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When Riley opens the door someone says, “I love you.” Riley pulls it the rest of the way open without thinking about it, to reveal Maya. She’s just standing there, swaying slightly, wearing black fishnets and a long-sleeved cranberry-colored dress that Riley doesn’t think she’s ever seen before. There’s a rip in the knee of the tights, winding down and around Maya’s ankle. A pair of dirty white Converse are knotted around her wrist by the laces, a piece of notebook paper folded and pinned to the side of them, and Riley wonders who it was that tied them there. Maya takes a step forward, shifting her hair over her shoulder, and Riley gets a waft of sugar-scented perfume, then the burning smell of stale vodka and beer assaults her nose. Maya still seems a little wobbly but when Riley looks into her face, her faded blue eyes are clear, mostly, so she seems to be sobering up.
Riley pulls her in and seats the blonde on the couch before going to make her a cup of tea. “Seems like you had a fun time.” she says the words cautiously, calling them over her shoulder.
When Maya had told her about the party, it wasn’t that Riley hadn’t expected her to have fun, it was that she hadn’t expected to see Maya until the morning, when she was sobered. Maya hated the idea of being around Riley when she was drunk or immediately after drinking for a reason that Riley wasn’t privy to.
“I love you.” The words are called a minute or so later from the living room, Maya’s voice purposely made louder so that Riley can hear her.
“I know.” Riley calls back as she puts the kettle on the stove. She’s about to say it back when Maya cuts her off.
“Do you love me?” Maya’s voice is quieter this time, softer than her normal tone. Riley needs to stop and think for a moment. Maya knows Riley loves her, she knows. They’ve gone over it a thousand times, Riley is off-limits when it comes to questioning who actually has love for Maya because Riley is the only one she believes. Or, at least she was.
“Of course, I love you.” Riley says as she comes back into the living room, sitting on the arm of the love-seat. “You know that, Maya.”
“But do you loooooove me?” she drags out the word in a way that would be cute, that would make Riley giggle, if the look on Maya’s face wasn’t so serious. “Do you really love me? Do you love me like I love you?”
“I think so.” Riley says slowly, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. She goes through the options laid out in front of her in her head. There’s the way she loves Auggie, the way her parents love each other, the way Maya used to love Lucas, the way she loves Lucas and Farkle. There’s the way she’s supposed to love Maya and.......and there’s the way she loves Maya, the way she really loves Maya. She thinks through the options a few more times, unable to pick one to speak out loud, before finally asking, “How do you love me?”
“Oh, ya’know, Riles. You know.” Her voice is a little more slurred, a little watery, and Riley thinks about the saying about people being the most honest when carrying a wet tongue.
It clicks then. Her last option was the right one. Maya is asking Riley if she’s in the love with her, the same way that Maya is admitting she’s in love with Riley. Right?
“Maya,” she says the words slowly more for her benefit than Maya’s. “Are you saying that you’re in love with me? Like……boyfriend-girlfriend love?” Riley kind of wants to smack herself at the ‘boyfriend-girlfriend’ thing both because she should’ve said ‘girlfriend-girlfriend’ and because the words sound so childish coming out of her mouth.
Maya nods her head, eyes glossy as a blissful smile spreads across her face. “Forever and always.”
The tea kettle screams in the kitchen. Maya jumps, a laugh forcing its way out from between her teeth. Riley can't find the muscles to make her mouth work so she just holds up a finger, walking to the kitchen and twisting the dial until the flame on the stove is gone. She leans against the counter for a moment, heart pounding in her chest, lungs burning inside of her ribcage.
This is kind of a revelation moment for Riley. It’s something she’s been working at, scratching at the surface of, but she’s never dug deep enough to actually get anywhere. But now that she’s being forced to think about it and offer a response, she knows that it’s there, she knows that this is what Maya is to her, what she’s always been. She thinks about the butterflies in her stomach and the bubbles in her mouth and how just the idea of holding Maya’s hand kind of kills her a little inside in a good way. She thinks about the rage that grows in her chest when she sees Lucas smiling at Maya the way Farkle used to smile at him.
She thinks about the way her heartbeat is just a little too fast when Maya spends the night and they share the bed and she thinks of sneaking out to go to Josh’s college party in the eighth grade and not being able to understand how the fuck Josh didn’t like Maya, even a little bit, just enough to say, maybe in a few years. She thinks back to the day that Maya asked Lucas out, it was a joke, but still, and she remembers the burning in the back of her throat which she can now recognize as jealousy. She remembers the day Charlie did all those nice things to ask her to the dance and she remembers thinking, Maya, please be Maya.
She thinks about when they all went to Texas and she defined Lucas as her brother. She thinks about how it felt to realize that Maya had been stepping back for so long so that Riley could be with Lucas. Her ribs almost crack when she remembers how it felt to be the one stepping back so that Maya could be with Lucas and be happy. (sure, it didn’t last too long but Maya was happy for a while there, she was so damn happy that Riley would’ve jumped off a cliff if she knew it would keep Maya that way)
She thinks about the real reason she applied to a college across the country and prayed and prayed and prayed that she’d be accepted: because she knew she needed to get away from Maya to be able to get over her and she knew that Maya wouldn’t follow her to California.
