"You need to break up with Helia."

Flora crinkled her eyebrows together, pausing her motions of digging a trail in the dirt for her snapdragons, and instead looked over her shoulder to the voice behind her.

Standing at the entrance of her greenhouse was Riven, toned arms crossed over his chest and feet planted on the floor, a neutral look on his face as he stared back at Flora, who was kneeling against the patch of dirt. She had to strain her neck to look up at him.

Her arms went limp on her sides, cocking her head as she asked, "What?"

"You need to break up with him," he repeated, not moving. He knew that this wasn't the right thing to advise her, but he didn't know how else to make the situation make sense. This was the only reason that Riven could think of that he would accept.

"Why?"

Riven didn't say anything. He just stood there for a few more seconds before he walked over to her, kneeling down beside her and grabbing the shovel out of her hand to continue her task. Flora didn't question how he knew exactly how to plant the snapdragon seeds. Sow the seeds thinly, lightly press them into the dirt, don't cover it.

"It'll give him an actual reason to go."

"What are you talking about?"

Riven pressed the last seed into the trail, placing the shovel down next to him and then stared at his work. He could feel Flora's curious eyes bore into his face, but he didn't want to look at her. He was too afraid of her reaction.

"He got into Oskuria."

Flora felt her heart stop in her chest, and the greenhouse began to spin, the plants behind Riven turning into a green blur. This came as a surprise to Flora, as Helia and she only briefly ever talked about him going to the private boarding school for wizards.

Helia had recently discovered that his family line was part wizard a few months back, so he possessed the powers one would with a wizard ancestry, but the idea of going to Oskuria to fully become one was supposed to only be that, an idea.

"He didn't tell me he-"

"He didn't tell anyone," Riven interrupted, looking up to Flora whose eyes began tearing up, understanding what Helia's acceptance meant. Oskuria had strict rules for their students, and outside contact was prohibited in order to keep their students in line. And if you got in, you don't get to say no. "He only told me because I saw him packing."

"When does he have to go?"

"Tomorrow."

"What?" Flora cried out, falling back from her kneeling position, feeling the dirt press against the bottom of her skirt.

"He didn't want to tell you because he didn't want to hurt you. But I didn't think it's fair of him to do that to you," Riven grumbled, knowing that it wasn't fair of him to do that to any of them.

"So you were just going to leave without saying anything?" Riven scoffed, crossing his arms across his chest as he watched Helia pack up a suitcase, not once looking up to him.

Riven had walked into their shared bedroom to see Helia putting away his stuff, making a joke about moving in with Flora so she didn't have to come over all the time, but when he glanced at Helia's desk with the acceptance letter from Oskuria on it, he felt that familiar feeling of losing a friend again.

"It's easier this way."

"I know it's easy, I've done it before. But just because it's easier for you doesn't make it right to just walk away from all your friends, from your own girlfriend."

Helia sighed, staring down at the book in his hands, coincidentally one that Flora had bought for him during one of her trips to Earth with Bloom, and he shook his head, throwing it in the bag.

"She'll understand-"

"And what if she doesn't?"

"Why do you even care, Riven?" Helia said loudly, grateful that the other boys were out and couldn't hear them. "It's my life, my choices, my relationship."

"I care because you're my friend," Riven admitted. Helia just continued packing.

It took a lot for Riven to feel vulnerable, to be upset about things involving other people. He had trained his body to take in trauma and deal with it objectively, to know when to leave and when to tell his heart to stop caring. But when it came to the Winx and the Specialists, they had torn down his walls and made him care about them more than he intended to and he hated it. In a way, he couldn't even be mad at Helia, he would have done the same thing he was doing if it was the Riven from a few years ago.

Flora choked out a sob, snapping him out of his thoughts and reminding him why he should be mad. He stared at Flora's state, tears streaming down her face, dirt-caked hands smearing the mud over her cheeks as she tried to wipe away the pain. His heart broke with hers.

"I'm sorry Flo," Riven whispered, reaching up to rest a hand on her shoulder. "I didn't want to be the one to tell you, but Helia wasn't going to and I didn't want you to be blindsided when he left. You out of all people deserved to know."

