Riley and Maya were waiting impatiently when Auggie burst through the door.

"Auggie, what happened? Did you find Dad and Shawn?" Riley asked quickly.

"Yeah!"

"Well, what did they say?!" Maya urged.

Auggie took a second to catch his breath and then exhaled loudly.

"Okay, so they were in Shawn's room with the door closed and I sat outside and listened," Auggie began. "They were talking about what happened, and Shawn said 'I don't love her!' and Daddy didn't believe him."

"He said he doesn't love her?" Riley questioned.

"Riley!" Maya said, looking excitedly at her best friend. "He was probably talking about Angela!"

"Yeah, he said her name a couple times," Auggie added.

"Oh my gosh!" Riley exclaimed. "Do you know what this means?!"

"It means our plan has a chance!" Maya cried with relief. She jumped up and Riley joined her to dance in celebration. They screamed with delight as they danced.

"Wait, that's not all," Auggie said, interrupting the girls.

"Oh, this is great!" Riley said. "Did he say he doesn't want to date her? Or that he only sees her as a friend?" Riley's excitement caused the girls to begin to scream again.

"Not exactly."

They stopped and looked at him, their smiles beginning to fade.

"What did he say?" Maya asked.

"He said he loves someone else," Auggie said solemnly.

"What?" Maya said, confused and upset.

"And then Daddy said that he knew it and that they're perfect together."

"Well, who is it?" Riley asked.

"I don't know. I couldn't hear who it was. And then they came out of the room after that."

"Great. He's probably dating some girl in some city he wrote for," Maya said, sitting back down again with hurt in her eyes.

"Maya, we don't know that," Riley said, going to Maya to comfort her.

"Who else would it be?" Maya asked. "We probably haven't even heard of the girl. If he loves her then they must be pretty serious." She sat silently for a second, thinking. "Gosh, how did we not see it before? He's not interested in Angela, and he's not interested in my mom."

Riley didn't know what to say to help her friend. So she just put her arms around her and hugged her.

"Thank you, Auggie," Riley said, dismissing his services.

"Do you need my help?" he asked, feeling bad for Maya.

"No, Auggie. We're good here," Riley answered.

"But I think I could help," he said, trying to convince her.

"Auggie, you've done your part. The plan's done. Shawn loves someone else."

"You can't give up!" he pleaded.

Maya jumped up angrily and yelled, "Auggie! It's over! There's no more plan! We don't need you here!"

Auggie turned quickly and ran out of the room, upset at Maya's words.

"Maya!" Riley yelled. "How could you say that to him?"

"Riley, it's done! We don't need a spy, we don't need these dumb secret meetings, and we don't need to plan! Let it go!" she fired back.

"Well, you could have been nicer about it."

"I'm upset, okay? I don't care if I could have been nicer! There's nothing to hope for now! The plan didn't work!"

"That doesn't give you a reason to yell at my little brother," Riley said angrily. She shook her head at Maya and walked out, leaving the door mostly shut and Maya alone in the room.

"Auggie!" Riley called after him, running quickly down the hallway.

Maya watched Riley run out and then realized what she'd done. She'd yelled at an innocent six-year-old boy who just wanted to help her out. He's a little kid that looks up to her. Then when his sister tried to reason with her, she fired at her too. Now they were both mad at her.

Maya sighed and then began to cry. She didn't know how it started, but tears began rolling down her face. She let her legs collapse and she sat on the floor wondering why things never worked out for her. Her crying increased to sobs as she let out the pain of everything that she'd been holding onto inside.

She thought about how she was alone at home most days because her mom worked all the time. She thought about how no boy at school liked her because she held onto a tough bad girl act. Then she thought about Riley and how lucky she was to have this wonderful family of two parents that loved each other so much, and soon to be two younger siblings born from them. But mostly she thought about how she didn't have a father. She thought about her real father, and his new family, and how he never cared to remember her. And about how Shawn was never going to be her father, no matter how much she wanted him to be.

After thinking about all these things, she was crying hysterically on Riley's floor. Makeup ran down her cheeks and her face became red and hurt from being scrunched up.

Suddenly she heard footsteps coming from the hallway and she quickly wiped her cheeks and sat up, trying to calm herself down.

The door opened and Cory appeared, trying to see what was going on. When he saw Maya sitting on the floor and how distraught she was, he gasped and ran over to her.

"Maya! What's wrong?!" he asked frantically.

