breaking up
Riley was sitting on her bed that weekend when Maya came through the window. Riley turned to face her and smiled. Why is she smiling? I haven’t smiled at all since the date.
“So, I’m thinking of rearranging my bedroom a little bit,” Riley stated, talking about a mile a minute. “Of course the bay window stays the same, but maybe I should move my bed? What do you think?”
Maya’s eyes widened. She knew Riley did everything she did to avoid conflict, tried to pretend like nothing was happening, but this was absurd. Surely she couldn’t just not talk about what happened, right? Right? Maya was silent for a while until Riley broke it by saying, “I heard that changing your room around can really increase your positive energy, or something like that. My mom was talking about it.”
“We’re not going to talk about the date?!” Maya blurted out. “You ran out of it like you had just seen a killer clown.”
Riley shuddered, ever since she had seen the movie It, clowns freaked her out. She regained her composure and shrugged.
“You know how sometimes I get kind of confused? Kind of like when someone in a movie winds up in a strange town and doesn’t know how they got there?”
Maya shook her head no, she had no idea what the heck Riley was talking about.
“That was me! I don’t remember anything about it.”
Lucky you.
“Why did you leave?” Maya asked, bluntly. She had never been one to beat around the bush. “Was it our kiss?”
Please say no, please say no, please say no.
Riley’s mouth opened in surprise. “Uh...no.”
The pause was a little too long for anyone to believe that she wasn’t lying.
“I just realized that things got too out of control, and you know how I am when I can’t control things.”
Maya nodded, Riley was much like her mother, Topanga, in that aspect.
“I mean, it was totally out of control!” Riley said, flapping her arms around. “I made you dress up in a skirt, and go on a date with a boy you don’t even like.”
Riley bit her lip and asked, “You don’t like him, right?”
“Riley, you can’t be serious,” Maya replied, rolling her eyes. “ Huckleberry? I don’t want to go out with him. He doesn’t wanna go out with me. He’s not going out with me. He’s never going out with me.”
“See? This lie has made everything so complicated and weird between us.”
Which is why I didn’t even want to go through with it in the first place.
“So I think we should break up,” Riley stated.
Maya swore she physically felt her heart break when she heard Riley say that. Sure, they weren’t really a couple (something she had to remind herself more and more these days) but she’d be lying if she said that she didn’t enjoy getting to hold Riley’s hand, kiss her on the cheek, and be able to tell everyone that she was her girlfriend.
“Now?” Maya raised her eyebrows.
“It was one of my stupid plans that just blew up in our faces,” Riley said with a sigh. “I mean, you agree, enough is enough, right?”
Maya wanted to say that she didn’t agree, enough wasn’t enough, because she wanted more.
“But you said you wanted to wait until our status in school was cemented. Riles, I know being popular is a big deal for you.”
“Well, if the price is that is making you lie, then I don’t want it.”
If this had been in any other situation, Maya would think that was really sweet of Riley to say. (She still thought it was sweet but it still left a bitter taste in her mouth.)
“But we have to handle this really delicately. People at school really ship Rilaya, that’s our new nickname.”
“I’m guessing you have a plan?” Maya said, rolling her eyes but still looking at Riley affectionately.
“And each plan has a baby plan! And it’s color coded!” Riley exclaimed, getting her binder, labeled How to Break Up with Your (Fake) Girlfriend and Make it Look Real.
Maya flipped through the binder.
“Step one, skip each other’s premieres?” Maya’s voice was dubious and somewhat amused.
“Okay, I might have based it off of celebrity couples but it still stands!”
“Step two, dive into work,” Maya scoffed at that a little. Like Maya Hart would ever dive into work, she barely did her homework as it is. “Step three, issue a joint press release saying we decided to go separate ways but we’ll always be best friends?”
“Just like we were before all this craziness happened and just like we are when people aren’t around,” Riley explained while handing Maya a piece of paper. “Here’s a list of excuses if people ask where I am.”
“Why would people ask me that?”
“Because we’re not walking to school together today,” Riley said. “And we’re spending today apart.”
Maya ran to find Zay, something she had been doing quite a lot recently. When she finally did, she grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.
