Maya Hart [Girl Meets World] (fiercelymaya) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2018-02-14 12:50:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !completed gdoc, !log, ~2018 february, ~25 points, ~~maya hart (fiercelymaya), ~~riley matthews (windownow) |
Who: Riley Matthews and Maya (Hart) Hunter
What: Aftermath of Lucas' proposal
Where: The GMW house
When: Valentine's night
Warnings: Teenage angst
Status: Closed, Complete
After Lucas had brought her back home, Riley had run into the house as quickly as she could, not turning back to look at him. It was too much, it was too soon, and she was terrified by it. She’d thought Lucas had understood that she wasn’t like the other girls who were ready to rush into things and grow up as soon as they could. She’d thought he’d understood her and she’d thought that they got along so well because they wanted the same things. She’d been wrong and now everything was terrible.
He’d asked her to marry him. Maybe not right away but one day, and that was too much. They were still just kids and had barely even kissed a little. They couldn’t be engaged. Sure, she had memories of herself a few years from now when she would have, even had, said yes, but that wasn’t now. And Riley had thought she’d made it clear to Lucas that she wasn’t ready to even have those memories, let alone live them.
Tears in her eyes she burst into Maya’s room and crawled right into her best friend’s bed, disappearing under the covers.
***
Once upon a time, it hadn’t been at all unusual for Riley to come into Maya’s room unannounced. Since Briar sometimes climbed up and in through the window, she didn’t seem to do it as often as she once had. Maya looked up, a little startled when her door flung open and Riley burst in. She started to grin, but realised Riley was upset, and the grin dropped away within seconds.
“Riles? What is it? What happened?” Maya shifted a little, accommodating Riley burrowing under the covers. Maya knew Riley felt deeply, she always had. But she mostly maintained a happy go lucky outside appearance. It had to be something really big, really terrible, for her to come into Maya’s room upset like she was.
Once Riley was still under the blankets, Maya shifted closer to her, and put a hand to sort f pet Riley’s back, through the blankets. She’d give Riley a chance to come out of her cocoon on her own before Maya stripped the blankets away from her.
***
Once upon a time, Riley would have flown into Maya’s room just to sit and talk, or just to lie in bed and play on their phones. It hadn’t used to matter, as long as they were spending time together. Now that they were growing up a little, and now that Maya’s boyfriend came over, always without telling Uncle Shawn and Riley didn’t like it but she kept her best friend’s secret, she was a lot more cautious about going in there. Usually she just sent a ‘window now’ text and they’d sit in their bay window and do all their talking there.
This time was a very big, very worrisome exception.
She stayed where she was under the blankets, hidden from everything. “I think maybe Lucas and I are breaking up.”
That was the worst part of this whole thing. Wasn’t that what people did, when one person was a lot more ready than the other? One someone said no, I don’t want to marry you? They broke up.
***
Maya’s hand went still, perched on the bump that was Riley under the blankets. Had she heard that right? Was Riley saying she and Lucas were breaking up? That didn’t seem right. They were perfect together. Lucas understood that Riley wasn’t like other girls, that she was special. He treated her right.
“What? Riles? That doesn’t….what happened?” If Lucas hurt her somehow, even if it wasn’t intentional, Maya was going to rearrange his face so hard he’d never get it put back together. “What did he do to you?”
***
Arms flailing, Riley threw the covers back from her face to look up at Maya. Big and tear-filled and worried. This wasn’t something her friend could fix, but she knew Maya would probably try anyway.
“He asked me to marry him.”
Which was insane. She was barely sixteen and he was barely seventeen and they hadn’t even been dating for very long. There was no way they could be married. They shouldn’t even be thinking about that yet. They should be worried about tests and sports and their friends and whether or not they could go to dances together without even asking. And wondering if one of them was going to get a sandwich, would they bring one for the other too? They couldn’t worry about that stuff and also think they were going to spend the rest of their lives together.
***
Maya tried not to over react. She did. She didn’t want Riley to see the shock on her face. She looked away, bit her lip. She needed to hold it together for Riley’s sake. But seriously. How could Lucas even think about that? He knew Riley. And knowing her, knowing how her brain worked, he had to know she wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment. Not here, not now, not without her parents around to give her the support she needed.
Maya felt her fists clench. She flexed her hands, fought the urge to hit something and scream too. That wasn’t going to help Riley, and Riley was the only thing that mattered right now. Maya would deal with Lucas later.
She bent down, folding her body over to embrace Riley. “I’m sure he meant in a long time. A long, long, long time.”
***
“He said one day.” Not right now, and Riley did appreciate that. But that wasn’t the point. The point was they were still just teenagers, trying to make the world their own and how was she supposed to learn who she was if she was already something else. She wasn’t ready for that, and it was terrifying to even think about.
“I said no.” Obviously that was what she was going to say. Riley wasn’t even close to okay with thinking about marriage at all, forget actually committing to it. If she’d said yes, she was going to be committed. And no matter how much she liked Lucas, she loved him and she did want to be with him for as long as she could imagine, she did one day want the future they’d seen glimpses of, but as long as that future felt like it belonged to someone else, no was going to have to be the answer. “That means we have to break up, doesn’t it?”
It meant he’d want to break up, probably. Because they didn’t want the same things.
***
Maya was a little shocked Riley had said no. She didn’t share Riley’s thought process on the matter, she didn’t realise exactly what Riley was thinking. She would have thought she’d say yes, and leave it to ‘someday’. Apparently not. Apparently she was entirely unready for the proposal, and even without knowing exactly why, Maya was starting to feel anger toward Lucas.
How could he be so stupid, so careless? Did he even know how he’d upset Riley? Had he tried to reassure her, to comfort her after she turned him down? Or had he been too self absorbed or whatever? That wasn’t fair, and she knew it. Lucas, for all his faults, did love Riley. Maya hadn’t questioned that for a very long time.
So what was he thinking? They were just kids. He had no business proposing. Clearly Riley wasn’t ready for it, for whatever Riley-reasons she had rolling around in her Riley-brain. And there was just one response Maya could give her at that point.
“I’ll talk to him.” And maybe punch him. Kick in him the groin, maybe. She’d worry about the physical stuff when she saw him face to face.
***
“Don’t,” Riley pleaded, though she knew it was pointless. Maya was going to do what Maya did and she was going to do it to protect her best friend’s feelings. Riley knew, because she would do exactly the same thing if it was Maya running scared from something that was happening way too soon, way too fast.
“It probably doesn’t matter anymore. If we’re breaking up. Right?” Lucas didn’t need any more hurt feelings from Riley. The least she could do was try to stop Maya even if she didn’t really mean it.
Because maybe Lucas would tell her something Riley didn’t know. Maybe she could come back with answers and maybe she could make the whole thing hurt him a little less.
***
“It matters to me,” Maya said. She was absolutely confront talk to Lucas. No matter what Riley said, even if Riley made her promise she wouldn’t. She would. Because that’s what friends did, and Maya was more than Riley’s friend. She was her sister in all the ways that mattered.
“And I want to know what the hell he was thinking springing that on you.” Because it was clearly upsetting to Riley. Maya still didn’t get that. If Briar proposed to her the next time she saw him, she’d say yes without missing a beat. She was nowhere near ready to get married, but if it was a long way off, sure.
But the reasons didn’t matter. The fact was Riley was upset. Maya didn’t really need anything more than that to make her feel homicidal toward Lucas. Not that she’d kill him, she wasn’t that kind of person. But she would probably punch him before she even said one word to him.
***
Riley was pretty sure that everyone she knew was crazy. They were just kids. They had a whole world to figure out before they started trying to do things like get married.
She just gave a humph and shuffled around to curl up against Maya. Dressed for a date or not she was planning to stay right where she was. Forever and ever and ever. There in Maya’s bed it was safe and no one wanted to rush her into being a grown up, she was protected. Even when she didn’t need to be, Maya always protected her.
“He was probably thinking that he loved me.” She’d never questioned that but now…. “Now he probably thinks that he never wants to see me ever again.”
***
Maya sighed and patted Riley’s back. “I’m sure he still wants to see you.” He’d better still want to see her. He wasn’t the updatinding good guy Maya thought he was if he dumped his entire friendship with Riley because he got over zealous.
“But you know what? Don’t worry about it tonight. Tonight it’s just you and me and nothing else matters. Just like old times.” Only it was usually Maya who was upset and Riley the one who was offering comfort.
***
Riley smiles at that. Despite everything, feeling terrible and scared and just wanting to cry for hours because she was convinced she’d just accidentally broken up with her boyfriend, Maya always managed to make her smile. Effortlessly.
“Want to be my valentine?” she half-heartedly joked. Sure Maya had a boyfriend but Riley didn’t think he’d done anything super nice and no matter what she loved Maya more anyway. They loved each other more than anyone.
***
“You know it,” Maya said with a little laugh. She was feeling anything but jovial, but Riley could always make her smile anyway. “I’ll always be your valentine, Riles.” She leaned over and kissed the top of Riley’s head.
***