"Nothing," Maya said, still wiping her swollen eyes.

"Do you want me to get your mom?" he asked her.

"No!" Maya said, holding her hand out at him. "Please don't tell her."

"Maya, you need to tell me what's going on right now or I'm going to go get her," he said seriously.

Maya tried to stand and felt lightheaded, nearly falling over. Cory held his hand out to help her up.

"Thanks," she said, sniffling.

"What's going on?"

"I don't know," she said. She could feel tears coming back, so she blinked them away. "Nothing's going right. I guess I just needed to let it out."

"Maya, you need to talk to somebody. If you don't want to talk to me, then fine, but I'm here to listen."

She looked at her teacher, her best friend's dad, and remembered all the times he'd been there for her when she needed someone. There was the father-daughter dance at school when he danced with her, the time he bought her a new cell phone and art supplies, just in the last few months. "Yeah, I do want to talk."

He walked over to the window and sat down. He patted the seat next to him and Maya sat down.

"Tell me what's up," he said.

"Well, I just started thinking about everything that's been going on lately, and I just lost it," she said, sighing. "I guess I'm pretty weak, huh?" she asked.

"Maya, you are one of the strongest people I know. Crying doesn't make you weak. What were you thinking about?"

She said, "About my dad. And his new family. He doesn't even write, you know?" she said, tears beginning to fall once again.

Cory felt horrible about Maya's situation and didn't really know what to say.

"I know, Maya. It's not your fault."

"I know that," she said. "Sometimes. But then I think that there was only two of us to begin with, and it had to be one of us that drove him away." She began crying hard again.

"Maya-" he began. Before he could say anything, Maya had wrapped her arms around his shoulders and was hugging him tightly, crying on his shoulder. Cory put his left hand on her head and his right arm around her back to comfort her. "It's okay," he said quietly.

Maya began crying even harder after hearing him say that. Having Cory around was great- he took her under his wing as if she was his own daughter. She would always love him like a father for that reason. But hearing him say that made her think that it should be her own father comforting her.

She cried for a few minutes until she settled down a little. The hard crying was over. Cory thought that she would want to sit up, but she continued to hug him tightly, rocking back and forth.

There were more footsteps and then Topanga appeared at the door.

"There you are!" she said cheerily, walking into the room. Then she saw what was going on and stopped in her path.

"Cory, what's wrong?" she asked, walking over to sit next to Cory.

Cory looked painfully at Topanga and didn't say anything.

Topanga's brow crinkled and she said, "Should I go get Katy?"

Cory shook his head.

"Maya? Sweetie?" Topanga said, softly rubbing Maya's back.

There was no answer. The crying had ceased.

Topanga looked behind Cory's shoulders and saw that Maya's eyes were closed.

"She's sleeping," Topanga said quietly.

Cory closed his eyes and sighed.

"What happened?" Topanga whispered.

"I don't know," Cory said. "I was walking by and I heard someone crying. I came in and she was sitting on the floor crying hysterically. I tried to talk to her, but all she told me was that she was upset about her dad."

"Well something must have happened," Topanga said.

"I know," he answered. "But I don't know what. Although I bet I know someone who does."

Topanga nodded, understanding him. "Should I go get Riley?" she asked.

"No. I think we should let her sleep. She's calm. If Riley comes in and makes noise, it'll wake her up and make her upset again."

Topanga nodded again and asked, "Why can't we get Katy?"

"I don't know that either. But Maya was really against it. It must have something to do with Katy too."

Topanga sighed. "Why does all this have to happen to a sweet thirteen-year-old girl? Why does she deserve this?"

Cory shook his head. "I'm glad we're here, though. If we weren't, I don't know who she'd go to if she can't go to her mom."

"Yeah," Topanga agreed. She leaned her head on Cory's shoulder and scooted close to him. He put his head down on hers in response.

"I hope we do the right thing," Cory said.

"I know," Topanga said, looking worried. "Do you really think we shouldn't tell Katy?" she asked, looking up at him.

"Well, Maya's obviously trying to protect Katy. She must think that this will hurt her. I think that when Maya wakes up, we should talk to her about it and decide from there," Cory answered.

Topanga leaned up and kissed Cory tenderly.

"What was that for?" he asked.

"You're amazing," she said quietly.

Cory smiled a small smile at her and kissed her again.

"I couldn't do it without you."

Okay, so that was a pretty intense chapter. I hope you liked it, even though it was sad. Please review and let me know what you think!