October 24th 2020

Chapter 298
Their Spooking of Visitors

As excited as she had been going into this day, by the time Maya returned home, her love for this year's Halloween had reached further heights still. Sure, it had nothing to do specifically with the day's festivities, but it was happening today, and so that totally counted in her book.

She wouldn't go so far as to say that she'd cracked the Rochelle case, that she suddenly had the freshman turned on to a new path, but she had definitely done something to start and turn her head. For the first time today, she had gotten a look out of the girl that didn't feel one hundred percent composed in annoyance and frustration. She'd gotten intrigue, curiosity, and those were some of her greatest allies. Rochelle actually wanted to know more, after Maya told her some of the things they had done as a team, told her about the competitions, the travels. Maybe she mostly saw it as a thing that would look very good on her transcripts for now, but it was something. She'd told her to come and meet her in the art class over lunch tomorrow, and then she'd sent her back on her way to science class.

For the rest of her break, and maybe for a portion of her class with the juniors, she'd tried to think about who else she knew that might have been a potential candidate for the team, which she and Cory would run together, the better to divide the load. Ariel Su came to mind, maybe Helena Zimmerman… She had a thought to bring in Stella Buckley, the better to open her up to new opportunities… An all-girl team… That was starting to be very interesting…

She needed to put a pin in this for now. She was home, and within a few short hours there would be kids descending upon their house, kids and teens, families, all looking to enjoy a bit of Halloween fun, and after that there would be the party inside the house, and then at midnight… Oh, what a night it would be. First things first, she needed to shed every bit of gold and glitter, returning herself to base level Maya before starting on a brand-new transformation.

Carefully pulling her crown of rays from her head as she went up the stairs, she dropped it off in her room and carried on down the hall toward the bathroom, pulling her hair over her shoulder to reach for the zipper on her dress. She had just gotten a hold of it when she came to a sudden stop, startled by her near collision with… Dora?

"Woah! Hey… Hey…" Maya's voice shifted from surprise, to confusion, to shock, even as the expression on the girl's face went from surprised, to startled, to awkward.

Lucas' young cousin stood before her, having just exited Sam's room. She stood before her, hair messily tumbled from a broken bun, covered by little more than a hastily buttoned shirt, while the rest of her clothes, boots and all, were in a mass she carried in her arms. If Maya had to guess, she'd been heading into the bathroom to get dressed.

Looking past the nineteen-year-old, almost more to follow a thought than through any personal wish to see whatever she'd find, she could just make out her brother, asleep in his bed, the covers just halfway up his naked back.

Too many thoughts… so many thoughts going through her mind… It didn't take much to understand what this all added up to, but it was still… No, no, no, too much…

She looked back to Dora now, standing there, staring back at her with growing panic on her face as she remained stuck in her compromising position, unable to breathe while she received no words.

"I'm going to go in there," Maya finally signed, surprised that her hands were not shaking as she then indicated the bathroom. "I need to get this gold off of me for tonight. While I do that, go in my room, get dressed. Wait for me downstairs." Dora stole a look back into Sam's room before turning back to Maya and giving her a nod. She hurried off into the room, shutting the door.

Maya breathed out, feeling almost woozy. She looked back at her sleeping brother, fighting the urge to go in there and wake him up and… and what? He was eighteen, and he may have lived in her house but he wasn't her kid, and… and he was single, wasn't he? He wasn't doing anything wrong, she guessed, except it felt wrong… It felt so wrong… And today of all days, today…

Maybe all that turmoil of shock and emotion gave her great scrubbing powers, because she powered through and was glitter free in record time. She was now free to go downstairs and have the most awkward conversation with a family member since that time she'd given her brother The Talk, which now that she thought about it made her feel like this would be a case of 'I laugh because I can't believe how ridiculous this is.'

Instead, the universe decided to do her one better. When she finally opened the bathroom door, it was just the exact moment when, across the hall, a barely awake Sam was realizing that Dora wasn't there. He moved to stand, then spotted his big sister in the bathroom doorway and immediately sat back down, grasping the blankets and holding them secured over his waist and everything below. His eyes were wide and his jaw was moving pointlessly, as though it expected to be able to catch the appropriate words.

"Yeah, hey, I've got nothing either," Maya shook her head, moving toward her room. "Pants. Find some," she called back.

