A/N: And we finally get to Riley's! Although we don't see Riley until the next chapter lol
I don't own GMW, just the plot of this story.
Chapter 12: "Borrow the Words"
"Alright this is it! Only an hour until we're at Riley's," Zay announced reading the navigation from Farkle's phone. It was about a 5 hour drive from the hotel we stayed at in Arizona to Riley's place. Farkle didn't let us sleep in much this morning, anxious to get back on the road. Now that we were so behind on time, we were forced to leave Riley's by tonight to head back home. Maya didn't fight it, as much of a non-morning person she was. She wanted to spend as much time with her best friend as she could. Farkle would eat up most of the time with the cheerful brunette, so it was important to her to get on the road as well and have her own girl time.
Zay fell asleep for the first couple hours of the car ride. Which, I'll be honest, was nice. After last night I was just waiting for when he would question me about what happened between Maya and I. He hadn't yet said a word, not even after he woke up.
He wasn't the only one not saying much.
Maya and I had not said one word about the almost kiss from the night before. In fact, we hadn't said many words to each other at all. An awkward 'good morning' when we woke up started the day, then a few 'excuse me''s and some small talk in the car. That was about it. I knew I didn't even know what to say. I didn't want to be the one to bring it up, not if it would make her uncomfortable or if she was still deciding how she felt about it. But it seemed as though Maya was actively trying to forget it even happened. I kept catching Zay's eyes when he turned around to gaze at the backseat. He was so curious, but he didn't know what to say either. Farkle was too busy freaking out over his own thing to be concerned with us blondes in the back, so I didn't have to worry about him. I wasn't even too concerned about Zay, as he kept his mouth closed for most of the time today. But being quiet about it for so long made him burst eventually.
"Ok what happened with you two last night?" he exploding just shortly after his announcement about the hour mark. Maya looked at me, as if asking what even did happen last night. I gave her a look saying I didn't know either. We were all equally as lost.
"Nothing happened Zay," I tried to answer, letting my eye sight fall from Maya's blue eyes out to the window.
Zay's sight turned to Maya. "Maya?"
"Exactly what he said Zay. Nothing happened," Maya answered. Zay didn't look convinced. If I'm telling the truth, I wasn't convinced. I mean we almost kissed for crying out loud! How can that be nothing? If Maya needed it to be nothing, at least for right now, then I would let it be nothing. Even though I was dying inside to finish what I started in that pool.
"Come on!" Zay shouted. "You both left to go on 'walks' and came back later soaking wet with stunned looks on your faces," he recapped. I wouldn't say it out loud, but my mind filled with thoughts about what Maya's face might have looked like when she walked back into the hotel room. "I'm not dumb you two, what happened?"
Wishing to find some possible answer in Maya, I glanced at her. She didn't notice. She was too busy giving Zay a wide-eyed look with the rest of her face blank. Searching for a possible way out of this, I folded my hands over my face.
"I tripped." Maya's words came out of nowhere. When I heard her voice, I thought she would admit to the almost kiss. That was until I processed her strange words.
"What?" Zay asked, his confusion matching mine.
"I was sitting over by the pool. I tripped and fell in. Lucas saw and he jumped in and saved me. That's it," she explained. She was always good at coming up with lies on the spot. I was never good at that. It's a good think Zay didn't turn his gaze to me because my confused face would have given away the lie immediately. "Isn't that what happened Lucas?" Her eyes were on me and, knowing Zay would follow in her lead, I corrected my own facial expression. I nodded, not making any sounds as I wasn't sure what the rest of her plan was. She was the one who was good at lying, I'll let her finish this off.
"He saved you? That's what happened?" Zay asked. It was obvious that he was still a little unsure of the answer we were giving him.
"You know I can't swim," Maya replied in an obvious tone.
"Wait you knew she can't swim?"
"Yeah?" Zay replied in an equally obvious tone. How did he know and I didn't? Zay and Maya are close, almost as close as Maya and I are. But if I didn't even know, how the hell did he know? I made a mental note to go back to that point with Zay later.
Zay shifted his eyes from me to Maya. I hoped, and I knew Maya shared in my hope, that Zay would just believe the lie and let the matter drop. I couldn't think about this anymore. I couldn't think about that fact that Maya wants nothing to do with even the thought that we almost kissed. I couldn't take the rejection.
Before Zay was able to accept or reject the lie, Farkle turned to us. "Guys I'm officially freaking out!" With only less than half an hour left on the road, it was about time he have an external freak out.
"Farkle don't worry everything will be fine!"
"Yeah Farks you gotta calm down!"
"You have nothing to worry about."
"This is a long-time coming."
Calming and supportive words came out of each of our mouths and made their way to Farkle's ears. When I noticed his face not relaxing in the least bit, I knew those words were probably going in one ear and out the other. We weren't on the freeway anymore and I could feel Farkle slowing the car down, driving even below the speed limit. He was not looking forward to this. After years and years of holding in his feelings and just being her best friend, he was a little disoriented at the idea of telling Riley he was actually pretty much in love with her. But that's just the thing: this was no longer the 'idea' of telling Riley, this was the reality of telling Riley. I knew exactly what that felt like and I sympathized with him greatly.
"Farks who knows Riley better than I do?" Maya asked.
"No one. You two are incomplete without the other," Farkle laughed. He turned the car down a little street, against what the navigation was telling him to do. My mouth stayed shut. I knew he wasn't quite ready to face Riley yet.
"Exactly!" Maya exclaimed, her hands landing comfortingly on Farkle's shoulder, rubbing tiny circles into it. "I'm a Riley expert. I promise you this will go great!"
"And if it doesn't go great? What then Maya?"
"Then I promise it won't go nearly as bad as you're thinking it will. Farks you have to calm down. She's your best friend, you should be able to tell her anything." Maya chirped.
I didn't know if that statement was a little pointed towards me. I'm not selfish. I know Maya is trying to help Farkle, that's who the statement and the thought was mainly directed at. But it felt so right for it to fit our situation, as well. Farkle didn't answer. Instead he settled for taking deep inhales and exhales, bordering on hyperventilating. After letting the navigation reroute about 5 times from taking little turns where he knew he shouldn't have or going straight ahead when he was instead supposed to turn, he pulled up to the curb. Outside the right side of the car was Riley's little apartment building. Farkle didn't look. His eyes seemed focused on the unusual spot of his hands tightly wound around the steering wheel. Zay did him the favor of reaching over to the key in the ignition. Farkle's hand stopped him, looking around anxious.
"We're going home," he announced simply.
"What are you talking about?" I asked. This is why Farkle brought us, to stop him from doing something he would regret out of fear. And right now, leaving before even getting his chance is what he would regret for the rest of his life.
"I can't do this! It was a stupid idea to think I could. Thank you guys for coming but we're going home." He tried to put the car back into drive, but Zay was too quick. He reached back over and pulled the key out of the ignition, successfully turning off the car. I was about to say something but Maya leaned forward first.
"Farkle! You will regret it if you don't go in there and talk to Riley!" she said, almost reading my thoughts. "One day when Riley gets married, do you want to be the one marrying her? Or do you want to be the one in the audience thinking about how that could've been you if you had just gone into that house right now?"
It was a good question. He thought he missed his chance, but after all we had been through, after this trip, I knew this was his chance. And he had a choice of whether or not Riley knew the truth.
"I don't even know what to say," Farkle cried.
This was my turn. "Farkle listen to me. You are going to go in there and look her in the eye and tell her how much she means to you. You tell her that your friendship means everything to you, but that these feelings you have for her, they're too real and too strong to ignore." I knew Zay and Maya were hanging on my every word like Farkle was. I knew Zay realized that all my words were just a tangled up speech that I would give to Maya if I could. It seemed I would never get to say these words to Maya, so Farkle could use them for Riley if he wanted. Maya sat next to me, and I wondered if she knew that I was saying everything I wished I could say to her. "You know you are better for her than any guy she's ever been with; any guy she will ever be with. You know that right? And you know her inside and out, better than a lot of other people know her. You would do anything to keep her safe or make her smile; you pretty much already do now. Whether or not she feels the same, tell her you are never going to stop loving her because what you feel for her, it's too real. And it's not going away any time soon."
"This is terrifying," Farkle shared, after taking in what I had to say. I refused to look at Maya and see her reaction to what I just said.
"I think love is supposed to be terrifying bud," Zay offered. His hand landed on Farkle's back as a comfort.
"Alright. Let's just do it before I change my mind," said the genius. Maya was quick to follow in his lead when he undid his seatbelt.
"Did you think we were really going to leave before I got a chance to see Pumpkin?" Maya chirped, quickly getting out of the car and meeting Farkle by his door.
Zay and I were a bit slower than those excited two, staying behind to lock up the car. I don't know why I didn't expect Zay to say something. He had held his tongue for the whole day, besides his little outburst in curiosity of last night. But even I give him a free pass for that; even I would have been overwhelmingly curious if I was in Zay's place on that one. Just as I was about to step up onto the curb, Zay's hand pulled my arm back.
"Can I just say one thing?" he asked.
Why not? "Yeah sure go ahead," I tried to make my voice sound as though I was not in the mood for this. What I definitely didn't want was another argument.
"Look I'm just going to say one thing and then I'll let it go. Farkle's laying everything out on the line right now. You sure you don't want to take your own advice right now?" I tried my very hardest to keep my face straight. Of course I wanted to take my own advice! But your own advice is always harder to take. Maya and I just had an almost kiss and she didn't even want to acknowledge it happened. It was normal to not want to tell Zay about it, when we didn't even know what it meant to either of us. But she wouldn't even acknowledge it to me. That wasn't exactly a green light to tell her that I wished we had kissed, just once would be enough. But I wanted to kiss her always, I wanted so much more than to kiss her.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied before stalking off towards Riley's front door. This lie was much easier, but it was getting harder to keep it going, especially when it felt like my feeling for Maya were about to make every one of my seams burst.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed! The next chapter is HUGE. We get to see Riley, there's an important conversation between Lucas and Zay, and major Lucaya moment… plus we find out what Josh did…
So yeah next chapter is huge! We are coming to the end of this story soon so I'm sad about that. BUT I did just finish my asshole!Friar story so then I can start getting that posted! Love you guys!
Remember to review!:)
