Author's Note: Please don't forget to REVIEW, and thank you abundantly to all my amazing followers and reviewers! Your support means so much. Reviews really do mean a lot, and they do wonders for inspiration and hastily written chapters... ;)

Okaaaaay...Do I even try to make up an excuse, or do we just move onto the story? I don't actually have an excuse, save for the usual one of no inspiration, but I really am hoping this time to get you chapters way sooner...the story is almost done, and I too am eager to see its completion! I did miss the story's anniversary sadly, as I was hoping to upload and actually finish it in one year!, but that clearly didn't happen so I apologize.

Well, I most certainly haven't kept you waiting for very long, but without further ado, I give you Chapter 35...Finally.

Disclaimer: I don't own Girl Meets World, just the story!

Chapter Thirty-Five: The Poison's Antidote

The wooden porch swing emitted a raucous shriek as she plopped herself onto it, causing her to grimace and glance about her to ensure her solitude. As she surveyed the dusty beams and cobwebs adorning the porch, a lone wind blew through the grass before her, a sea of bowing, waving jade abiding to the whims of the indecisive wind. Amongst them were various speckles of clumped clovers and ochre dandelions, a rarity in the Texan heat. Pappy Joe had mentioned that he lived up to a standard of impeccable lawns and so he watered his own every day without fail.

Her mind ambling off the path of eccentric, random thoughts, she confirmed her isolation and sank back into the worn seat. As she swung her pale legs slightly, the chips of white paint already cracked and crumbling on the swing began to float to the floor like flakes of ill-timed snow. The seasons are a bit messed up here, she mused, running her turquoise painted pinkie nail across the seam of her jeans. But, here she raised her head, squinting her fatigued looking eyes into the bright luminescence of the setting sun. It's almost like time has stopped, regardless.

Everything, albeit the ocean of rustling grasses, was still. Cast in a golden light, the objects and the landscape about her seemed to paint a picture more brilliant then could ever be documented on canvas. The wisps of cotton rabbits and sugar-spun dragons floated upon the darkening sky like actors on their final debut, departing for the stars after their display for their audience. And all noise was ceased.

It was blissfully silent.

Not wanting to look away but doing so anyway, as if being tugged along on Mother Nature's fond puppet string, she ran a hand over her face and closed her eyes for a brief respite. Promptly thoughts crowded her brain, instant on scrambling through the entryway before she shut the door in denial. She was far too lethargic this time.

They all made it through.

The blonde sunk into her hands like they were her last comfort. She had truly messed up this time. There was no getting around it, no beating around the bush, no...denial. But, nevertheless, Lucas likewise refused to see what he was doing. Along with Riley and the others. There had to be some kind of interlude, didn't there? She had to stop—

Here, she jerked her head up so fast it buzzed and her vision spun like her puppet string had been forced to play yo-yo. She. She had to stop...that was what she had just admitted to herself. Was—was this truly all her fault?

No. Maya set her jaw, fingers digging into the sides of her gauzy blouse determinedly. She hadn't done anything wrong, in fact she was protecting her friends, wasn't she? By taking herself out of the equation finally, they were rid of her. Rid of her problems. Rid of everything that made her into a form she herself didn't quite recognize when she glanced into the cracked mirror of her bedroom. It made perfect sense, didn't it?

No. She scowled. Yes. Maya drew her knees up to her chest, enclosing them in a crude sort of desperate embrace. Maybe.

She didn't know what to do because all she could gaze upon was a theatrical sort of dance projecting itself into her memory, a mimicry of earlier's occurrence. Maya watched herself with dim eyes as her words twisted from her mouth like a venomous snake, intent on sinking its milky white fangs into the unsuspecting flesh of its victim. Lucas.

She could see the poison seeping into his blood, watch as it turned blue to inky black, words floating onto the surface of his skin like an perpetual dye. Never. Talk. You. They all swirled in ominous tornadoes across his arms and shoulders, creeping closer to his baffled expression.

Again. That one hovered over his lips, sucking itself into the void of his mouth like a raging hurricane, delving deep into the soul of its quarry. As soon as it was digested, his eyes sunk and his lips closed, sealing off the offender like a cork in a bottle, not to be relinquished without contest. The world now held captive pulsed in the space where his heart should have been, the bleeding powerhouse of his body.

And why it was missing? Her. All her.

She felt a pang in her own chest and she took in a lungful of sweet air, eyes burning from—the wind. Of course, nothing more. Why did that hurt so much, again?