Her sniffles got heavier as they sat in the dirt, Riven giving Flora the space to grieve. He wasn't sure what to do in this unexpected situation, Flora and he got closer when she started dating Helia, and as he got to know her more during the times she came over, he cared for her. He didn't want to, but he did.

"I need to find him," Flora's voice was coarse due to the crying, and Riven nodded.

As Flora raced out of the greenhouse, he turned back to the patch of dirt and repeated planting the snapdragon seeds on a new trail. It was the least he could do for her after dropping that bombshell of news. Sow the seeds thinly, lightly press them into the dirt, don't cover it.

"He left."

Riven didn't turn around. He sat at his desk, facing the other side of his room where Helia's things used to be, but now was just an empty shell of his friend.

"I know."

"I broke up with him." He felt her walk into the room and sit on his bed. "It didn't make me feel any better."

"I know."

Riven finally turned over to face Flora, who was perched at the edge of his bed, hands folded in her lap. Her gaze was on Helia's side of the room, and she sighed, closing her eyes as the memory of her now ex-boyfriend flooded her mind.

"It hurts."

Walking over to the bed, Riven sat besides her, and she immediately buried her face into his chest. He could feel the tears soak his thin black t-shirt, but he didn't care. He held her in his arms, a hand stroking her back as he allowed her to cry.

"I'm sorry," Riven said, frustrated that he can't seem to find new words to say. He hated saying he was sorry because it wasn't his fault, but what else was there to say?

They sat there in silence, Riven kept his hand on her back to keep her against him and used his other hand to hold her head, brushing her fallen hair out of her face so it didn't get in the way as the tears streamed down her cheeks.

Comforting Flora was odd, because it used to be so easy for him to just push people away and leave when they get too emotional, but he knew he couldn't leave Flora like this. He was better than that now.

He heard shuffling from the living room, but he ignored it. His main focus was on Flora, whose sobs died down when she also heard the voices outside. They remained quiet, not wanting the other boys to come in just yet, and Flora looked up to Riven.

"Do they know?" she asked.

"He left them a letter."

Flora pursed her lips, nodding. After three years of friendship, of living in the same apartment, of being in life or death situations together, all Helia could do was a letter.

The door crept open, but she didn't move. Her body stayed leaning into Riven's since she wasn't ready to leave his embrace just yet. Flora felt Riven turn his head, and he didn't move either. He nodded towards the door, and Flora sensed the presence of bodies walking into the room, and she quickly wiped her tears away.

"Hey Flora," Sky said, and she looked up to see the blond-haired Specialist smile sympathetically down at her. "You okay?"

Shaking her head, she shrugged, looking towards the two other boys next to him, and she noticed the similar upset and disappointed looks on their faces.

"Are you guys?"

"We're surprised," Brandon started, glancing over to Helia's bed. "We thought we were better friends than that."

"Yea," Flora couldn't help but let out a tiny laugh, but it sounded more like a big breath. "I thought so too."

The room fell into a silence, Riven rubbing her back as she sat up, the five of them not saying a word as they remembered their old friend, trying to figure out if they really were ever friends. Flora sniffled, wiping her nose with the tissue Sky offered her, and she hung her head, knowing that their group dynamic will never be the same again.

"The girls are coming over with a pizza," Timmy broke the silence, and Flora smiled softly.

She hadn't had much time to be with her friends, hearing the news about Helia yesterday from Riven had sent her into a tailspin of confronting Helia, them fighting all night just to watch him leave her anyways, and spending the rest of the day wandering Magix until she got the courage to come to Red Fountain.

"If you're okay with it of course," Timmy stammered. Flora knew that the shy boy was always looking out for everyone's comfort, and she was so grateful to know that her friends were going to be there for her. Unlike someone else.

"Yea, I would like that."

"Ok," Brandon said, kneeling down to place a hand on her knee."Do you want anything? Water, tea?"

Shaking her head, Flora smiled again, grabbing his hand. "No, but thank you. Can I just stay in here until they come?"

"Of course," Sky nodded, walking towards the door, Brandon and Timmy in tow. "We'll let you know when they arrive."

They left the room, but just as Riven got up, Flora grabbed his hand. "Please stay."

