Author Note: Okay gang, um yeah so grab some tissues cause yeah you'll need them. I'm giving you fair warning! I am very curious to see what you all have to say after this chapter. XOXO
-35-
Zay carried the bag of fresh fruit with him as he stopped to make sure he had the right of way, crossing the street once he did. Just as he was about five feet from the curb he heard the squeal of car breaks as he jumped back just escaping being rundown by the cab.
The fruit in his bag had gone flying, run over now creating a roadkill fruit salad on the street. "What the hell?" He finally let the words escape from him when he saw the driver get out. "You?"
She squinted at him, "Oh Chorus Boy, you again."
"Are you trying to kill me?" He stormed towards her, "Did someone hire you to try and take me out, break my legs, I don't owe anyone any money so why do you keep trying to run me over."
She waved him away, "I wasn't trying to run you over, and why would anyone care to break the legs or kill a Chorus Boy?"
Part of him wanted to let her know exactly who he was, but he knew it wasn't worth it. "All I know lady is that this is the second time you've almost hit me with your cab. I've lived in this city for over eighteen years, never before have I almost been hit by a cab until you showed up."
"I had the right of way."
"No you didn't!" He could feel his blood boiling, his nostrils flaring, "Just stay the hell away from me. Stop trying to kill me, if it happens again I'm going to the police."
She rolled her violet eyes and pushed her dark hair back with her fingers, "Dude, I'm not after you so don't worry."
"Whatever you say you crazy bitch." Zay watched as she got back in the cab and ran over the only remaining orange.
Maya looked at the envelope in her hand as her fingers shook. She'd gotten it a few hours ago, but hadn't found the courage to open it yet. She wished she could open a bottle of wine and have a drink to calm her nerves, but she knew that was out of the question.
"Maya" The voice on the other side of the door startled her as the knocking began.
She slipped the envelope into a book and went to pull the door open seeing her younger brother, "Hey Johnny."
"Nate" He pushed his way in, "I go by Nate now."
Maya nodded, "Okay then, wait are you here alone, no Mom or Shawn?"
"Dad is with Uncle Cory and Mom is with Aunt Topanga, she had to go get her prescriptions to deal with the symptoms." Nate sat down, "Dad and Cory, it was just not a good vibe or whatever so I had to get out of there, and well Alex isn't answering her cellphone, probably with him."
Maya raised her eyebrow, "Him, you mean Wyatt her little friend?"
"Yeah him, the replacement for me" Nate sighed as he leaned back on her couch.
"Johnny, sorry, Nate" Maya sat next to her younger brother, "You have friends in Arizona right, maybe one you consider your best friend, right?"
"Yeah, I do, but it's not a girl why couldn't Alex become best friends with a girl, why a guy?"
Maya was starting to get a clearer picture, "The people we're meant to be friends with, they're drawn to us one way or another for one reason or another. Sometimes we're best friends our entire lives like Cory and Shawn, and sometimes we grow apart for a multitude of reasons like Riley and I did."
"Why aren't you and Alex's Mom still best friends?"
Maya tried to think of a way to explain this to her twelve year old brother, "Um well, I think Riley and I had very different journey's we had to go on, and her journey led her back to Lucas, and my journey led me to Charlie. If we'd clung to each other, at the end of the day, I'm not sure both of us would be happy, we wouldn't be where we're meant to me."
Nate sat up, "So you think there's a greater reason as to why everything happens."
"Yeah, I guess I do. Beside you guys are around for a while, Alex will need a friend to hang out with. She and Wyatt are practically attached at the hip, well as long as Lucas doesn't chase him out."
"What's the deal with that, is he really Alex's father?"
"Yes he really is."
"So" Nate played with the strings of his hoodie, "This Charlie guy, you're really going to marry him?"
"Yes, why?"
Nate shrugged, "I guess I just always expected you to end up with Farkle."
Maya scoffed, "Why would you think that?"
"I'm twelve what do I know, he just always seemed to adore you."
Maya glanced at the book on her table, "Yeah, I guess I took that for granted."
"Thank you ladies and gentlemen of the press for coming today" The woman sniffed and dabbed at her eyes as she stood outside on the city street. "It has taken me a lot of time and a lot of prayers to decide if coming forward is the right thing to do. I wish it didn't have to be this way, but after trying to contact him through his lawyers, management, and personally for almost three years I've given up. The public deserves to know the truth about this man, that Lucas Friar has not only denied being the father of our son, but has refused to acknowledge little Theodore's existence. And I'm not going to stop talking until he comes forward to be a father to our son."
Riley pressed pause of the video and looked to her husband, "What the fuck Lucas?"
He backed away from her, knowing the look in her eyes, "Riley I promise you this woman is lying, she's looking for a payday. I called my lawyers, my manager, everyone I could think of that would've been contact. No one ever contacted them saying I was the father of their child. And they shouldn't have because it's impossible."
"Lucas" Riley glared at him and pressed play on the video again as it focused in on the image of a young boy, "You have every right to have moved on from me, hell I get it if after you saw me with Clinton you went out and had a messy one night stand, but come on it can't be impossible. I know you're fertile."
"I've never had a one night stand." Lucas circled around her and closed the video, "I've only ever been with one woman. I've only ever been with you Riley."
