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They are getting ready to go meet the boys for bowling when Maya decides to do it. It’s terrible timing but she is so entranced by the way Riley gets ready, moving so effortlessly to the low poppy background music. She has to do this or she will explode. She takes a deep breath. “Riley, darling, you’re my best friend.” Maya starts with that because the reminder is nice and she doesn’t really know where else to begin.
“And you’re mine. Are you okay? Is everything fine? Are you feeling alright? Please be feeling alright.” She can hear the concern in Riley’s voice and never mind she changed her mind it’s fine she doesn’t have to know but she does.
“No pumpkin, I feel fine. There just a few things you don’t know. That you deserve to know. That I have to tell you. Like, why I steal your lipgloss so often. Or where that shirt I borrowed from you a few months ago is. I-”
“Maya you can keep that shirt. I told you that.” Riley seems so earnest about Maya’s guilt over a shirt and god does Maya love this dumb girl.
“This isn’t about that. This is about me stealing your stuff. This is about why I don’t like your boyfriends. This is about why I’d follow you until the ends of the earth. This is about why you catch me staring in class, why I can’t meet your eye before dances. This is about how I love you, so much, as more than friends and how much it hurts to see you with boy after boy when I know I could treat you better and how I don’t wanna ruin our friendship but I do wanna kiss you and how you mean the world to me and how you’re my dearest friend and I don’t know how to say this right because all that ever wants to come out of my mouth when you look at me is I love you I love you I love you. This is about why I think hope is for suckers and I’m not a sucker but I have it for us anyway. This is about you and me against the world. This is about us.” Riley is staring at her and Maya might cry because she isn’t doing anything she’s just staring and Maya can’t hold eye contact any longer and she just wants Riley to say something.
“Maya, darling, you’re my best friend.” Maya’s going to cry know, she knows it. Riley's got her hand under her chin, guiding watery blue eyes to doe brown ones. “But there’s a few things you don’t know either. Why I always want to hold your hand. Why I can never stand to see you upset. Why I break up with all those boys. Why I never return the pajamas I borrow from you. Why I never took our ring off, even when it turned my finger green. Why there’s a page in my notebook that’s just the name Riley Hart over and over. Why I stare at you while you draw, even if you never notice. Why I know that you think hope is for suckers, but I’m content being a sucker if I’m your favorite sucker. Why maybe I do want to ruin our friendship, if it meant we could be girlfriends instead. I love you too, you big dumb peach. I’ve loved you for a long time, Maya Penelope Hart.”
Riley leans in to kiss and Maya meets her in the middle and smiles into Riley’s mouth. Her best friend’s mouth. Her girl’s mouth. It’s slow and sweet and tastes like bubblegum and peaches. The smiles on their faces are making the actual kissing kind of hard. It’s perfect in the way only Maya and Riley can be. They break for a second, and she hears “Where did that shirt go? You never wear it.”
“I may or may not use it as a pillowcase sometimes.” Riley laughs and pecks her lips again before getting up to finish getting ready. And Maya watches this girl put on makeup and it’s honestly the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. She runs a hand over her lips and then through her hair. Maybe she’s a sucker, after all.