April 30th 2021

Chapter 120
Our Surprises For Change

As they headed into the month of November, it felt as though the school year had hit a soft reset. It didn't affect the whole of the school, actually only touched about a handful of people, but where they were concerned… This was a brand new world.

There was still The Secret, and they had to continue to maintain appearances in a lot of ways. But a lot had been changed just for having Phoebe – and Stella – on the inside rather than the outside. It allowed the likes of Maya and Dylan to breathe easier. They might have told others who were halfway in the know, but then there was the Taylor of it all. He still didn't know about… any of it. And his parents, well, they didn't know that Phoebe knew anything either, not yet.

The morning after Halloween, Friday morning, it was as Maya had told Lucas. She was headed into school, so there was no way that it wouldn't all come up again at some time or another. Maya was tempted to enter school from the front, to put herself in the trajectory of running into the two girls and talk to them, but eventually she decided against it. They would have had their sleepover last night, and this morning, and maybe they'd already talked the subject to death in all this time, but Maya preferred to give them that extra time before classes started, too.

When she saw them again, it was as they walked into her class for first period. It felt like they were all in a secret club. They would exchange a look full of knowledge without saying a word. Phoebe smiled, like she found the whole thing so amusing, and Maya was glad for it. They made it through the period, and they went on their way. Morning carried on, and then when lunch time came around…

"Mrs. Friar?" She turned to find them in the doorway, each carrying their meals. Like the old days…

"Come on in, ladies," she smirked, indicating their usual station.

As they went and sat, she moved to close the door and thought about Morgan, who was bound to come along any minute. So, she hurried to go and text her, to let her know she was meeting with a couple of students. With that done, she went out to the cafeteria and returned a few minutes later with her own food. Stella and Phoebe had waited for her to start eating.

"How was it last night? Did you sleep alright?" Maya asked Phoebe.

"Not really," she admitted, her smile faltering enough to show the sleeplessness she'd been hiding beneath her cheerful demeanor. "There was too much going through my head. There's so much I need to… re-examine, about my parents, about my life… I remember what you told me last night, and I'm going to keep it in there, I will. But it doesn't change the fact that they've been keeping this from us all along, and it's just… it's not like I found out they lied about Santa Claus, you know?"

"Phoebe, the amount of family plot twists I have in me… Trust me, I understand that," Maya nodded. This statement briefly left the two girls with questions in their eyes, but they weren't about to pry, so they moved on.

"I'm going to talk to them about it. I have to, but… I can't do it now. It's almost Christmas, and what if it messes everything up? Taylor doesn't like to show it anymore because he thinks he's too old for it and it's not cool anymore, but he loves Christmas. It's always been our thing, me and him, decorating the house, and making breakfast on Christmas morning, since he was like five years old. If this all gets out now and just…" she mimed an implosion, complete with the sound effect.

"So, waiting after New Year's then," Maya tipped her head in understanding.

"Don't think he'll mind me ruining Valentine's Day for him, if I even suggest his having a date, he turns into…" she now twisted her face into a new expression that made Maya and Stella laugh.

"A teenage boy?" Maya filled in, leaving the two friends to go on laughing. Once the feeling spent itself, they were back to where they'd been, weren't they? She needed an outlet. "Alright, well…" Maya stood from her stool, dusting her hands from crumbs before moving to the boxes stacked next to her desk. Two of them had been filled with the morning classes' diaries, two were still empty and awaiting their loads, and then the last… "Take this," she brought a blank sketchbook to Phoebe. "Whatever you feel the need to let out, with… a drawing, or with words… The pages are all yours. I won't look at any of it unless you tell me it's okay."

"What if my parents see it? Or Tay?" Phoebe looked intrigued but also concerned.

"You can leave it here with me, or you can give it to her," Maya indicated Stella, who happily nodded in support of this idea. "It never has to get anywhere near your house. Sometimes, just getting to pull these thoughts out of your head, little by little, it can help to just… declutter."

It had been a little over two weeks now since Phoebe had been given her 'secret diary,' and in that time she and Stella had essentially reinstated their art class lunches, just as they'd had them in their freshman year. The circumstances had changed, of course. After being simply overwhelmed by the cafeteria back then, Stella had been eating among her classmates for the last two years, and everything was fine. But by being here, Phoebe got to have some one-on-one time with her sketchbook before leaving it in the custody of her teacher, and it was helping. It was her chance to exist in her new reality, and she needed it.

Back home, she was now having to pretend like nothing had changed, something which was in no way easy for her. With her brother, it meant keeping this great big secret from him, even though he deserved to have access to it, too. He got along extremely well with his gym teacher, and she just wished she could tell him that he was their brother. With her father, it was this question of how he would have pursued his friend's wife, knowing what it would mean to the couple's family, their sons. And with her mother, there was the whole notion of her having had another family, other children, who she had walked out on, cleared the slate and started over with her and her brother… Because of her…

So, she would sit there, with Stella, and she would work away at her sketchbook, while her friend either did some drawing of her own, or read her textbooks, or did homework… Maya would sit at her desk and eat, often with Morgan, who was familiar with those two sitting in here from back in freshman year. More and more, Dylan would join them, too. Even if he couldn't go and mention anything to do with his being related to the Munroe siblings when Morgan was around, it didn't mean he and Phoebe had to pretend like they didn't get along all of a sudden. Maya doubted they could have done that anyway. For having experienced that sudden rush of kinship with siblings she hadn't known until years into their lives, she could understand very well what it had to be like for them. She'd always known they'd get along so well if they only got the chance to know one another as brother and sister, and now she had the proof before her eyes.

They got to get along, got to bond, as they'd been denied up to now, and that was great. But sooner or later Dylan would be brought to face Peter and Jo, he knew, and he would still be the one who'd taken his mother, and she would still be the one who left him, and to Phoebe… They'd be the ones who'd lied to her. As great of an outcome as Dylan and Phoebe were getting, it was only one side of things, and none of them could forget it, especially when there was still Taylor to consider.

As the year was progressing, even if they were not even three months into it, Taylor Munroe was no longer a stranger to his art teacher or his gym teacher. They were getting to know him more and more, which made keeping this secret from him feel worse and worse. For Maya, as the weeks went by, it came from finding how much he did genuinely love to draw, how he had his own style. In his diary, he had started tipping his hand, showing an interest, a skill, and an appreciation for storytelling. Just the week before, when she'd gotten back everyone's diaries, she'd opened his to discover he had fulfilled his weekly assignment by creating a two-page comic book spread. It was a very short but effective story and, whether it came from internalized guilt or simply a desire to nurture an idea, she came up with a plan.

"Hey, Sammy, who's your favorite big sister?" Maya smirked as her brother picked up her call.

"I can hear your eyebrow going up," Sam declared.

"And you wouldn't want to make it angry, would you?" she teased.

"Should I be concerned?" he asked, which made her laugh.

"I need your help with something. You keep telling me you can work from anywhere, any chance you could work from right here in this classroom for a day and take like… four breaks?"

"What would I be doing in these 'breaks?'"

"Helping me lead a class on comic art for my students," she revealed, hoping she sounded particularly inviting. She more or less expected him to be on board, but it didn't hurt to put chance on her side, right?

"Oh… Yeah, I can totally do that, sounds great," Sam replied, and she could just imagine the smile on his face. "When do you want to do it?"

"Let's say Friday of next week? Nice week ender, yeah?" Maya suggested.

"I…" his voice stretched like he was thinking. "Yeah, I'm free, you're on. I can come by so we can look some things over together, then I'll get back to you with materials."

"Hey, who's my favorite oldest brother?" she smiled to herself. He laughed. "You and Dora want to come for dinner tonight?"

"She's got a late class tonight, but we can do tomorrow. I'll check with her and get back to you."

"Done," Maya nodded.

Another day done, she left the school, ensuring that Phoebe's sketchbook was in her bag. She didn't open it, not once. For now, that was how Phoebe wanted it, so Maya respected the choice. It went in there and it stayed there, until the next time when she came looking for it. She wouldn't always take the book to add more to it. Sometimes, Maya could see her just sit and flip through the pages she'd already filled. She would look over everything she'd put there a few days before, and Maya didn't know exactly what would be going through her mind at the time, but she knew that it was helping her take everything in and think it over, and that was what mattered. Would it make it so that she was where she wanted to be by the time Christmas was over and she could finally have that talk with her parents and her younger brother? There was no way to know, not yet. All they could do was exactly what they were already doing. All they could do was hope.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners