Chapter 9
Farkle had always known what he wanted in life; world domination. People had always thought that he was a little crazy when he told them that he planned on ruling over them one day. (Even after he explained that he was planning on ruling over them in the most benevolent way possible.) For some reason, nobody seemed to care about his plans and the ones who did "care" would return his ambition with muffled whispers and distant stares.
He came to realize that there was an unspoken boundary in the world, and between his high ambitions and eccentric ways, he had somehow managed to step out of the acceptable line. Their distant stares and menacing whispers haunted his every step. It didn't take him long to come to realize that he shouldn't be moving at all; who knew what other line he was stepping over? So, he stopped. He stood still, all alone in the vast space that the other had launched him in. It was scary when he was all alone, so he closed his eyes and looked out to the stars.
When he had finally let himself open his eyes, he was standing on Pluto and was looking out at the Moon.
His world had collided with theirs; their gravity gradually pulled him in. He was now longer floating. He was rooted and free to wander. He was finally free to be who he wanted to be… Now the question was who did he want to be?
"I promise." He heard himself say to Riley. The words came so naturally to his mouth because they were nothing but the truth.
They sat there in silence, leaning against each other, both now not entirely clear on who was pulling who in this time.
"Lucas! What are you doing?!" Maya cried out frantically. "Let go! You're hurting me!"
He stopped abruptly and let go of her hands. She massaged the red print that he had left on her arm. Her arms were now matching her hands.
Everything passed by her in a blur. One moment she was staring out the window in her room, silently contemplating if she should try to sketch the trees outside, and the next she was swift off her feet (literally) and into the hall.
"I'm sorry." He said as he turned around. His gaze faltered as he took a step back from her. It was like he was finally realizing what had just happened. Images of him shoving Josh away and grabbing Maya's hands flashed through his mind, but they all seemed so disconnected. It was like he was watching some kind of show play out. They were now out in the living room and in the front porch.
"What is your problem Huckleberry?" She said rigidly.
"I needed to talk to you." He said defensively.
"Then you go up and say 'I need to talk to you', you don't go and grab a person while she's sitting down and thinking about her art!" She said in frustration. "Are you out of your mind?"
"You were thinking about art?" His voice was dangerously on the brink of amusement. It was reassuring for him that even after seeing all that; Maya could still manage to be Maya.
She rolled her eyes, "What did you expect? That I would be spending the whole day pinning over some guy that I now know was stringing me along the past few years?"
"Technically, he didn't stringing you along."
"Whose side are you on?" She asked begrudgingly as she massaged his grip. "If Riley sent you up, tell her that I' I'm not mad at her for not telling me about him having a girlfriend."
Lucas looked at her reproachfully, "You seem to be taking this entire thing in a calm manner."
She shrugged, "I'm used to my expectations being let down."
"Maya. You shouldn't expect anything from him," Lucas insisted in frustration. "He's not going to be the person that you need him to be."
"And what's the type of person I need?" Maya asked, her eyes silently probing his. "You seem to know, so let's hear it because God forbid I really want to know."
"He's not going to be there for you. Look around, he's not even here for you now!" Lucas shouted in frustration.
He was right, as always.
"You're right."
He let out a small sigh of relief, "Forget about him. Forget about everything that you can't have. Find someone who can be there for you, someone who will always have your back, someone-"
"Someone like you?"
The silence that came afterwards was unbearable. They had set foot to the land of no return and here they were wondering who crossed the line first.
Farkle had found Lucas out in the back of the cabin. He was throwing fallen tree branches out into the open; it looked like he was playing fetch with some invisible dog. Farkle silently contemplated who looked more broken; him or the tree branches.
"Hey." Farkle called out as he approached him.
Lucas turned around numbly and softly acknowledged that he was no longer alone.
"How's Riley?" He asked as soon as Farkle sat next to him. The snow crunched softly against his feet.
"I wouldn't know. I'm not her, but if I had to make a guess… I would say that she had better days."
"How's Maya?" Farkle asked tentatively. "Is she doing okay?"
"She's better than I expected she would be."
After everything that happened, he thought that he would feel a sense of closure, and yet he felt so lost. It was uncharacteristic for him to feel so lost. Ever since he was little, he was the one who had all the plans. He was the guy with the answers, the one you would go to when you were feeling lost and confused. But that brought up the question...who was he to go to when he was feeling lost and confused?
"Maya can't hurt you, like you can't hurt her. You two are like each other's protectors. You care for each other. Maybe you care a little too much… but you still care, nonetheless."
"Do I care too much?" He contemplated.
Farkle shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, you tell me."
"I don't know… I don't know what I think anymore." Lucas said as he brought his hands up to his face. "I just wish someone would come up and tell me what these feelings actually mean."
Farkle studied his best friend carefully. He had never seen his perfect friend be so perfectly defeated
"You like her."
"I like Riley too." As soon as the words came out of his mouth he realized how pathetic he actually was. Was it possible to feel something for two people at the same time, with such intensity?
