A/N: So here's another outline. This one and the ones for chapters 32 and 33 will be published by themselves, since I think they're elaborate enough for that. After 33 I might publish several shorter outlines together. It will depend on the chapter and, of course, on my ability to invest in enriching the outlines.
Thank you very much to those who responded, and to everyone who reads this, even though these are not exactly chapters and not written as they should've been and as I originally wanted to write them.
I apologize for any language/typing mistakes. Remember, these are outlines, they're less than drafts, and I don't have the time to go over them and don't want to bother the person who did beta-reading for the actual chapters.
Oh, also, I don't own the BBT, it's Lorre and Prady's. I just own my OCs and to some extent these versions of Halley and Michael.
Chapter 31: "Confession" (Elaborated outline)
September, 2039.
[Riley.]
Michael goes to MIT for a special MA program. Hard for both him and Riley. Riley confesses to "readers" her secret, that she has feelings for Michael. Says she's not sure when it started, they've always been best friends, but it certainly was there at his grandfather's funeral, when she was 14. She's ashamed of it, given the context, but tells how when they hugged, and held on to each other so close for so long, she could not help but feel her heart pounding, and want to be "his girl", be the one there for him in this and in everything. But he had a girlfriend then, Jess. Riley says Jess was great but they've since broken up, and he had some other girlfriends he's broken up with. Riley says it doesn't matter because all of his girlfriends were "girly girls" who wear dresses and jewelry do their nails and do all this stuff to make their hair perfect, they're what Howard calls "dream-gals" when he brags about Michael dating them. Riley says she's not that and will never be. All this primping up was never her things and is not in her nature, but it is in Michael's and so (she rationalizes) it makes sense that that's what he's looking for. And they're always tall, Riley adds, at least 2 inches above average height, at 5'2, that's certainly not in hers (Riley's) nature as well. She says the "Pattern Girls" are usually the tallest. And also the worst. Then explains to "readers" that Michael doesn't know this but that's what they call the girls he usually dates after breaking up with a serious girlfriend, that's his pattern. A Pattern Girl is always very pretty, very tall, very vain and.. not very bright. Riley says she thinks he's trying to find someone prettier than the one he's lost, but Halley disagrees, although she didn't bring up a theory of her own. Mentions Halley is starting law school, but won't be leaving home since it's close by.
Ends with Riley saying she knows Michael would never want her in a romantic way, and the closest to that she'd get is when they pretend to be a couple at events like Comic-Con so that guys would not bother or harass her. She concludes being his BFF is good enough, and important, to her, and that's why she's never told anyone about her feeling for him. But now that he's going to be miles away for two years. She tells herself how important it would be for his career in Micro-engineering, and how they're gonna have hologram-calls all the time, but it's like trying to fix a whole in her heart with a band-aid.