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AN: I am so sorry i haven't been updating. I know where i want to take this story but i'm having a lot of issues getting there. Thank you all for sticking through this! 3 This is short but at least it's something
IMPORTANT NOTE: AS seen in previous chapters i'm not following the hart family thread exactly. Aka changing katys parents.
"Riles you can stop stressing ." Maya hissed through her teeth, keeping a charming smile seared over her face. Maya had been mingling around the party for about an hour, saying hello to her few relatives and family friends, making polite small talk and thanking people for gifts she had yet to open.
Maya hadn't had much time to speak to Riley since she and Josh had come down from her bedroom. Every time that Maya had looked across the room and caught sight of Riley her best friend had been throwing nervous looks at the front door, clearly anticipating the moment that Lucas would walk through it.
Maya had slowly made her way across the room until she had finally made it to Riley's side.
"He's not coming. You can breath now." She promised, trying to comfort her. Riley looked at her uneasily.
"How do you know?" Riley pushed looking between her friend and the front door.
" Just trust me." Maya stated, reaching down and taking Riley's hand, giving it a brief squeeze. Riley was still looking at her uneasily, unsure of how Maya could be so confident.
Maya didn't want to share with Riley that Lucas had actually been there and been on his way up. This was a stress that Riley could deal with another day.
"Nice necklace." Riley stated, suddenly distracted. Staring at the chain hanging around Maya's neck.
Maya's hand flew up to her throat to rest on the necklace that hadn't been there an hour before. Maya knew that Riley's next question would be about where she got it, and that wasn't something Maya felt like answering right now. Things with Josh had never been so simple, but at the same time they had never been so complicated. Maya didn't want to tell Riley anything until she was sure she had something to tell. Or more specifically what exactly she had to tell.
"Thanks" Maya said self consciously and quickly changing the subject.
" Do you think your mom has any more of that Hummus dip?" Maya asked quickly, turning away from Riley and peering over her shoulder towards the table where the lunch spread was laid out.
Riley narrowed her eyes at her but decided to let it go. She knew Maya would come clean eventually, and besides, Riley had bigger fish to fry at the moment.
Maya tried to retain her composure for the rest of the party, mingling around the Matthews apartment. She spent nearly an hour talking to her Grandmother, dancing around the more awkward subjects. Maya's relationship with her grandmother had never been perfect, mostly because Katys relationship with her mother had never been strong.
Katy had moved away from home young, married a man who wasn't good enough for her, and had a child when she wasn't ready. Her grandmother had not approved and she and Katy often went long periods of time without talking. Maya saw her grandmother once or twice a year although she only lived a few hours away.
Things between Katy and her mother hadn't been great towards the end of her life either. Her grandma had never approved of Shawn, thinking that Katy had rushed into another marriage that would only end in heartbreak. Her grandmother hadn't attended the wedding, and hadn't sat with Shawn and Maya at the funeral.
Then there had been the tense few days after Katys death when Maya's grandma had been trying to get Maya to move to Delaware and live with her. Her grandmother, Angie, had been very resentful of her grand daughter choosing to live with her new minted step father other her own flesh and blood. Then it had been Maya and her grandmothers turn not to talk for a few months.
Things were...okay with them now. Her grandmother and her husband had made the drive up from Delaware for her graduation and had written her a generous cheque as a gift. Still things were slightly off between them as they stood together in the middle of the party, sipping at the fruit punch that Topanga had been perfecting for the past 12 years.
Everyone once and awhile Maya would look across the room and catch Josh's eye. He would smile knowingly at her and she would feel her face flush as she shot him a shy smile back. The necklace seemed to tingle against her skin as she reached up absentmindedly to touch it. There was part of her that wished that they were still upstairs in her room, just the two of them, with his hands on her hips and her fingers brushing through his hair. She wanted to sigh thinking about it. Those few minutes in her room and been some of the most exciting, yet simple of her life. It was like something in her life had fallen into place. Something she thought might have been missing but never had been sure about.
But seeing Josh smile at her across the party and remembering how it felt to have his arms around her just a few minutes before, made her more certain than she had ever been in her whole life.
….
Maya and Josh hadn't really spoken again that day. They had said a quick goodbye as everyone was leaving but with a hole group watching it was nothing more than a simple wave of a hand and a quick smile.
But once she got back up to her room and unlocked her phone she saw that she had a text message, and she didn't need to look to know who it was from.
…
Going to the movies with Josh shouldn't have been a big deal. They did it all the time. See mid afternoon matinees on the weekends. But that had always been as friends. They saw movies too lame or obscure to see with anyone besides each other. They saw films based on books they had read at the others suggestion.
Now they were seeing a movie as what? Not friends. But they didn't have any other label for it, at least not yet.
This wasn't a normal thing for them. For starters this wasn't a matinee. Not that that should really matter. But there was something about the movies at night, the typical date spot that made Maya's stomach flop.
She had always found a certain comfort in going to the movies. Sitting in a dark theatre with the sound blasting around her, the screen so large that it felt as if it could swallow her up at any moment.
A few days after her mother had died Maya had spent the whole day in the movie theatre. It had been one of the instances when she couldn't stand to be in the apartment but couldn't have stomached going to school. Most of those days she'd just spent wandering the street, but that day it happened to rain. She'd walked around in it for a while, letting the water soak through her thin coat and drench through to her skin. She'd started to shake from the cold and ducked into the first place she'd saw, which happened to be a theatre.
She bought a ticket to the first thing that was playing and stayed there the rest of the day. She sat at the very back, her head resting against the wall. She'd watched the same movie a few times in a row before it had switched over to a new film. It hadn't mattered. She wasn't watching anyway. It was just a dark place to sit, where for a minute everything had felt normal, and everything had felt safe.
So in that sense, maybe the movies was the perfect spot for a first date.