"You're wrong." He said, but his words wavered with uncertainty.
"I know." Farkle replied simply, clearly unfazed with the fact that he was wrong about something. Usually telling Farkle that he was wrong was treason that ended with a dire punishment.
"You know?"
"Am I?" Farkle asked as he got up to his feet, brushing off the snow that clung to his pants. "Lucas. I know you're a decent guy, and I know that you don't do these things on purpose, but I'm still going to ask anyways."
"Ask me what?" Lucas asked carefully. Farkle had seemed suddenly stiff as his eyes focused on a spot somewhere over his head.
"Please don't hurt her."
"Riley?"
"Riley and Maya. They're both my ladies. You're not the only one out there who wants to protect them."
Lucas paused as he watched Farkle walk away from him.
"Farkle-" Lucas shouted out to Farkle. Farkle stopped in his tracks, but didn't turn around.
Lucas walked up to him. They were now standing side by side with each other. He peered carefully down at Farkle's face, which was stone hard and unmoving. "Thanks for checking in."
Maya was planning to spend the whole day sulking in her room. She had everything prepared, a cup of hot chocolate and a set of drawing pencils. She was just starting to sketch out the horizon of her painting when she saw a bike pull up into the driveway.
It was Josh.
She felt her whole body freeze and then regenerate. It was like she was too jolted to move. He got off and headed towards the entrance, with a strained expression on his face.
"Don't get your hopes up Maya. It's not like he came here for you." She chanted to herself before resuming her painting.
Just as she started to sketch a few trees she heard the bedroom room open. She turned around and saw his moody character fill up the entrance.
She noticed everything about him. The way that he clenched they keys in his hands, the way that his eyebrows furrowed in confusion, as if he wasn't sure why he even opened the door in the first place and the way his eyes soften ever so slightly once he saw her perched up against the window.
"Can we talk?"
"That seems to be the only thing we did today." She simply put it, acting her best to seem as distant to him as possible. She wanted him to know that she was angry, or at the very least, not happy about him leaving her in the morning. "I didn't know that you rode a bike."
"I keep it here in Philly. There's no reason to bring it to New York when you can go anywhere using public transportation."
"Cool... so… Sophie?"
He started to visually tense. To say things were complicated with Sophie was an understatement. He had dated the girl for 4 years and known her for almost his entire life, and yet he still couldn't tell what was going through her mind. The last thing he was expecting was her to show up at his doorstep and act as if nothing between them actually happened.
But what was more complicated was the unknown obligation of having to explain himself to Maya.
"It's complicated."
Maya snorted, "Yeah. Having heard you were in a three year relationship I was expecting it to be, at the very least, complicated."
Josh took a deep breath as he ran his hands through his hair. "To tell you the truth, I don't even know why I'm up here explaining myself to you."
His last sentence came out feeble. Maya caught it and held on to the small strain of hope he was flashing towards her, "Well. You came up here; the least you could do is tell me what happened between you and her."
"I was the one who started things, and she was the one who broke things off."
This time it was Maya's turn to feel nervous. She tried to act as if it didn't bother her, but she had one of those faces that projected every emotion that was bounding through her head.
"We did everything together when we were little, and we were doing everything else once we were actually really together. I had thought that I had finally found her. My own Topanga. I had our whole life planned out. It was going to be me and her against the world. We were going to last. I was so sure of it."
"Then what happened?"
He let out a shaky laugh. "Apparently I was the only one who was so sure. She wasn't so sure that we could last when she found out that she got into Berkely and I got into NYU."
"Oh-" A sunken feeling overtook her. "So you didn't break up because you both mutually fell out of love with each other?"
He ran his hands through his thick brown hair. "I'm not sure that's how break-ups work out." He finally managed to say.
"Then how do break-up's work?"
"There still needs to be some love in the relationship for it to die. You still need to care for someone to convince yourself and the other person that ending the relationship is the best option for both of you."
It took a while for Maya to digest what Josh had just said. It was hard to be rational when he was almost admitting that he still had feelings for Sophie. Or at least he did when he broke things off with her.
"So you're admitting that you still have feelings for her?" A fear gripped her thoughts as she held on to Josh's hands as if it was going to vanish right before her eyes.
"I'm trying to say that you need fuel to feed the fire."
Him and his metaphors. A long prolonged silence over took them. "So is she the reason why you didn't want to start things with me a couple of months back?"
"No." He said his voice full with sudden confidence. "She was the last thing I was thinking about a couple of months back."
Maya's ears perked up. "So, there's hope?"
"My reasons for not taking things a step further stay the same. I don't want to jump into things. You still have the whole of high school to experience; I don't want to take that away from you."
"And you still want to experience collage life without having a high school girlfriend to worry about?" Maya challenged back.
"It's not like that. When you see that it's not like that, then you'll understand."
"And what if I don't understand?"
Her voice was dangerously cold. She saw him flinch slightly at her words.
"You will. Eventually." His words were filled with a foreign determination.
And with that he left her. Alone, with empty sentences she was left to fill out.
