Girl Meets the Mind of a Genius

Genius Meets Pianos

Farkle (con)

This has been the most boring week of my life. 

My parents are never home so I have absolutely no one to talk to.

I'm not supposed to use screens so that takes away video games and tv show binging.

To fill up my time, I turned back to music.

I've always loved the arts. I did the school plays until I was banned in 7th grade. I've been playing piano since I was little.

But all of it fell through when high school started. 

Studies say that playing and listening to music makes you smarter, so if I want to beat out Smackle for Valedictorian and still comply by concussion rules, piano is all I have. 

I'm in the middle of playing an arrangement of "Yesterday" by the Beatles when there's a knock on my window. 

It's Maya.

Our friend group doesn't believe in doors.

I open the window and gesture for her to sit in my bean bag chair. 

"Okay, genius, spill."

I sit back down on my piano bench, "There's not really much to tell, Maya. She took me to the nurse and we made up. We agreed to be friends."

She shifts in the chair, "Why did Matthews ask you to stay back?"

"He asked me what happened. He wanted to know if everything was okay and if I could fix it." I say cautiously.

Maya raises her eyebrows, "And what did you tell him?"

"I told him that I can't control everything," I hate not being able to control anything, "We won't know if we did the best thing until we do. Right now we can only try to do what we think is best and go from there."

"And do you think you did what was best?" She asks slowly.

I shrug, "I don't know. And I won't know until I do."

Maya smirks, "For a genius, you seem to not know a lot of things."

"Feelings are hard to understand, no matter how smart you are." I state, "This is the one thing I struggle with and probably always will."

I don't want to struggle anymore, even with something as stupid as feelings. 

I don't want to think about my feelings anymore.

So I distract her.

"What's happening with you? How's Josh?"

Her smile fades, "Uh, not so great."

"What happened?"

"He went back to school and I haven't heard from him since," Maya looks down, "I thought 'Oh he's just busy. It's okay.'"

She looks up at me with tears in her eyes, "But then I saw a picture of him cuddling up with some girl. And then I stalked her, as any reasonable person would, and she has a few pictures posted with him. It looks like they're really close."

"Have you tried texting him?"

"Of course I did," she throws her arms up in the air, "Radio silence."

"I'm sorry, Maya."

She stands up and starts pacing, "I can't believe I was so stupid to think that he would go after a high school girl. I guess age still matters to him. Those girls are experienced and smart. Why wouldn't he go for them? I should just back off."

I walk over to her and grab her shoulders, "Oh, come on. You're the Maya Hart. You're stronger than any obstacle."

She shrugs me off and plops down into the chair.

I go back to sit on my bench and sigh, "At least talk to him to get some closure. That's better than nothing."

"You're right. You always are. Except when it comes to yourself."

I look up, "What?"

"What are you going to do about Riley?" Maya asks softly.

I bite my lip and swivel back to face my piano.

"Farkle?"

I run a C scale and try to think. I try to get my nerves to leave me. 

Piano used to help with that.

I keep staring at the keys, "How did you get used to it?"

"Used to what?" Maya gets up and walks over to the piano to stand by it.

"Seeing Lucas cuddling up with her and holding her hand. How did you get over that it wasn't you."

Maya sighs, "It came with time I guess. I don't think I ever really loved Lucas though. That's not the same for you. You love Riley."

I turn to face her, "How could I not?"

"I don't know. I'm sure kissing her didn't help."

My face starts burning with embarrassment. 

I know Maya knew. It just feels like this big secret.

"Nope." I take a few deep breaths and try to ground myself.

It's what my therapist taught me to do when I felt overwhelmed.

I'm always overwhelmed now.

"This is really hard, Maya."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"I'll be okay," At this point I'm trying to make myself believe it, "I just need to figure out how to not faint when I see them together."

Maya turns around and starts strolling towards my window, "I can't really help you on that one."

"I know."

She opens my window, "I have to go, but it was a pleasure."

"Always is," I smile at her, "Close the window on your way out."

I turn back to my piano and start plunking the keys.

I pull out a song from the very back of my mind that I used to play all the time, "The Scientist." (song up top)

I used to love this song because of its title. I loved science and I loved music. It was perfect.

And then as I got older, I started finding out what the lyrics really meant. I started feeling them in my own life. 

"Nobody said it was easy," I sing softly, "No one ever said it was this hard."

I feel a pit in my stomach. This song is hitting different right now.

"Oh take me back to the start."

I take my fingers off of the keys and gently rest my head down on the piano.

I hear footsteps behind me, "I remember when you found out what this song meant."