulder. He massages the spot, fake-wounded.

"I get it, I get it. Perspective and people changing people and blah-dee-dah-dee-dah."

Farkle shakes his head. "I look at it like... Like negative space."

"What now?"

Farkle springs to his feet and quickly scours the room for a pencil and paper. He plops down right next to Riley and draws a circle. "What do you see?"

"A circle."

"Okay, what else."

"Paper, a pencil, a sparkly Farkly," she needles.

He laughs and double-taps the notepad. "On the paper."

Riley stares for a moment. Strains to parse some hidden meaning, but she's lost. "I... I don't. It's a circle."

Farkle takes the pencil and shades the rest of the paper in, filling the entire space around it. "When I drew the circle, I was also drawing the space around the circle."

"The negative space."

"Exactly."

Gears are turning. "I think I remember Maya talking about this. It's... easier to draw the space around an object than to draw the object itself."

"Right."

"So, how does this lesson mysteriously relate back to an event in my personal love life?"

"Maybe, instead of looking at your relationship with Lucas as a circle-"

"-look at the space we created. I get it." Riley pauses, taking it in. She scratches her head. "How are you so wise?"

"I'm Farkle Minkus."

"Yes, you are."

"The one and only."

"Okay, we get it, you're a wizard." Riley surveys the mess she's made. Everything she owns, strewn about the room, like her clothing had gained sentience and thrown a rager of its own accord. "Speaking of negative space, I think I have negative space left on my floor. I am not cut out for the life changing magic of tidying up." Farkle stares at her. Blinks. "It's the title of the book."

"Do you want me to help you put this stuff away since you're probably going to keep it all anyway?"

"You know me well," she says, hand over heart.

And so they clean, and fold, and shelve, and dust. And the space on the floor grows and grows, until everything is put back in its place.

Except for the purple dress.


A/N: If you liked this, please leave a comment. I am shameless in my love for praise and approval. Part 3: soonish!