She stared at him; he couldn't be telling her the truth. "Lucas, I know how professional athletes are. I've dated enough of them."
"I never let another woman get close enough to me for that." He took a tentative step towards his wife, "I've only ever made love to you. The only child I've ever had is with you. You Riley Matthews are my one and only."
"Then who the hell is this woman?"
"I don't know." Lucas shook his head.
"The timing is funny though." Riley looked to the screen, "You team has never been contacted by her, she makes this public statement after Alex posts that family picture to Instagram."
"Are your investigative reporter skills tingling?"
She nodded, "They are, something about this is sketchy." She looked into her husband's eyes, "I'm really your one and only?"
"I swear to God." He held his hand over his heart, "So how do we handle this scandal situation, whatever it is?"
She sat in her desk chair, "First I find out everything I can about Autumn Lloyd then we find out when she claims you two slept together and try to figure out where you were that night."
Lucas crouched next to her chair, "Riley, thank you for believing me."
She closed her eyes for a moment, "You're my husband Lucas, I have to believe you, besides I didn't believe in you or me when we were younger, and if I had this woman wouldn't be doing this now."
Lucas put his head on her lap, "Riley, I'm so sorry. It's like you can't catch a break."
Riley let her fingers run through his hair, "Sweetheart, we're only getting as much as we can handle, and as long as we're together I know we can handle anything and everything thrown at us."
"How do we explain to our daughter that this is nothing but someone lying?"
"We'll figure that out together."
Alex looked down at her nails as she sat on the front steps of Wyatt's home. "So you promise to do that old fashioned thing and write me once in a while?"
Wyatt smiled as he noted the sad, nervous look in her eyes, "Yeah, of course Al, I'll email you as well."
"Good" tentatively she reached for his hand, letting her fingers slip between his, "You know, if you kiss another girl at camp I'm going to be mad."
Wyatt laughed, "It's a boy's camp there won't be any other girls."
"There's a girls camp across the lake, for like dance or something. I looked it up." She couldn't look at him.
"Well if I can't kiss any other girls, you shouldn't be allowed to kiss any other boys." he squeezed her hand, feeling her eyes fall on her.
"I mean it's not like" she froze the words wouldn't flow.
"Not like what?" Wyatt felt his heart racing as he looked into her green eyes, "Not like we're boyfriend and girlfriend?"
Alex nodded, "Yeah, so since you're not my boyfriend you can't tell me not to kiss other boys and since I'm not your girlfriend I can't really tell you not to kiss other girls."
"What if you were my girlfriend?"
"You wouldn't be allowed in my bedroom anymore, my Dad might steal your shoes, and we could hold hands like we are right now and maybe if you wanted to you could maybe kiss me once in a while." She felt his fingers brush the lock of hair that had fallen from her ponytail away from her eyes, "Wyatt?"
His lips pressed against hers for a moment before he pulled away, "Will you?"
"Will I what?" her breath caught.
"Be my girlfriend?" He couldn't think of another moment in his life he'd been more nervous, not even when he discovered who her father was.
"Yes" the word spilled out as she bit her lip.
"Well then, it was going to be really hard to be apart from my best friend this summer, but it's going to be even harder now."
"It's just you and me Cory, so talk to me." Shawn looked out at the city as he and his lifelong best friend stood on the roof of his building.
"I'm terrified Shawn," Cory confessed, "She doesn't want to fight."
"Didn't they say there wasn't much they could do?"
"But there is something!" Cory gripped the side of the building "She doesn't want to try. I try to understand that Shawn, I try to understand how she can be so sure about just letting go, letting this do whatever it's going to do to her. But what if I'm not ready for her to go?"
"We don't always get the time to say goodbye. We don't get that short time where we now we're on the last few grains of sand in the hourglass. We don't always get to hold the woman we love in our arms, and tell her that one last time how much we love them. We don't always get to say goodbye, because life is unfair." Shawn kept his eyes on the skyline, "I don't think Topanga is ready to let go of you, the kids, your life, her life, but I think she wants to make the most of whatever time she has. To say goodbye, to leave you all with happy memories, do you really think she wants the last thing she and Auggie did was fight? Or that she told Riley to go back to Reese? No, and you have to let her do whatever it is that's going to let her feel at peace with what's coming."
"What about peace for Auggie, for Riley, for Alex, what about peace for me" Cory could feel the tears burning his eyes, "I'm not ready to do this without her Shawn. She's been by my side my entire life. I don't know how to do anything in this world without Topanga."
Shawn pulled Cory into his arms, "She is always going to be by your side. If anyone could always still be with you, it's her. She would talk her way into being your guardian angel, and you know it."
"I'm not ready Shawn, I'm not ready." He sobbed.
"I know buddy, but we're going to be here for you guys this summer." Shawn felt his friend shaking in his arms, "You've got me, Katy, we're going to do whatever we can."
Cory didn't say anything else as he continued to cry.
Maya put her younger brother into a cab and sent him on his way back to the Matthews apartment before she went back up to her loft. She picked the book up from the coffee table and pulled out the envelope.
Her fingers shook as she tore it open and pulled out the paper. She let her eyes go over the words several times before she folded it up and put it back in the envelope.
She knew now.
The results were exactly what she expected.