“Whoa, sugar, where’s the fire?” Zay asked, taking her arms off of his shoulders and furrowing his eyebrows.
“Throuple date happened,” she whispered, so no one else would hear. “Me and Riley kissed.”
“Okay, calm down,” he replied, putting his arm around her shoulder. “She felt something when you kissed and now she’s pushing you away!”
“You think?” Maya asked, her voice hopeful but doubtful. “I mean, it was a really hot kiss. I was surprised the diner didn’t burst into flames.”
“Ugh, I love lesbians. So elegant. What happened after the kiss?” Zay asked, removing his arm from her shoulder.
“Once we came up for air, we looked into each other’s eyes, like really looked. And we saw each other.” There was no other way for Maya to describe the kiss other than that. “I mean we really saw each other. Maybe for the first time.”
“So after the hot kiss?”
“And then Lucas and I bantered a bit, Riley ran out, and now she doesn’t wanna talk about it,” Maya replied, softly.
“Wait, you flirted with Lucas?”
“Sh!” Maya hit Zay’s shoulder.
“How was it?”
“You know when you see a butterfly? And the world stops for a second? And then it’s gone? It was like that.”
“Wow,” Zay gave Maya a look.
“No, not wow,” Maya said. “Being with Riley was wow. If Lucas was spotting a butterfly, Riley was spotting a soaring eagle. I mean, I was with her and it was magical. And I wish it could have lasted forever.”
But it couldn’t because they were just best friends.
“Honey, I don’t wanna shoot your eagle, but she flew away as soon as you and Lucas interacted.”
“And?”
“And she sounds jealous. ”
“No, she’s in denial,” Maya said, trying to convince Zay (and herself.) “I just need to stop us from breaking up so she can finally accept her feelings for me.”
“I hate keeping secrets from Lucas, I haven’t kept a secret from him since grade school.”
“You’re not going to break the gay scouts honor, are you?” Maya asked, in a semi-threatening tone.
“Are you kidding? They would strap me of my badge and leatherwork, and I look good in leather. Let’s go get lunch, girl.”
They made their way to the cafeteria to get some lunch, picking up a tray and going to greet Geralyn, who was now in the high school.
“Hi Geralyn,” Maya said, with a smile. (Ever since they had worked in the cafeteria in middle school, they had become very friendly.)
“Maya, I see you’re solo. Where’s your other half?”
Being in denial about her feelings for me and trying to cover it up with Liam.
“Um, she needed to focus...on her studies,” Maya said with a nod.
“Good for her,” Geralyn replied with a smile. “Such a smart girl, that one.”
As soon as Maya and Zay had gotten their lunch and left, Geralyn said to the next people in line, “Did y’all hear? Riley and Maya are breaking up!”
When Maya was walking out to the quad to go eat her lunch, without Riley, everyone was looking at her like she was a hurt puppy. She hated when people looked at her like that. It was how they looked at her when she told them about her home life, when she told them about her dad, about all her trust issues. Like they pitied her and she hated it. But this time, she was really unsure of why everyone was staring at her.
“Poor Maya,” she heard someone mumbled in the distance.
She was sure they were right but she wasn’t sure why.
“What? Is my fly open?” she looked down to see that her jean zipper was perfectly in tact.
“Hang in there,” a kid shouted to her.
She shook her head, and went to one of the tables to go eat her lunch. Without Riley.
Little did she know that Riley was sitting just a few tables away, talking to the school journalist, Isadora Smackle.
“Give me an interview for the school’s Tumblr,” the journalist demanded. “This is a huge story and my readers want to know what happened.”
“How did you hear that we’re breaking up?” Riley asked, chuckling nervously.
“Oh, bubbles, the whole school knows,” Isadora said, with a sympathetic look.
“The whole school?” Damn, word travels fast. “Please respect our privacy during this difficult time.”
Riley ran off, not wanting to say anything more. She felt weird talking about her (fake) relationship with Maya when she wasn’t with her.
Lucas was in the batting cages at the baseball field, violently hitting each ball as it came towards him. He couldn’t believe he went through with the throuple date, just for Riley to back out. And now they’re breaking up? This was bullshit. He turned to see Riley in the dugout. He dropped his bat and went to give her a piece of his mind.
