Description: Farkle Minkus gets dumped by the love of his life two days after the first time they'd ever been so close. A month passes and finally, he can't take it anymore, he needs to know why. Riley owes him why.

Author's Note: It's a break-up/make-up fic guys. I've already established that in this universe, these two go one to get engaged and have a baby on the way. BTW check out those snapshots, 'Summer Plans', 'Little Drunk, Lotta Careless', and 'Just Go To Sleep, Riles'.


Monday rolled around inevitably, like the dread in the pit of Riley's stomach.

She was at her locker when he found her. She'd pulled her hair into a simple ponytail that trailed down her spine, adorning a white t-shirt, black leggings, and a loose gray jacket. Farkle thought she looked absolutely beautiful until he noticed that her attire was missing something.

Riley wasn't smiling.

"Hey," He greeted, uneasily rocking on his conversed feet with his hand shoved into his pockets, "How, um, are you feeling?"

God, what was wrong with him? This is Riley! So, why did it feel like she was miles away when he knew he could just reach out and touch her?

She collected her books and shut her locker, "Better, I guess."

"That's," Farkle rubbed the back of his neck. "Good."

Riley nodded, leaning her shoulder against the metal of lockers and shifting her books in front of her, almost like a shield.

"So, I know you're avoiding me," Farkle stated, matter-of-factly.

Maybe he had hoped she'd roll her eyes and give him a smile, that she'd reach up and lightly pat his cheeks and tell him, Love, not everything is about you. Sometimes people don't feel good. Maybe he had hoped she'd at least deny it.

Instead, she just moved her gaze from one shoe to the other.

Nodding, he sighed, "Well, this is just wonderful..."

Farkle still didn't understand. If Riley was ignoring him, and now he knew she was, the timing would indicate it was because... well, because they'd had sex.

God, did she regret it? Wish she could take it back?

He didn't think so, though, because Riley had seemed to... enjoy herself as much as he did. In fact, Farkle knew she had, recalling sweat, giggles, and gasped names from just days ago. Shaking his head, he fiddling with his hands nervously, "Look, if this is about that night than we can tal-"

"I think we should break up."

Farkle stopped breathing, stopped moving, stopped everything.

He'd heard wrong. She'd said something else, literally anything else. Because she- She couldn't have said- It just wasn't possible. He knew life could be cruel, that the world could kick you down and make you feel small, like a nothing.

But it couldn't that cruel. It could not just… take Riley from him, not now, not when he'd just gotten to know every piece of her, not ever. They were always, it didn't make sense. He loved her.

He'd promised. Always.

Coming crashing back to reality, Farkle jerked back as if she'd struck him. Looking at her like she was a complete stranger to him, this girl he knew better then he knew anything, he barely managed to choke out, "W-what?"

Riley's eyes filled up tears and she looked up at the ceiling, blinking furiously. Clearing her throat, she shook her head, "I just think it would be best for us both," She shrugged, biting her cheek, "I love you, Farkle, but-"

"Wait, wait, wait," He pleaded, throwing his hands up, "Just stop there, okay? Please, Riley, ju-just stop there. You love me and I love you, so just stop there, okay? Because, always, remember?"

Her face crumpled at the slight waver in his voice and she brought a hand up to cover her mouth, shaking her head.

Farkle stared at her, true horror and panic setting into his system like an infection, like a fever. Swallowing hard with tears in his eyes, he reached out and took her other hand, desperately trying again, "I can fix this, Riles. I can make it right!"

She dropped her hand and opened her mouth to speak but he cut her off.

"Whatever I did, Riley, I'm sorry, okay? I'm so sorry! I'll-" His voice cracked and he cursed before continuing with teary eyes, "I'll be better, I'll do better. I'll keep my promises and I'll listen, whatever you want!"

The girl's eyes trailed down to their hands, fingers intertwined, such a perfect fit it could have only been crafted in the heavens.

Farkle, noticing her gaze, tightened his grip like maybe, just maybe, if he held on tight enough, she'd stay.

"Babe," His name for her, the name that only felt right coming from his lips. Her eyes darted to meet his, to that electric blue that spoke to her heart and touched her soul, "I know I don't even deserve to ask," He begged in a broken whisper, "But please."