Something clatters in the other room and it pulls Riley out of her head. She finds that Maya’s tried to kick her feet up onto the table and she’s managed to knock over the candles Riley has placed there. She also finds out that Maya’s sneakers are still tied to her wrist, though there’s no viable reason why they wouldn’t be. Riley hadn’t taken them off and it’s obvious that Maya wouldn’t have. Riley wants to deal with that, she wants to clean up the candles and make tea and untie the shoes that are attached to her best friend.
But she knows that if she doesn’t say this now, she won't say it.
“I……I think I’m in love with you, too.”
Maya giggles loudly, glazed eyes brightening as she jumps up and throws herself at Riley. This action results in the two of them sliding down into the seat of the loveseat. Thankfully the sneakers just hit the back of the couch instead of any part of Riley. Maya knots her arms around Riley’s neck as best as she can with them still knotted around her wrist, kissing softly at Riley’s pulse point, tangling her fingers in the brunette’s hair. A laugh bubbles out of Riley’s mouth when Maya brushes her lips underneath Riley’s ear and Maya pulls back to stare at her with awestruck eyes.
Riley smiles at her shyly, feeling her cheeks heat. She carefully straightens herself, moving out from underneath the blonde. Maya shifts slightly and Riley feels the tip of her Converse nudge her side. She reaches out, digging her nails into the laces around Maya’s wrist, trying to break the knot. “Why don’t, um…” she looks around the room, rubbing her eyes and trying to figure out what it was that she was doing before Maya showed up. She finally manages to loosen the knot, pulling the laces from Maya’s skin when her eyes land on the clock above the wall. It’s twenty minutes after two and she was cleaning up so she could go to bed before Maya’s surprise visit had interrupted her. “Why don’t we go to bed?”
Maya’s body slumps on top of her, almost like a switch has been flicked and she’s been turned off, and she curls up right there, lying her head on Riley’s chest and sighing softly.
“I meant, maybe, you know, in a bed.” Riley looks down at Maya’s outfit. “Maybe sleep clothes?”
“Oh.” Maya says softly, shifting and snuggling closer to Riley for a moment before pushing herself up, though it’s with a bit of Riley’s assistance. Her bones are still weak, her chest still feels light, like she’s still completely wasted.
“Come on.” Riley pushes herself up from the loveseat, grabbing Maya’s hand and pulling her up with her. Riley picks up Maya's shoes, noticing that the note is still pinned there. The name Malia is scribbled there, followed by a phone number and a heart. Riley smiles to herself, blushing fiercely at the possibility of Maya choosing her over this Malia girl, and heads down the hall. Maya stumbles after her, gripping Riley’s hand tighter when it starts to slip out of her grip. When they get to Riley’s bedroom, Riley leaves her at the end of the bed, saying that she’ll get clothes. She pulls out a pair of shorts and a tank top, handing them to Maya and telling her that she needs to go to the bathroom.
Once there, she locks the door behind her, trying to force her heart to calm down. It’s unfair, she thinks, staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her hair is knotted up high on her head, loose tendrils trailing down over her neck. She has a left-over smudge of yellow eyeliner on her lid and there are purplish bruises under her eyes. It’s unfair that I get to handle this revelation, this confession, when I haven’t slept in three days and I'm terrified of finals. It's unfair that Maya's confession had to come drunk and at two in the morning.
Riley thinks she hears her father’s voice in her head as she forces herself to brush her teeth, telling her that the world doesn’t give you anything you can't handle, that if this is when she was given this, this is when she was supposed to deal with it. She spits in the sink, rinses her mouth out and quickly changes into her clothes to sleep in.
She finds Maya lying back on the bed, fingers clasped over her stomach, eyes closed. The bathroom door clicks shut behind Riley and Maya quickly sits up, holding her arms out for her. “Riles.”
“Peaches,” Riley finds herself cooing, flicking off the lights before pulling the comforter back at the head of the bed. “Come on.” She crawls in on the left side, Maya doing the same on the right. They lie there in silence for a bit before Maya rolls over onto her side, snaking one arm underneath Riley and the other over her waist, curling into the brunette’s side.
“I love you.” Maya presses a kiss to Riley’s neck.
Riley looks over at her best friend, squinting a little as her eyes adjust to the low light. Maya’s eyes are darker, sleepy, and her hair is all swept underneath her. You look beautiful like this, Riley thinks, unable to make the words roll off her tongue. And she does. This is her favorite kind of Maya, makeup rubbed off after a long night, tired and heavy and open. She loves Maya likes this, always has. “I love you, too.”
Maya looks up at her, stares at her for a moment before stretching out her neck, pressing a kiss to Riley’s lips. It’s different, kissing Maya. She hasn’t done it since high school, since Truth or Dare and Spin the Bottle, since party games and young kids who couldn’t hold their alcohol. It’s different. It’s softer and sweeter and when Riley kisses her back, lets her hand drift to Maya’s waist and her nails dig into the soft flesh of her best friend’s hip, Maya lets out a little gasp. It makes Riley’s heart race and her lungs tighten and her body feels like it’s singing.