“Lucas,” Riley tried to start but the look in his eye kind of scared her. “I’m guessing you heard.”
“About your breakup? Yeah,” he spat.
“Word travels a lot faster than I thought,” Riley said, with a frown.
“Is this because of the throuple date?” he asked. “You know, it’s pretty messed up that you set up the entire thing just to run out.”
“That’s not what this is about,” she assured him.
“Look, I don’t know what your deal is, Riley,” he said. “But I don’t want to be dragged into whatever twisted plan this is.”
“No, Lucas, look,” Riley pleaded. “When I saw you and Maya...I just realized that this whole thing was just insane. Everything was out of control and I hate when things are out of control. And I forced you to go on a date with a girl you don’t even like.”
Please don’t say you like her.
“Are you serious?” he scoffed. “Riley, I am so over all of this drama! I told you that I didn’t want to break you and Maya up!”
“You didn’t,” she replied weakly.
“Then what did?” he challenged, glaring at her. “You know, sometimes you are just too much for me, Riley.”
He stormed out of the dugout, leaving Riley sitting on the bench, thinking about how everything was ruined.
Riley soon regained her composure, as she had learned to do very quickly now, and set out to find Maya. When she finally did, she grabbed her hand and dragged her to a place where no one would see them. Maya was glad that they were talking now. Until she heard what Riley was saying.
“We’re breaking up because we want to go to different colleges?”
“What? It’s true and we need a good reason to break up,” Riley explained. “And none of us wanna look like the bad guy, so we pull a Brad and Jennifer.”
There she goes again with her dumb celebrity references that I don’t understand because the only magazine we get is ‘Reader’s Digest.’
“You’re demented,” Maya stated. “We’re freshmen, we don’t have to worry about colleges until junior year!”
“The college thing speaks to our future as a couple. We obviously want different things so we’re moving on. But we’ll always be best friends.”
“You know, I don’t know much about Brad and Jennifer, but they don’t seem like best friends.”
“We don’t know that! Maybe when Angelina is away, they order pizza.”
“Do you hear yourself? You sound insane, Riles! I think we should just slow the whole thing down and -”
“It’s too late,” Riley cut her off. “All we can do now is control the message. Isadora Smackle, you know the genius slash journalist, requested a sit-down today. And I said yes.”
Without asking me? Why am I not surprised?
“No! I’m not discussing our relationship with the school’s Tumblr, Riley! Don’t I get a say in this?”
“I’m the planner.”
Of course I don’t get a say in this, I just follow orders and go along with you.
“What does that make me?”
“The executor, sounds cool, right? I’ll see you after school.”
Maya and Riley were sitting across from Isadora Smackle, giving their interview for the school’s Tumblr. (Maya couldn’t say no to Riley, no matter how annoyed she was.)
“Here’s the deal, I have no filter so I will ask you very blunt questions. I don’t pull punches and I won’t twist your words, but I can smell bullshit a mile away,” Isadora stated, folding her arms across her chest. “My reader’s expect the truth. ”
They’re not going to get anything close to the truth.
Isadora took out her phone and started recording.
“So why is everyone’s favorite couple calling it quits?”
“The split is completely amicable,” Riley started. “We just have different visions for our futures.”
“How so?” Isadora questioned.
“Well, I see myself going to a big university, while Maya wants to go to a small arts college,” Riley explained.
“Actually, Isadora, I might have changed my mind,” Maya chimed in. “I do want some place bigger. The more people, the better!”
“No, you don’t,” Riley frowned. “You hate people.”
“Who hates people? Not me! I love people!”
“Last week, you said that you would rather be devoured by termites than go to a state school,” Riley said.
“Sometimes we push away the things that we really want,” Maya stated, hoping that Riley would finally get the hint and stop denying the feelings they had for each other.
“So, there’s hope for you two?” Isadora asked.
Maya nodded her head while Riley shook her head.
“Well, you seem to be on a different page,” Isadora remarked. “Maybe you’re covering the real reason for the split.”
“Excuse me?”
“I understand there was a throuple date with Lucas Friar.”