Riven looked down at the Nature Fairy, eyes wide and wet with tears, face flushed from the crying. He felt the pain of his friend leaving and his other friend hurting forcing him to do the opposite of what he could've done with no hesitation a few years ago.

He walked over to the bedroom door and closed it, before walking back over to Flora and sitting besides her again.

Both of them didn't talk for a while, each unsure of what to say. They just sat on Riven's bed, soaking in the loneliness of the bedroom where Helia used to always be wandering around, nagging Riven about his mess but then piling his books on the ground since he didn't have any more shelf space, or making a makeshift picnic when it was raining outside during one of his and Flora's date nights.

"It's hard to believe if he really cared about me," Flora whispered, and Riven had to turn his head so he could hear the barely audible words. "Nothing he said made any sense."

"What did he say?" Riven asked, but he wasn't sure if he wanted her to answer. He didn't want her to have to go through that memory again, even though he knew that she would probably go over it in her head a million times anyway.

"It was like you said, he didn't want to hurt me. But I told him that it hurt me more that he did it this way and he just.."

Flora's sentence trailed off as the tears began to well up again. She quickly wiped them away, tired of crying.

"He just kept making excuses as to why this was what he wanted and what he was meant to do. And like, of course I get that, I would've supported his decision to go if he had just let me be there for him. But the whole time we were arguing over that, he never once acknowledged how his way of leaving affected me, affected more than just me. It affected you, Brandon, Sky, Tim, the girls. He was adamant that nothing else mattered except his future, which pains me because I had thought that I was included in his future."

Another pause to bring her hands up to her face, drying her cheeks of the wet tears. Riven quietly watched her from the other side of the bed. Hearing the brokenness in her voice hurt him, as he realized that he had been the Helia in this situation before, and he regretted it - he had hurt someone like Flora.

"He just made leaving seem so easy."

Riven clenched his jaw, turning away from Flora. That one really stung.

He thought back at all the times he himself had walked away from friends when things got too complicated, when he felt like he needed a new start.

It was easy to leave. It was easy to just abandon an old life and not care about what other people felt because you're the one that left. There was no sad goodbyes, no need for closure, no false promises of seeing each other again or "I'm always here if you need me!"s. There was nothing, and nothing is better than the hurt and pain of having to leave people behind. But Riven realized that it's because the ones that feel the hurt and pain are the ones being abandoned.

"Before I came to Red Fountain, I had a habit of not letting people in or get to know me since I had learned from a young age that at the end of the day, all you have is yourself. Moving around a lot as kid forced me to get used to temporary friendships, and this pattern made walking away from people even easier, because eventually I always did. I would be there one day and be gone the next with no explanation. Then I would ignore every phone call or text I got, because back then, I believed that calling someone your friend is really just a label, something that could be dropped. I didn't think that people could actually care about me."

Flora listened intently to Riven, and she was surprised at how much he was telling her, sharing with her about his past life and mistakes. He was usually a man of few words, but the way he pieced his sentences together made every word count.

"Leaving is easy, but staying is always harder," Riven sighed, trying to articulate the words in his head. "Sometimes, people have to do things in a way that makes sense to them in the moment, despite how other people see it. I'm not trying to make any excuses for Helia, but there are times where you have to be selfish because you don't know how to be vulnerable or are too scared to be vulnerable."

Riven spoke from the heart, defending his own actions but also taking accountability for them. He knew it would be unfair of him to hold a grudge against Helia, and if everything happens for a reason, his experience and similarity with the situation will help Flora and the gang through it.

There was another silence between them, and then whispers at the front door indicated that their deep conversation had to end. But for the first time in the past day there were no tears streaming down Flora's face.

"Thank you for everything, Riv," Flora said, smiling over to the maroon-haired boy, who smiled back, and moved closer to him to grab his hand, interlocking their fingers. "Thank you for being here for me. I'm grateful to have someone like you."

He threw an arm around her shoulder, bringing her body closer to him so that he could plant a kiss on her temple. "I'll never leave you, Flo."

will most likely stop this series at ten chapters because there's only so much i can write about. might come back if i have any ideas but i'm already running out for the last few chapters so who knows