Please don't do this. Please stop.

Please.

Just.

Stay.

His pleading eyes said it all as they took each other in, tears clouding both of their visions. Riley took a shaky breath and a step forward.

Farkle's heart skipped a beat as she slowly pushed up onto her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, resting her forehead against the crook of his neck for a moment.

But then she stepped back.

She shook her head.

She pulled her hand from his grip.

And then Riley Matthews walked away from him, taking his heart, freshly ripped from his chest, with her.


Somehow, Farkle made it to class.

Taking his usual seat, right beside her, just close enough to catch her scent from the breeze sweeping in from the cracked window, he numbly stared down at his textbook. The scent brought all the memories flooding back, washing over him like a suffocating riptide, pulling him under and further and further from shore as he struggled against it.

Brushing again her shoulder as he sat beside her in the bay window, talking for hours about anything and everything cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom, laughing at her cheesy jokes because they were so damn adorable, pecking her lips anytime he felt like it because he could, knowing her favorite colors, animals, and lyrics, believing in her and her drive to change people, being as close to her as he could ever be to another person, feeling like they were written in the stars, like they were Pluto and Mars.

And none of it, not a single moment or memory, mattered now.

Farkle's eyes clamped closed as he felt the telltale burn of tears. He gripped his pencil until it hurt and wondered how the wood didn't snap.

He could hear a sniffle from her direction, could feel his chest twist painfully but couldn't bring himself to look over.

Just feeling her presence made him feel like he might spiral into a panic attack, looking at her wasn't something he could bare. He just couldn't do it.

He loved her.

She loved him.

They were going to be always.

So, what the hell had happened?


"So, Farkle and Riley are just…done?" Maya asked, leaning down over her friend as he attempted to read the chemistry book before him.

Farkle sighed, "Ask Ri-" He choked and cleared his throat, "Ask her. She's the one who ended it."

It had been a month. He didn't feel any better.

"Trust me, I did! But she won't say anything! Just that 'it's for the best'" Maya used air quotes before rolling her eyes, "Whatever the hell that means…"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Maya." He said, tiredly, pinching his nose.

The blonde looked at him, sadly, before sighing, "It just doesn't make sense! A fucking week before she broke up with you, she was asking me about-" Maya stopped, considered, pressed on, "Well, even before that, she was all excited about finding the perfect dress for Prom, something you'd like, her words!"

He would have liked her in anything…

Farkle shrugged, "Obviously, she changed her mind."

"About you? No way, not just on a whim. I refuse to accept that and you shouldn't either!" Maya snapped, grasping his collar over the table and tugging him forward. "Dammit, Minkus, where's your fight? Your girlfriend dumped you for no reason and you're just gonna take that?! You're not even going to demand answers from Riley?"

Farkle cringed involuntarily at the name and shoved Maya's hand away.

"What would be the point?!" He snapped, glaring at the blonde girl. "Why won't bring her back if she doesn't want to be with me, Maya! And she clearly doesn't! I can't make her!"

The girl gave him a skeptical look, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms over her chest, "Farkle, I know you still miss her."

Now, there was an understatement...

Life with Riley was like living in technicolor. Everything was vibrant and captivating and made you really believe in silly things like fate and destiny. In her absence, the color had bled out, turning into varying shades of gray. The colors hadn't faded; they had just gone.

Kind of like she had.

Narrowing his eyes, Farkle bent his head back over his textbook, "Because how I feel matters so much, right?"

Maya paused, considering again, "Fine. I know she still misses you, too."

Farkle doubted it.


Farkle sat in the library long after Maya had given up on him, staring down at the words before him and wondering what Riley Matthews was doing.

He knew he shouldn't, shouldn't think about her, shouldn't care anymore, should be over it by now. That's how normal high school romances went, right? They were fast and when they ended the world did too, but only for a day or so, and then it was supposed to be like nothing had ever happened.

He was supposed to move on from Riley, move past her.

But Riley wasn't just some high school romance of his, she was Riley.