Then Maya pulls back with a giggle, staring up at Riley with bright eyes. She presses another kiss to the corner of Riley’s mouth and one to her lower jaw before settling in the crook of Riley’s shoulder, snuggling into her once again. Riley returns the kisses, presses a few to the crown of Maya’s head, sliding her arm tighter around the blonde’s waist.
She falls asleep that night happier than she can ever remember being.
+ + + + + +
When Maya opens her eyes, her head is throbbing. There’s a heavy pounding right at her temples and she groans, curling further into the blankets, tighter into the body next to her. She’s falling back asleep, sleepiness and warmth pulling her down until she realizes that she’s in bed with someone.
It’s not that uncommon for a junior in college but it’s something she doesn’t like doing. She’s been cutting back on partying in general and trying to make sure that she has someone to get her home safe but everything’s been hectic with finals and she’d been missing Riley, so she thought she’d be able to control herself and go have a drink.
But then one became two, two became four, and four became emptying a keg with her frat friends.
She opened her eyes slowly, finding herself looking at bare collarbones and a black braided choker, curls of brunette hair winding down the neck. Maybe we didn’t do anything, Maya hoped when her brain caught up with her eyes to find that it was a girl she’d gone home with. It wasn’t that she didn’t like girls like that, quite the opposite frankly, it was just that she’d hoped to have some sort of memory of her first time with a girl.
Maya slowly looked further up, heart punching at her ribcage when she looked into the face of her best friend, of Riley, sleeping soundly next to her. Her body became desperately aware of all the ways they were touching, Maya’s hair spread over one of Riley’s shoulders, their legs tangled underneath the covers, Riley’s arm wrapped tightly around the blonde’s waist. Maya had been sleeping wound into the girl's neck, tucked underneath her chin.
Maya felt the need to get out of there, to get dressed and go home and bury this beneath her. Maybe Riley wouldn’t remember either or maybe she’d wake up and realize that Maya just wanted to forget all of this when she found herself alone. Maybe she’d have the decency to never mention it. But Maya didn’t get the chance for that to even be an option. As she tried to shift out of Riley’s grasp, the brunette let out a soft sigh, eyes blinking open. When they landed on Maya, they were warm and a smile spread across her face, the same smile that Maya had seen a million times, the one that made her heart hurt.
“Hi.” Riley’s voice was quiet, shy.
“Hi.” Maya rubbed at her eyes, trying to force her nerves down, trying to act normal. “Sorry. I was drunk and I know I talk a lot when I drink. Did I say anything?”
Recognition appeared briefly on Riley’s face and her eyes darkened. “You don’t remember?”
“Not really, I’m sorry. What happened?”
“No, uh, it’s okay.” Riley pushed herself up, fear spreading across her face. It was clear that she was uncomfortable as she leaned back against the headboard, folding her legs beneath her. Maya felt a chill crawl up her spine at the emotions flitting across her best friend’s face. “Nothing. You didn’t say anything.”
“Riles, what did I say?” But Riley shook her head, fingering a loose thread in her comforter. “Riles, tell me.”
Riley met her eyes for a moment, shyly, playing with her fingers in her lap. “You told me that you loved me.” She said the words slowly, like there was a meaning underneath them.
Maya knew there was, felt her apparent admission pounding like a drum through her chest. “You’re my best friend.”
“I told you I love you, too.” Riley’s voice was still slow, dripping over Maya like syrup, stirring up feelings she really didn’t need to be dealing with at the moment.
“Like I said.”
“I love you, too, Maya.” The brunette looked into Maya’s eyes, obviously trying to say something and it couldn’t be what Maya thought it was, could it? There was no way. “Maya…” Riley trailed off softly, closing her eyes tightly for a moment, building courage, before leaning in and pressing her lips to Maya’s, right hand coming up to tangle into the hair at the nape of the blonde’s neck.
Maya let her breath out in a gasp, mind swirling with emotions before a tiny voice yelled at her to kiss her back! So, she did, crawling up onto her knees and pushing herself into Riley’s space, holding her back against the headboard and pressing her tongue at the seam of her best friend’s lips. Riley let out a soft moan as she opened her mouth, a moan, Maya’s mind screamed as she felt fire shoot up her spine.
Riley pulled back carefully, slowly, letting her hand trail down to Maya’s shoulder. They locked eyes, just looking for a few minutes as Maya’s mind worked to catch up. Maya smiled, blissfully, shyly and Riley asked, “Is that why you never wanted to be around me when you’re drunk? Because you have big confessions?”
“Maybe.” Maya felt her cheeks color and Riley leaned forward to kiss at the blush, only causing it to darken. “I love you, Riles.” Maya said seriously when Riley moved back. “I seriously, truly love you.” She felt tears spring to her eyes at the confession, at the idea of what it meant. Her throat felt thick, tongue heavy inside of her mouth.
“I love you, too, Maya.” Riley tied her arms around the blonde’s neck again, leaning in. Her words ghosted across Maya’s lips, flames flickering down the blonde's spine. “I always have.”