Girl Meets Ryan Matthews

3.

Edited 5/30/2019

Ryan had been driven to school with Farkle by the Minkus family driver. A perk of being Farkle's beat friend.

Riley and Maya chose not to do this for their own reasons. So they took the subway. Which was full of its won experiences.

History began normally. It did not end so, like everything his family was involved in.

“The Civil War,” Cory wrote on the board. “The civil bore!” Maya sassed. “Thank you, future mini mart employee of the month!” He sassed back.

Maya raised an eyebrow to him.

“Would I be making more money than you?”
Cory moved on, suspiciously avoid answering.

“The Civil War! Anybody?”

“A war we fought against ourselves,” Riley offered. Ryan was confused. She normally made lesson about herself, was she actually just going to let it be?

“You actually studied it?” Cory asked his daughter, just as confused.

“No I'm actually living it,” Riley answered melodramatically before dropping her head to the table.  Ryan rolled his eyes. There it was.

“People,  people are we here to learn or not?” Farkle asked the class, but specifically the four people he knew.

“What do you mean, Farkle?” Cory asked, clearly hoping to divulge from the lesson entirely, annoying the hell out of his son.

Farkle made some speech about loving both Riley and Maya since they'd become friends. Ryan tuned out because, well, he'd been in love with Farkle since that same age. Ryan was bisexual, he's known all his life. The only downside to it was that meant that he'd been in love with his best friend for just as long.

“I'd always thought he'd end up with back-of-the-class-Brenda,” His sister commented. Ryan rolled his eyes.

“Riley, be nice,” Ryan said to his sister. She stuck her tongue out at him and he did the same.

From that moment he tunes out again, mindlessly flipping through the textbook.

The only thing that brought his attention back to the front was a cute boy. He stepped into the classroom.

“Who are you? I don't know you!” Cory said to the boy with hostility.

Ryan looked at the cute boy, and thought that this boy might just help him get rid of his feelings for his friend.

“It's subway boy!” Riley whispers to Maya.

Or maybe not. If he had to compete against Riley he knew he'd lose. Everyone always wanted the better twin.

The boy introduced himself as Lucas Friar. He was from Texas. Ryan didn't know if that made him better or worse.

He sat down behind Riley and next to him.

“Ryan Matthews,” He introduced himself. Lucas smiled at him and waved.

His sister seemed to notice his attractiveness as well, because she wouldn't stop smiling at him. Ryan laughed. She could be so ridiculous sometimes.

Cory looked between Riley and Lucas with a very noticeable frown.

“Everyone turn to page one in your books,” He said, turning his daughter's head to the front.

“Now turn to page forty-eight. I'd like for you guys to read from pages one to forty-eight.”

The class groaned collectively while Ryan rolls his eyes. Leave it to him to give spite homework.

“Oh too bad for you.” Cory sassed the class after their groan. “For tonight's homework, you're going to write a three page essay on anything you believe in so strongly, you'd fight for it.”

Maya smiled brightly as she snapped her fingers.

“That. I come here every day why can't you just teach me everything while I'm here?”

Sensing something dramatic about to happen, he grabbed his writing notebook and got ahead on the assignment.

Something he'd fight for? Rights. LGBTQ rights, women's rights, POC rights. The people who'd been silenced and abused for so long while the cis white males got to dominate the earth believing themselves to be better than everyone else.

These were things he would fight for, and things he was planning on fighting for when he grew up. He'd be a lawyer, like his mother, fighting for people's rights.

Ryan had been so absorbed in his writing he didn't notice when the whole class emptied out. When he looked up, he saw his father looking disappointed while holding Farkle, who was unconscious.

“Do… should I take him to the nurse?” Ryan asked, already putting away his things so that he could. His father sighed and nodded.

He dropped his backpack behind his father's desk. He turned around and Cory dropped Farkle onto his back. Ryan took him all the way the the nurse’s office, where she checked up on him.