She was the girl who'd fought so hard not to laugh at his name like everyone else did, the girl who'd ridden alongside him as his father taught him how to ride a bike and the first person to reach him when he fell off. She was the girl who had kissed his scraped knee because at the time she swore she was going to be a princess doctor someday and the one who had always and would always love him just the way he was, freak or nothing or whatever.

Was there even a life for him past her? Because whatever bleak existence he'd been going through the motions of since Riley had walked away from him in that hallway was not a life. It was a joke.

...He wished it was a joke.

She had said she loved him... so why crush him, run him over with a Mack truck, split him like an atom so that everything left was radioactive and infective to everyone remaining in the devastation zone? Why make him promise her 'always' when she was just going to change her mind?

A shadow fell over Farkle's textbook and he figured it had to be Maya or Lucas coming to find him, to 'hang out' but he knew it was really to make sure he didn't do anything stupid while alone.

He was surprised to look up and find Riley Matthews instead.

Farkle wished that she didn't effect him anymore. He had hoped that after a month, seeing her wouldn't send his heart into his throat or make his chest ache. He'd been counting on no longer finding her chocolate eyes as warm as cocoa.

But it was Riley, so of course, all those things were still true.

Riley spoke, quietly and hesitantly, to the boy staring at her, wide-eyed, "Maya said that, um, that you had something you wanted to ask me."

Farkle was still in shock over his ex-girlfriend/ex-best friend's presence, so close that he could have reached out and touched her. He almost did... before remembering that that was no longer okay. Riley's space was her own again now, not his.

"Farkle?"

His name on her lips was like a twist to the knife she'd plunged into his chest a month ago. At least the pain snapped him back to life, his eyes instantly darting away from her face, "I don't know what Maya was talking about."

"Oh."

Riley stood next the table, shifting uncomfortably as she glanced around, "Well if you need anything, I'm always-"

They both flinch involuntarily and her voice died in her throat. Sighing in a way that Farkle would almost say was wistful, Riley started to turn away. She was going to walk away from him again.

He couldn't just watch her leave. Not again.

"Why?"

The brunette turned back with a furrowed brow, remaining silent.

Once he'd finally asked, Farkle found himself desperate to get her answer. She made him promise and then forced him the break that promise days later. They'd been friends practically their whole lives, surely he deserved to know why.

"I just need to know why." He pleaded, hesitating at seeing Riley's face fall but persisting anyway, "I'm not trying to make this harder or hurt you but I think you owe me at least that. Because I keep going over everything, keep going over that night, and I can't figure out what changed for you. I can't figure out how I managed to fuck us, Riley and Farkle and always, up."

Her eyes sparkled with tears as they filled with sadness, wearing and tragic. He wanted to get up and wrap his arms around her, shelter her precious, kind heart from the pain she was carrying as if she were Atlas trying to hold up the sky.

But Farkle reminded himself once again that that would not be okay. Riley and he were now separate entities again. That was apparently how she wanted it. He clenched his fist because he would do anything she asked, even now.

Riley opened her mouth, voice unsteady as she shook her head and refused to meet his eyes, "You didn't. I told you, it's just what's best for the both of us."

"Bullshit!" Farkle snapped, unable to stop himself.

He hadn't believed her when she said it a month ago and he didn't believe her now.

There was no scenario, no situation, where either of them was better off without the other. Even before he'd realized he was in love with her, she'd always been his best friend, the first person he wanted to talk to when something great happened or even something terrible. She was Riley Matthews and he was Farkle Minkus. They fit together at every ripped edge.

"Farkle-"

"If you're going to lie to my face, Riley, you can go. I thought we didn't lie to each other." He interrupted in a grumble, slumping back over his book.

He had known it was pointless to ask, he had told Maya, but now he had asked and it just made everything worse. Farkle really didn't want to hurt Riley, but God, she'd cut so deep herself and had taken so much that he just spoke without thinking… He probably did that too often.

Farkle heard a strangled sob and closed his eyes, not daring to look up at her.

Riley crying was like kryptonite to him… and he didn't want to feel bad just yet. He already felt shitty enough without piling guilt on top.

