Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
What's meant to be, will find a way. •
Maya hears someone call her name a few times, but she's too drunk as fuck to know if it was just her imagination or if it was real.
She's holding her arms above her head and swaying her hips to the rhythm of the provocative music. She knows all eyes are on her, and she doesn't mind.
Maya likes feeling wanted, even if they only want to hook up with her. She still feels like the top prize as guys gyrate against her, competing for her attention.
"Maya," she feels a warm hand on her arm and spins around.
She's then face to face with those familiar sea-foam green eyes that continue to make her feel like goo ever since the seventh grade.
"Let's go home." He firmly holds her gaze and she softens.
Maya nods slowly, "Okay."
They stumble out of the hazy room and she's hit with the cold night air, but she's already so numb.
She's giggling and she doesn't even know why but she just keeps laughing until they get to his apartment.
Maya doesn't even realize that she's already in his bed, tucked into a blanket.
Lucas stares at her exasperatedly and she frowns because she's seen that look too many times.
"Maya, I thought you were done with this." His face inches away from hers.
"Done with what?" she blinks.
"With the... with the partying and drinking and getting high." He gestures his hand wildly.
Maya shrugs, looking away and keeping her eyes on the light that spills through the crack of his door.
"Why do you do it?" he prods her.
She sighs, letting a soft chuckle escape her lips. "Because I'm sad... and I just want to forget."
"Forget what?" his brows furrow and he languidly strokes her arm to reassure her.
"That you chose her." Maya croaks, her voice too weak to be any louder.
He tips his head lower, and the room fills with an ear-ringing silence.
"I didn't choose her," he mutters underneath his breath.
Maya looks up at him expectantly, "What?"
"You told me to choose her." Lucas's eyes drift lower, she shivers as his hot breath touches her neck.
"I didn't want you to choose her." Maya shakes her head, her lip trembling.
"When you let go of me and walked out... I didn't want you to leave, Lucas. I wanted you, and you left." Tears burn the back of her eyes, but she won't cry. She will not cry.
His eyes finally meet hers and he stares longingly.
"I just... wanted you to fight for me. To love me." Her vision blurs and she wipes the tears away with one swipe.
"Not in the way Riley loves me, or the way Farkle loves me. The way I love you..." She nearly whispers the last part.
He's watching her fall apart and he's never seen her so vulnerable. She's the one person who intimidates him the most, yet she looks so weak in front of him and all he wants is to wrap his arms around her.
"You love me." He says it more as a statement than a question.
Maya deeply sighs, her eyes searching his. "It scares me, Lucas. The way I feel about you... it's so foreign to me."
He knows what she's talking about, because he feels it too. It's that strong, tight feeling you get in your chest whenever that one person is around.
Not even Riley has made him feel that way. Of course, he's gotten butterflies in his stomach from her. But it was the way you're supposed to feel around your middle school crush, and his feelings for Maya are much more intense than that.
They're emotions that make you go insane, emotions that make you act on impulse.
Emotions that make you...
Lucas cups her cheek, laying his lips onto hers. Her lips are dry from the salty tears and her mouth tastes of alcohol but he deepens the kiss anyway because he's wanted this for so long, he's wanted her for so long. It's so intoxicating and he needs more of her. The kiss is so slow and passionate, it feels like they're melting into each other. He wonders how he could have possibly ever let her go when right now, it feels like he still can't get enough of her.
But she's drunk, and she's not in the right state of mind.
Though, she's the one to pull away.
"I don't want to be the second choice," she says before turning to the wall.
"You were never the second choice, Maya." He says behind her.
But she's already asleep.
He decides to sleep on the couch, he figures it would be the only way to get any sleep.
He's wrong.
That kiss, it keeps replaying itself in his head. He can't get his mind off of it, he can't get his mind off of her, and all the things she had said.
Did he ever really love Riley that way? Or did he go for her because he just wanted to play it safe? Everything always felt so forced when he was with her, like their every move was being watched and everything had to be perfect.
When he and Riley ended it, it felt like their relationship had run its course. That nothing more could ever come out of it.
His story with Maya is unfinished, but he knows that love has obstacles and they have been through many.
Like that night by the campfire when he grabbed her face but couldn't kiss her because of Riley. At Topanga's, when they couldn't have a proper date because Riley forced it, and Zay and Farkle were watching. On New Year's when it was announced that Riley still loved him, he had felt so far away from Maya. It was like any hope for pursuing anything with Maya, was taken away from him.
And at the ski lodge, when Maya told him to go for Riley.
But now, he has a chance to make everything right.
And he'll stop at nothing to take that chance, because for Maya, he'll take every risk.
