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Riley isn’t sure when she realized she was utterly and irrevocably in love with Maya Hart.
Maybe it’s the first time Maya came through the bay window, a little scraggly blonde girl scrambling up the fire escape like in a modern fairy tale—Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair—and Riley’s heart, which always seemed to beat too fast, had slowed, as if to say, “Oh, there you are.” Or the first time Maya sleeps over at Riley’s house, and they huddle under the blankets together, and Riley’s head fits right in the crook of Maya’s neck. Or the first time Riley sleeps over at Maya’s house, and they share a sleeping bag, and Maya’s head fits right in the crook of Riley’s neck. Or the time some boy had splashed paint on Riley’s brand new dress, and little nine-year-old Maya, all scabbed knees and runny nose, popped him in the cheek, giving him a fat bruise and her a week of detention. Or the time the same boy made fun of Maya’s mother for working at a diner, and Riley had thrown woodchips in his eyes, blinding him and sending her to the principal’s office. Or the first time Farkle started waxing poetic about Maya, saying that she was the earth and he was the moon, doomed to orbit around her but never to touch her because it would cause complete and utter calamity—yeah, he had always been like that—and Riley found herself nodding along, because she felt those words bone deep.
Or maybe it’s just every time Maya comes through the bay window, the sunlight always turning her hair into molten gold, the breeze always bringing the sharp smell of her to tickle Riley’s nose—one part her mom’s perfume, one part acrylic paint, and one part mothballs, which always makes Riley think of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Riley really isn’t certain of the exact moment. All she is certain of, is her feeling. That deep pink, almost bruised feeling that centers in the pit of her stomach whenever she thinks about Maya; a feeling that is half like a stomachache after a big meal, half like a cramp after a long run. Half-pain, half-pleasure. Though the pain seems to be beating out the pleasure lately.
It’s not that she doesn’t like Lucas. She does. Sometimes he makes her feel a lighter version, a washed-out, faded version that’s more gray than electric pink. But Maya likes Lucas. Lucas likes Maya. And Maya likes Lucas. And Maya deserves to be happy. That’s what she had said after Texas. That’s what she still stood by. And that’s why, as soon as they arrived at the lodge, Riley told Maya to meet her at the improvised bay window in five minutes, which they had seen as they dragged their bags in. Maya quirked an eyebrow, but swore on their friendship rings that she wouldn’t forget, that she would come to the window as soon as she put her stuff away. Of course, five minutes is a lot of time for Riley, whose brain beats about as fast as her heart, and who has had far too much time to doubt and doubt and doubt again what she is doing.
Effectively, she is denying herself everything. Maya gets Lucas; Lucas gets Maya. Riley gets…the sweet satisfaction of bringing them together? The pure white noble feeling of making two dear friends happy? The opportunity to wallow in her own sadness, to let it soak into her, because she’ll at least have a reason this time instead of marinating in meaningless misery like she usually does? It’s one of those.
It really is for her friends, though. In Rileytown, she has a motto. Okay, she has several mottoes, but the biggest one is, Friendship first. Okay, the real motto is, Friendship first, Riley second. So what if it hurts, if it’s for her friends? If her friends are happy, she is happy. Even if her friends are happy without her, she is happy. Always happy, always smiling. Smiley Riley. If her friends are happy, she is happy, and Riley cannot be anything less than Smiley Riley at all times. Her friends depend on it, and friendship comes first. Riley repeats the words like a mantra, a prayer, under her breath until Maya appears.
“What’s up, Riles?” Maya says, swinging into the seat next to her. “This is actually pretty close to the real bay window,” she continues, glancing around appreciatively. “Maybe we should just move up here and become professional skiers.”
“Yeah, because I’m already so coordinated on my own two feet. I’m sure to be a hit on skis.” Riley usually doesn’t go for sarcasm, but she can be allowed some indulgences today.
Maya laughs. When her eyes crinkle up like that, Riley’s stomach crinkles with them. Friendship first, she thinks.
“Okay, so, what did you call me up for? What was so important that I could barely get off the bus before being dragged here?” Maya drags a hand through her hair, and Riley catches her breath and wonders how Maya doesn’t pull her hand away to find golden flecks stained on her skin—
Okay, but Riley really can’t afford to think anymore; in particular, she can’t think like that. If she thinks like that, she’ll chicken out. If she thinks like that, she’ll condemn herself to more weeks of torment, tossing and turning on her bed, veering between two opposite sides of the color spectrum, wanting and not wanting ten contradictory things at the same time. If she thinks, she’ll drive herself up a wall. This one, right here, that she’s leaning against now.
“Maya,” she starts, pauses, licks her lips. Friendship first. “Maya, I want you and Lucas to be together. I know I keep saying I still like him, but I’ve realized that I don’t need a boyfriend. I’ve been lucky all my life. It’s someone else’s turn. Your turn, specifically. I want you to have someone who makes you feel good, who cares for you, genuinely. And I want you to experience what it’s like to make someone else feel good.”
“Riles—,” Maya tries to interrupt, but Riley barrels ahead, an uncoordinated girl on skis zooming down a slope.
“Basically, Maya, I don’t want you and Lucas to worry about me. There are lots of people in this world. I’m just sick of this back and forth, never really knowing where I stand with Lucas, but I know where you stand, because he really likes you, and you deserve that. And I’ll be fine, I have no hard feelings towards either of you, I mean how could I ever have hard feelings towards you, and I want us all to stay best friends, us and Lucas and Farkle and Smackle and Zay, I don’t want to lose any of you, so please don’t worry about me.”
"Seriously, Riles—,”
“You’re my best friend in the entire world, you’re the most important person to me, and your happiness is what matters to me, even more than my own, because when you’re happy, I’m happy, and when you’re sad, I’m sad, and you’ve seemed so sad lately, so down, and I can’t take it, so this is your chance to be happy, Maya, and you need to take it, you need to march downstairs now and tell Lucas that you guys are together and the triangle is over—,”
“Riley Rhiannon Matthews.” Maya places both of her hands firmly on Riley’s shoulders. Her heart slows down a little at the touch, although she feels breathless from all the rambling. Like she’s run a marathon, and then there goes the familiar little cramp in her stomach. Then she realizes that Maya has called her by her full name, her full embarrassing name, and her brain whirs into overdrive—is there any other setting?—trying to think of another time Maya has done that. But there is none.
“Riley,” Maya repeats. “Where is this coming from?”
My heart and my stomach. “I want you to be happy,” she says in a small voice.
“I know you do, honey. But…” Maya slides one hand off Riley’s shoulder. The shoulder in question feels like it’s been doused in cold water. “But Lucas isn’t going to make me happy. You make me happy.”
“You make me happy too,” Riley whispers. More than you may ever know.
“Who needs Lucas?” Maya jokes, throwing both her hands up. Riley’s shoulders want to follow the warmth of Maya’s hands, but she quiets that ridiculous impulse. Instead, she slumps further against the wall.
“Why did we even get into this mess in the first place?” she mutters. She hadn’t really intended for Maya to hear, but she does, and she looks at Riley, thoughtful, then looks out the window. The sun spills gold on her face. She looks like one of those Renaissance paintings at the Met, the ones they see together on the weekends. Every time, Riley watches Maya drink them in, and every time she has to fight the stupid urge to say, “Why bother looking at the painting when you’re art?” A study in light, a study in gold. Riley wishes she had a photographic memory so she can always remember the way Maya looks right now. But who is she kidding? She’ll remember regardless.
“You know what’s funny?” Maya turns back to Riley. “I’ve…liked people before.” She hesitates for a moment, looking cautiously at Riley. “But I don’t actually think I like Lucas in that way? I know, it’s ridiculous, because this whole thing has gotten dragged out for so long, and you probably think, ‘why didn’t she say this sooner’? And I know with everything in Texas, it looked like I liked him, but…I don’t know.” Maya pauses, turning her hands over in the air as if she could pull the right words out. A magician searching for a bunny in a silk hat. Riley watches her hands, while trying to somehow digest the fact that Maya doesn’t actually like Lucas. There’s a slight edge to it, because Riley wants to smack herself in the head for not knowing the girl she loves, for being so ridiculous, for causing this whole triangle in the first place because it’s her fault, right? She pushed this on them, right? She blurted out Maya’s secret at the campfire in Texas and the something happened, and the dates happened, and if she hadn’t done that, would any of this have happened? Everything bad in the world is your fault. Her old friend Guilt starts chanting those words, but she can barely hear it for once because there’s a brass band playing one of those victory marches at full blast because Maya doesn’t actually like Lucas!
Riley bites her lip to keep from cheering.
“I don’t know, Lucas just…he doesn’t—,”
“Make you feel pink?” It slips out before she can catch it, not even the lip bite stops it, and then she almost swears. She manages to catch that one, not that it’s much help. Maya raises an eyebrow, cocks her head. A study in angles, a study in curves.
“Is that how he makes you feel?” It’s meant as a joke, Riley’s sure of it, but the usual Maya spark isn’t in it. Instead, the way she asks—it’s as cautious as the look she just gave, like the words are poking out from behind bushes, ready to scurry back inside at the slightest sign of danger.
“Well…sort of. A little. It’s not really…vibrant.” It’s sleet, it’s sludge, it’s slosh compared to the neon fizzling in her stomach, burning brighter than any lights in New York. But this is coming too close, perilously close, and added in to the cramps and the stomachache feeling is the roller-coaster-dip feeling, the feeling of falling and not knowing if something is going to catch you, or if you’re just going to hurtle right on into the center of the earth and burn up in the magma.
“Does anyone make you feel vibrant?” For the briefest moment, it’s Maya biting her lip, as if she’s afraid of what might come out, and like a magnet, Riley’s eyes are pulled to them. A study in softness, a study in pink. What would they feel like, pressed against her own?
But no, no! This isn’t right, this isn’t the right time, just because Maya doesn’t like Lucas doesn’t mean this can happen. Riley jerks her eyes back up, fearful that she will have to find some excuse for staring at Maya’s lips like a total moron, only to find Maya’s eyes resting on her lips. After a moment, Maya’s eyes flicker back up and they just stare at each other for what, to Riley, feels like an entire eon. Empires rise and fall outside the bay window, the ocean rises and swells to crash through the streets of New York, everyone they know lives and dies, and they stare at each other.
And Riley just can’t do it anymore.
“It’s you. It’s you, Maya, it’s you. It’s you, it’s you, it’s you.” The words taste like the candy they buy at the store together, like Maya’s shampoo when a lock of her hair finds its way into Riley’s mouth during their sleepovers, like—like—
Like Maya’s lips when they smash against hers.
Riley had expected her heart to burst like an over pumped balloon. She had expected her heart to bolt like a skittish horse. She had expected her heart to use up all the heartbeats stored in it and then flatline. What she hadn’t expected, was the same feeling she felt the first time Maya came into the window. A warm, settled feeling. Oh, there you are.
Maya’s hands grasp Riley’s face, and they fit just right, the way her head fits right on Riley’s shoulder. Riley slides her own hands up, strokes Maya’s cheek, slides a hand through her hair and wonders, faintly, if her fingers will stain gold…
Maya pulls away first, but she keeps her hands on Riley’s cheeks, her nose pressed on Riley’s nose. Riley can barely breathe. It’s like Maya has drawn all the life from her lips, but Riley would be willing to die a hundred times over if it meant she could hold Maya so close, feel Maya’s breath tickle her lips. If it means she can hear what Maya says next.
“It’s you, too, if you couldn’t tell,” Maya murmurs, and Riley truly could smile herself to death.
She wants to play it cool, though, which is a bit hard considering her entire body is tingling, and also she’s never been known for being cool. She settles for whispering, “Yay!” against Maya’s mouth, the toned down version of her usual freak-out. All things considered, she thinks that’s playing it pretty damn cool. But Maya shakes her head, lets out a little chuckle. “Do the whole freak-out. It’s not you if you don’t do it full volume.”
And Riley does. Because she can’t believe it, she really can’t. Not but five minutes ago she was dreading the worst, preparing herself like some old-time martyr on the way to the scaffold, writing her last mournful letter in flowery medieval script. And then? Kissing Maya? Kissing Maya in a bay window? Kissing Maya in a bay window and not having Maya pull back in disgust? Kissing Maya in a bay window because Maya closed the gap between their lips, Maya put her hands on Riley’s face, Maya set everything to swirling technicolor and pulled flowers from Riley’s mouth? That happened?
When she’s yay-ed herself out, she sits down and leans against Maya, content. Her head fits on Maya’s shoulder, like always. Maya places a hand under her chin, tilts her face upwards so they’re looking into each other’s eyes again. A study in lilac, a study in blue.
“Who needs Lucas?” she asks again, a dizzy, dazed smile on her lips, and Riley presses forward this time. A study in tongues, a study in exploration. A study in love.