After a moment, her choked voice arose from somewhere to his left as he still refused to look at her anymore, "I'm not lying! I could never do that to you! Not after…"

Riley tried to clear her throat and Farkle wondered if she meant after 'they had dated' or 'they had sex' or maybe even after 'everything they'd been through'. It didn't really matter, he knew that, but the curiosity still burned in his chest, trying to pinpoint the moment his world had ended.

"Farkle, do you not see that this is killing me? Are you blind to how much I miss you?" Riley suddenly fired the passion and raw emotion in her voice enough to draw his full attention despite his best efforts. "But I am not the girl you want to compromise your future for, okay? I can't be because I refuse to be the one that stops you from doing all the great things that you are meant to do! Can't you just understand that?"

By the end, she was practically begging, her voice nearly hysterical as she pleaded for his understanding.

Farkle was so confused and so tired and he missed her, too. Slowly he stood, stepping towards her, close enough that he could track the tears as they spilled down her cheeks and smell the same sunflower perfume that had clung to his pillow for a week after their night together.

"So, why?"

Riley stared into Farkle's eye for a long moment before sneezing her's shut like he was a bad dream that she was desperate to wake up from. "I applied to Princeton."

His stomach flipped, recalling every conversation, every time, that they had mentioned his 'dream' university. How obsessed Riley had become with some picture perfect happily ever after where they both attended and earned their degrees and went on to share their independent successes… She had been dead set on it.

"They rejected me."

Farkle almost laughed at the cruel irony. She'd broken up with him so he'd go to Princeton… He'd never told her that he'd already made up his mind about that months ago, after the first time he told her that he was in love with her.

He remained silent, trying to run through her words again, decipher some other meaning than the obvious. Shaking his head, he sighed brokenly, "Riley, I turned them down. I'm applying to Columbia next fall."

The girl's big brown eye flew open, "What!? But- but Princeton is-"

"The dream?" Farkle completed before shrugging and shoving his hands in his pockets, "Maybe my father's but…" He glanced away, "I had my own dreams."

Still confused, the brunette took a step forward. Now, the pair was barely separated, so close Riley had to tilt her head up and Farkle his down to look each other in the eye. "Like Columbia?"

"Like you." He mumbled, truthfully, for just her to hear. His electric blue eyes were trained on the stone tilting of the library floor and his ears grew pink.

Riley froze, heart pounding in her eyes.

Farkle had chosen her, long before she'd even thought to choose him. He was always so far ahead of her, so she should have expected it. She was his dream. And he loved her, she knew he did, probably more than anyone else…

And she'd crushed him, taken his love and his trust and thrown it in his face. Yet, he still wanted to plan his future around staying in New York, staying close to her.

Riley launched herself at the boy, kissing him hard and clumsily. It didn't matter that it was messy, imperfect, and a little awkward though because the second their lips connected it was like taking the first breath of fresh air in a month.

It was like coming back to life, an explosion of color and light and something so special that they both knew they'd never find it with another.

Farkle pulled her in, hands pressing against her back until there was no space between them and they could feel each other's racing pulses through the fabric of their clothes. The kiss was heartbreak and love, fractured but with the potential to heal.

Pulling away, Riley continued to cling to Farkle as his arm remained wrapped around her. Their noses brushed as the opened their eye, gazes locking. There was fear and uncertainty in her wide, open eyes like she was unsure of what his reaction would be and what was to come next.

Farkle tilted his chin up and pressed his lips against her temple, murmuring, "Please."

Riley relaxed in his grip, leaning into his lips and warmth, before slowly nodding and looking up to meet his eyes again, "Yes. I realized I'm always going to be in love you, no matter where you are. Columbia or Princeton or fucking Mars, it doesn't matter. I know that now."

Moving one hand up to thread into her slick, soft hair, Farkle buried his face in the crown of her head, squeezing his own eyes shut as he nodded to echo her. "I'm always going to be in love with you, too, Riley Matthews. I promised you always, remember?"

"I remember."


WOW! EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER! Note: If you guys are curious about the long spaces between posts, please read my update called 'Bad News, Good News' as it explains everything AND starts my drawing for my followers! CHECK IT OUT! Please!