𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 & 𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄 ━ girl meets world²

5│FINDING YOUR VOICE

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❛ ʟᴇᴀᴛʜᴇʀ & ʟᴀᴄᴇ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ғɪɴᴅɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴠᴏɪᴄᴇ ꒱


❝ PLEASE DON'T TELL
YOUR MOTHER I TALK
  TO SQUIRRELS ❞

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"Are we running away? Is that what we're doing? I don't wanna run away," Maya complained as she, Riley and Miya hurried down the steps of the subway not long after leaving the Matthews' apartment. They'd made a quick pit stop at Maya's to gather up her clothes (which made Miya suspicious that Riley was doing something. . . 'Rileyesque') and were now cutting it quite close to the time their train was leaving.

Riley stopped and turned to her. "Maya would. This should be your idea, not mine."

"Why we do we have all of my clothes?" the blonde wanted to know.

"Yeah, that is a good question," Miya chimed in, arching a brow at Riley.

She pretended like she didn't see her friend's inquisitive-bordering-on-accusatory look. "Get on the subway."

"Wouldja just tell me where we're going?" Maya pleaded with her.

"To find you," was the other girl's only response as she whirled on her heel and marched toward the subway, cutting off their chance to demand any more answers from her. It was only once the train was in motion that Riley spoke again. "All my life, I always wanted to be you, Maya. Remember how we stood here and I put lip gloss on for the first time because I wanted to be bad like my best friend?"

The three of them were standing in the middle of the aisle holding onto one of the poles. Maya's bags of clothes were at their feet. They'd told Miya awhile ago about how they'd met Lucas so she knew what they were talking about. Maya stared at her in disbelief. "Riley, how do you see lip gloss as a bad thing?"

"Lip gloss? Kissing?" the brunette offered. "And that's all you taught me."

"Okay. We need to find me as soon as we can," Maya agreed. She glanced at the Asian girl next to her. "For both your sakes, 'cause I know Farkle's not gonna know anything about what comes after kissing. He can't even look at page seventy-three of the health book."

Miya blushed and ducked her head, mumbling, "for the record, neither can I."

She was glad when Riley continued her reminiscence. "Remember this is how we met Lucas?"

"Yeah. What were the odds you could just turn around and there would be a guy like. . ." Maya and Riley glanced at a seat behind them, presumably a similar one Lucas had been sitting in. Miya followed their gazes to see a cute guy sitting there, reading a book.

Riley giggled at the coincidence but Miya just gave him an appraising look, then shrugged. "Eh. Not my type."

"You have a questionable taste in guys," Maya informed her dryly. "And that's coming from me."

🌎🌎🌎

They had to take a taxi from the subway to get to their final destination. As they got to the car, there had been a pause where Riley had been waiting for Maya to do something but when she didn't, she rushed forward and called shotgun herself, which left the other two girls the back seat. As they drove out of the city, Miya looked up from her phone (she'd texted Farkle and Stuart that she'd be home late or even the next day— joking that she'd been 'Rileynapped'— and received two thumbs-ups; for geniuses, they didn't have a lot of texting skills) to admire the trees as they went further into the forest.