The door was open again, Dora had gone downstairs. Changing out of her dress, Maya twisted her hair up and tied it before making her way down as well. As she got nearer, she could just make out Sam and Dora's voices, in hushed but hurried tones. She could just see them, in the kitchen. Dora looked ready to cry, while Sam was doing his best to reassure her. The way his hands seemed unable to breach the distance between them, like he wasn't sure he could, Maya could only guess that whatever had happened upstairs had been a first between them, in all likelihood a spur of the moment, without definition or expectation, just two people who'd carried one another in their hearts for years without means to see it through until suddenly…

As startled, as shocked as she'd been earlier, Maya didn't know what to make of it anymore. There was no way of ignoring it, not with everything that had already happened. And for all that… The thing that kept coming to Maya's mind was Cecilia. No one had done anything wrong, Sam and her, they'd been broken up for a couple months now, and they should both have the ability and the right to move on, if this was what that was, but still… Maya couldn't chase the memory of holding that girl in her arms while she cried on the couch not too long ago. She would be here tonight… Lucas might have called this a fitting finale to what had been four years, four Halloween nights featuring some situation or another involving those three. Oh… Lucas… She was not looking forward to filling him on this.

"I-I should go…" Dora spoke when Maya walked into the kitchen. Sam was shaking his head at her, biding her to stay.

"You don't have to do that," Maya insisted, earning relief off of her brother.

"No, but I need to, I… my costume isn't here," Dora specified.

"Alright, I'll drive you," Maya decided simply, turning to Sam, who tried to keep his eyes from bugging out. "Can you get things going with the set-up while we're gone?"

"I…" he looked to her, then to Dora, who was looking at her boots. "Okay… Y-yeah, I'll do that."

"Great. Let's go," Maya held out her arm for Dora to follow, which she did. They climbed into the minivan and took off Dora's apartment. "Did you just get in from school?" Maya asked after a few seconds of awkward silence.

"Yes," Dora confirmed quietly. "I was on my way home, a-and Sam and I had been texting while I was on the bus, so he asked if I wanted to come over early, to help with the things outside and…"

"Right, no, yeah, I get the picture," Maya cut her off. She did not need specifics of how the two of them had ended up in bed together.

"I'm really sorry… I didn't think… I wasn't there to…" Dora tried to explain, sounding again like she would cry, which just prodded at Maya's sympathies. She wished she wasn't at the wheel right now, so she could close her eyes a moment, take a breath, center herself again. All she could do was stay in the moment as it was.

"Has this been going on a while or…" she finally had to ask, to be sure.

"No," Dora responded at once. "N-no, we… it was just this once, I… we… I don't know what we're… I don't know…"

"But you still…" Maya slowly asked. She didn't need to finish the question for Dora to know what it was. You still love him. She hesitated to respond, but she nodded at last. "And he… he still…"

"I think… Yes…" Dora sighed. Maya drove on in silence for a few seconds more.

"Can I give you one piece of advice?" she finally asked. Dora nodded. "Whatever this is, if either of you thinks it might be something, just… take your time, really make sure that you're not just… reacting."

"I promise," Dora told her, maybe finally accepting that she wasn't in so much trouble as to be unable to breathe.

Maya stayed in the car while Dora dashed up to go and collect her costume. She found it near impossible not to just faceplant into the steering wheel a couple times, thinking of this new mess she'd stumbled upon. She could only guess what tonight would have been like if she hadn't busted the two of them, and… No, no, she wasn't even going to…

When Dora returned, bag in hand, they headed back for the house. They arrived to find Sam hard at work, possibly having taken the mess in his head like fuel, the thought of his sister and Dora out there and whatever conversation they might have been having just lighting a fire under him. As Dora went inside to get changed, Maya went to help Sam as he moved the extra hay from the maze into place. The moment his hands were empty, she pulled him into her arms and held to him.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Reminding myself that I love you so much so I won't say the first thing that comes to my mind right now and that I'll tell you the second one instead… maybe the fourth. It basically goes along the line of 'you better hope you know what you're doing, and if you hurt either of those girls, you and I are going to have some words you won't like.' Are we clear?"

"Super clear, yes," Sam nodded.

"Figured," Maya pulled back, giving him the tamest smack on the arm she could muster in that moment. "I know you did nothing wrong, but I still can't help but be mad at you right now, and I just… I have to go get changed. I love you," she tacked on, reminding him. Sam nodded, looking nonetheless like he was very aware that this was not his proudest moment by a mile. Maya felt restless down to her bones as she climbed the steps on to the porch. "Happy freakin' Halloween…"

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners