whisper | rilaya

two

Like most days since I've moved here, I found myself lying aimlessly on my bed. My mom worried about me sometimes. She never understood why I only ever lock myself in this room and draw art pieces that I can never quite finish.

I bit down on my lip to think. My frustration has been growing over the past few daws along with my lack of inspiration. It seems impossible for me to finish a painting nowadays before leaving it to collect dust by starting another one.

My hands patted around my bed randomly while I searched for my phone. Once I located the device hidden under my pillow, I decided to act impulsively.

There was a brief pause where the shyness that I've tried to suppress came out again. My finger hovered over the contact Farkle put into my phone. I debated on texting him.

Hi Farkle :)
I typed it out then deleted it, it was too fake.

Hi!!
Face palming, I deleted that one as well, deciding that it was too preppy.

Trying one last time, I decided to settle on a casual Hey.

Back in California, I was always told that my biggest flaw was worrying too much about what other people thought about me. They were right. As much as I tried to ignore the feeling, it still kept me from doing things that made me happy.

I wondered for a second about what my friends would say about how I'm acting right now. About what they would have said to me when they saw my shaking hands struggling to send a text message.

Dismissing those thoughts, I reached for my phone to see if Farkle replied to me.

Hey Maya! What's up?

Relief flooded throughout me when I saw his kind response. Maybe New Yorkers aren't as bad as they're portrayed in movies.

~

Within the first five minutes of our text conversation, Farkle invited me to meet up with him and Lucas at a café.

I shrugged on a black leather jacket I had just bought and tied my hair into a sleek ponytail.

Pocketing some spare change I found on my night stand, I left my room and made my way down the creaky stairs.

My head turned into the kitchen for a brief second to shout. "I'm heading out!"

Before my mom could even reply, I was already out the door. My feet travelled at a constant pace, hitting the cold sidewalk with each step. The sun had set an hour or two ago but I wasn't afraid.

At the corner of the 2nd street, I spotted the sign of the café that Farkle told me to meet them at. It was a family owned bakery called Topanga's.

Farkle and Lucas turned to make eye contact with me the second I walked in. They offered me kind, yet unnaturally fake smiles.

I internally confirmed with myself that something was indeed strange about them and it wasn't just me making things up.

I sat on the opposite side of the booth that the two boys had already taken up.

Glancing around quickly, I realized that the café was nearly empty besides us. Normally, this would be reasonable since it was already late. But I couldn't help but notice that almost every shop and restaurant in New York never seemed to sleep.