A sudden slam from the porch door jerked her from her pondering and she swiped a hand at her itching red-rimmed eyes, burning as if from a fire. Pappy Joe stumped up onto the porch, hands in his filthy overalls, grimy from motor oil and clumps of mud. He heaved a supposedly reticent sigh and rolled up the cuffs of his button up, groaning over exaggeratedly as he sank into the swing next to Maya.

For an agonizing minute and a half, they sat in mutual silence, a quite lull settling over them with the deepening of navy blue above them. When the gleaming eyes of the sun herself winked a farewell and delved beneath the protection of the horizon, Pappy Joe cleared his throat and folded his hands together neatly upon his stomach.

"You planning on eating dinner, darlin'?" he broached, politely not meeting her incredulous gaze, setting his sights on a pumpkin orange tomcat slipping between two car wheels.

"Not hungry." was her terse, and rather soft response.

He guffawed, squinting at the cat as it rolled onto its back on the gravel. "Now, I don't think you'll be wanting to miss my cornbread."

Maya couldn't suppress a snort, no matter how hard she attempted to (which wasn't very much). "Cornbread? How typical can you both be?"

"Us being Lucas and I?" he chuckled, returning her scrutinizing perusal of his countenance. "And Maya Hart, you can never go wrong with cornbread. Besides," he shifted, drumming his thick fingers on his pant leg. "There's also a mighty delicious strawberry rhubarb pie involved." He sent her a wink, pleased when she allowed a minuscule quirk to take possession of the pink swell of her lips. "Now, do you mean Lucas and I?"

"Of course, I do." She let the amusement slip from her demeanor, glancing down at her hands as a slight zephyr sent a breeze through her hair.

Pappy Joe exhaled heavily, grinning toothily at the cat who had now begun its millionth swipe at an unseen insect scuttling about before it. "What happened today? You came home long before Lucas did and he was your ride." Here he sent a disapproving squint at her heeled boots, which sent them scurrying for cover beneath the seat.

"Yes."

"Did you walk?"

"Yes."

"Well, that was rather silly of you, don't you think?"

Maya played with the ever present ring of metal adorning her pointer finger, studying the way it reflected the ombre of colors spun into the loom of the Texan landscape. "I don't think so, no. I had a good reason."

"Which was?"

She refused to meet his significant look. "Doesn't matter," she murmured.

"It seems to me however, that it does. What small matter would convince a lady to stalk five miles home in heels?"

Maya observed the orange feline curling into itself from her peripheral vision, causing her to shift her attention to the cat with vague interest. "Why do you think people change?" she ventured, locating a strand of wayward hair and setting off to placate it.

He took another breath. "I believe that's a matter of opinion, but to me, I think people change because they have to. Because they need to." She let the tendril slip from her fingers, no longer providing her the escape she desired, the conversation at hand weighing upon her shoulders with an apathetic reality.

"If we didn't change, nothing would. We wouldn't grow, we wouldn't learn...and we most certainly wouldn't be able to repair or fix anything. Hurt would just multiply like drops in an ocean during a hurricane, with nowhere to push the access water. It would just bottle up and swirl and fume until one day," his pointer finger sprang from his knee to the air. "It just burst. And if no one changed, it would just sink into the earth and begin to flood its dirt with mud." The space between his brows furrowed with intensity. "And then that too would drown."

"Cheery."

"It's life, Maya."

Her legs bolted her out of her chair, setting her upright on the porch like an overly eager sprout ready to burst from the soil. "But why? Why can't we just—" Maya spun on her heel, reclining her elbows on the sturdy wooden rail, turning her back on whatever it was Pappy Joe presented. She didn't like it.

"Just what?"

She bit her tongue. Hard.

"What, Maya?"

The blonde smacked the post with vigorous frustration, promptly clenching the offending hands into twin fists. "Stop. Why can't we just stop?"

"Stop what?" Pappy Joe face was stone-still, but something told her that the nonchalance was hiding something he didn't want her to see beneath. It bothered her, knowing he was not disclosing some mentation when he seemed to want her to do the exact opposite.

Fueled with this spark, she sprang on his query with boiling anger. "Stop whatever the hell they think they're doing." She jabbed a thumb towards the general direction of the house, alluding to her contenders who, oblivious to all that took place outdoors, lurked upstairs with their own wars at hand.

"And what are they doing?"

"Trying to—"

"Help you," he interjected brusquely, all former amusement drained from his weathered face. "They are sacrificing every inch of their souls to help you, Maya, and you are giving them hell for it." He said the world like it burned his tongue, throwing it back to her with disgust, clearly displeased with its usage. "They have done everything in their power to help you, on more than one occasion I'm sure, and look where you are. Look. Where. You. Are." Pappy Joe watched her lip bites and pale knuckles with an almost calculating coldness. "I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, Maya Hart, but you need to know. You need to see what you are doing to those friends of yours, who are lucky to have you and you them, but are slowly diminishing day by day. Do you not see that? I don't know what you're going through, but I understand. I do. Life throws curve balls at you and stomps on your head when you're flung to the ground, but," he stood up, stepping closer to her with a dominance that paled her cheeks and planted her feet to the porch like it they had always grown there. "You get back up. And you don't throw your friends to the floor with you, do you hear me?"

Maya felt like she had been trampled by a plethora of broncs, hooves pounding into her skull like it was hollow, pouring out whatever happened to lay inside its enclosure. "Yes, sir." found its way out of her lips, but she didn't hear them. Just felt the taste and texture.

Pappy Joe's countenance flickered from its bonfire to a steady roar as he placed his sturdy hands upon her shoulders and bent with an almost demeaning crouch as he took her gaze and connected it to his own. Like a wriggling, doomed fish on a hook, she was lured into the depths of his own sapphire ocean, adjacent to dark voids of concerned origin. Firm disapproval laced the corners of his eyes, but there was something else too, something she couldn't place.

"Stop hurting your friends. All they want to do is help you."

She managed to pry her chalky tongue from her dry throat, arid like its own desert sands, words floating like grains of sand inside her mouth. A wisp of the golden material spun from her lips. "But they're prying. They're trying to fix me, they're—"

"Stop." He removed his hands. "I'm not saying in the least that they haven't done anything wrong, because you know what, we all make mistakes. You do too, and that's okay. What's not okay is you refusing to see those mistakes and gathering them to your chest like they were your best friends. They're not. Let go, Maya. Let. Go."

Her eyes burned and her gaze turned glassy. His words pounded through her head like a detrimental hammer. All. Your. Fault. I won't cry, she berated herself, shouting into her subconscious with a snapping, biting tone. Don't do it.

He noted her wall being hastily built and tore it down with one stroke, observing the motive behind it. "Maya, I can tell you think this all your fault, and I suppose I'm making it sound that way. But that's truly not my intention," he clucked her chin gently so she would look at him. "I'm saying that you are your own worst enemy and in the process you are hurting your friends. Stop telling yourself whatever you think is true. I want you to step back and look at the situation. If you can't pull yourself from this, at least let go of your pride and ask for help. Let them help you." Pappy Joe pulled away as she wrenched her gaze from his, red-rimmed eyes caught in the glow of the porch light. "Don't hurt yourself, you're worth way more than that," he finally entreated, voice quiet and soothing.

"You don't even know what's happened," she choked from her mouth, anger and bafflement spilling simultaneously from her mind into one massive pool of confusion. "How can you say any of what you just said?"

"Because I can see it. I can see it in your friends' eyes, I can see it in yours," he sent her a stern contemplation. "I can see it in the way Lucas pretends that everything is fine. And whatever you both said to each other earlier, the thing that made you walk home, is tearing him up." Maya swallowed. "And it's tearing you up too, isn't it? Why can't you just admit that, and let him in? Let them all in to what's been eating you up inside for the last couple of months."

She stared at him.

He stared back.

"Because," she breathed. "Because I'm hurting them, aren't I? And they'll just keep hurting me."

And she tore from the porch, the jet-black arms of the night enveloping her with a welcoming gulp.

"Where's Maya?"

Ignoring this with intense concentration, Lucas twirled his spoon into the murky depths of his chili, wafts of steam slipping into the air with fragrances of savory broth and meat. Surprisingly, it wasn't him who spoke this, but Zay who hadn't taken a single bite of the golden cornbread piled onto his plate, most of which would normally be tucked into his endless stomach.

Pappy Joe grunted and spooned a mouthful of chili into his mouth, setting it back into the porcelain bowl with a clank. "Well, the truth is boys, I don't know."

Riley and Lucas jerked their heads up, both drawing in agitated breaths, while Farkle sought refuge in his meal, sucking on a strand of gooey, melted cheese. "What do you mean by that, Pappy Joe?" she inquired, fake smile plastered onto her lips with concerned uncertainty.

"What I mean by that," he took an irritatingly slow bite of spongy bread, crumbs slipping into the gray cascade of his mussed beard. "Is I don't know. She sprang from the porch about a half-hour ago like lightning had struck her, so I let her be."

Lucas stood up, his chair scraping the floorboards as he flung his napkin to the table and stomped to the door. "You really think that was smart?" He snagged his jacket, flinging it on as his other friends began to notice his concern, likewise adopting mirrored expressions as they too sprang up.

"You know what, I do."

Lucas paused, his hand on the gleaming doorknob. A muscle rippled in his jaw and he swiveled his head to send his grandfather a callous gaze, eyes ablaze with some emotion no one could place, but could guess with ease. "Why?"

"Because she needed it."

Riley practically tip-toed to the couch, reaching for her shoes, though the others were too concerned to move. The tangible tension hung in the air, too thick and stalwart to dislodge without collapsing the whole atmosphere all together. And so the boys didn't dare move.

"Why?" Lucas seethed.

"Because we talked and she needed to think," he retorted calmly yet sternly, leveling his glance as he tested his grandson with his eyes.

His hand left the knob. "What did you say to her?"

"Doesn't matter," he shook his head.

"It does!" he roared, taking a furious step forward, each footfall a call to retreat. "It does and you know it."

Lucas wasted no time. He yanked the door open, and practically sprinted out, not even bothering to close the gaping hole. Behind, he left pressing silence, but more so concern.

Zay and Riley exchanged tentative glances, the former letting a sigh slip into the quiet, the latter twisting her lips and together they traced their friend's steps; plunging into the darkness. Farkle stared at the grain of the table. Finally, he too stood up and bolted from the room, muttering some unintelligible sentences in his wake.

Pappy Joe reached for his mug of thick, dark-brown coffee and took a sip.

He didn't even look up.

She didn't know where she was going, only that she had to keep going, lest her feet finally fail and collapse her whole form to the ground in tears. And she most certainly couldn't cry. That would mean that she was weak and that she had given in to what others had said about her.

A branch from a tree poked her side with its rough bark and thin needles, causing her abrupt halt and sending her reeling, hands finding hold on a low hanging bough. Somewhere in her mind registered that she had stumbled upon the forest at the edge of their property, but most of her clung to the last scrap of dignity she had. Denial.

And even that was fading into a hazy memory, fog slipping into its place like a ghostly feline, intent on haunting her mind. She didn't know what was true and what wasn't. All she could perceive was the agonizing pounding of her heart and the pang that shot through it over and over. It was a physical torture, but the mental was far worse in its punishment.

She sunk to the earthy ground, twigs cracking underneath her weight. Her pale, icy hands grasped, groped for something to hold to, but all she found was dust.

Pappy Joe was right, wasn't he? Maya clamped a hand over her mouth, bowing her head over her form, not allowing herself the pleasure of self-pity. She had had enough of that.

She had flung respect to the wind, yelled at her mom, told the ones who loved her that they were hurting her. Told her friends to stay out of her life, out of her world. Maya had refused to back down, instead plaguing them with lies and stories of how she was changing, and then ones of how she never wanted to speak to them again.

And she had lost herself. Truly, she had. She had delved so deep into what the world had told her she needed to be, that it took first priority. It took dominion over all things, including her life, her friends, and her self-worth. It had sent her spiraling into a rabbit hole that had no exit, no helping hand, that she had flung herself into. Willingly.

Maya couldn't pull herself out. She was trapped in a constantly whirling sense of self-deprecation, tossed and turned between reality and fantasy, forced to drink the poison she doled out for herself everyday. And she couldn't stop.

She just couldn't.

And she hated that she couldn't see it before.

"Maya?"

Why hadn't she seen it before?

Lights flashed and bobbed in front of vision, but she dismissed it as another self-administered dose of illusions.

"Maya!"

And how could she fix it?

Cold hands found hers, wrapping them in an icy coffin, enveloped in complete snow and desolate realities.

She couldn't, could she?

"Maya. Maya?"

Something prompted her head to lift, whether it was her own will or Mother Nature's. But when she did, she met the boys' faces of hesitant concern, Riley's crumpled one that was adjacent to a bright flashlight, and Lucas's. They all knelt beside her and folded their hands into their laps, a crescent moon hovering around a star, mimicking the heavens above them with precise detail.

"What are you doing?" Riley finally spoke, voice barely a whisper. A brown lock of hair waved in front of her eyes and her brows crunched together.

Everyone held their breath, as her lips tried to pry themselves open.

"Maya?"

And she burst into tears.