Shivley: A Now United Story

Ch 40: 100 Years

Note: The title of this chapter is the song that is playing while they're on the ferris wheel so if you want to set the scene, feel free to play it while reading the chapter :) 

As soon as she saw Hina and Maya high five each other, many things seemed to fall into place for Shivani. Hina was probably texting Maya this whole day and this was definitely a set up. 

Bailey cleared his throat. "I'm assuming this is not a coincidence?" 

"Hina and Maya just gave each other a high five so definitely not."

"Oh."

"Wait were you in on it too? I mean you were texting Hina all day and telling her where we were."

"No! I mean I was texting Hina to check in on her, but I stopped once Noah told us that you went back to the hotel with her."

"Did Noah also tell you that we, uh, that we broke up?"

He nodded.

"Oh. So how was he doing?"

Bailey shrugged. "He said he wanted to be alone for a little while so he split from the group."

"He was alone?"

"Well...basically."

"Basically? What does basically mean?"

Bailey hesitated. "Look it doesn't matter. How are you doing?"

"Tell me what you mean by him being basically alone."

"Look it really doesn't matter."

"If it doesn't matter then tell me!"

Bailey took a deep breath in. They were sitting next to each other, but he wasn't making eye contact with her.

"Sina joined us after you left and went with him."

Shivani nodded. "That's good."

"It is?" Bailey seemed surprised.

"Yeah I mean I got to be with Hina all day so it's good that he had someone who cares about him too. He deserves that and so much more." Shivani looked down at the crowd of people below as their wheel came to a stop. 

"Can I ask you something?"

Shivani nodded without looking at Bailey.

"Did Maya ask you to go with her to talk to Ylona and our parents?"

That caught Shivani off guard, but she nodded.

He sighed. "I'm sorry that she's dragging you in the middle of all of this."

Shivani shrugged. "It's okay I want to be there for her. It's just...," she turned to face Bailey now, "...I don't want her to think that there's anything going on between us, you know?"

He nodded, but his expression was unreadable.

"I'll go with her."

"You will?" Shivani was surprised.

He nodded. "It's my situation and I need to take ownership of my role in all this."

"Wow that's really..."

"Overdue?"

"I was going to say brave. It's really brave."

He shrugged. "Maya's the brave one. If I don't go with her, what kind of big brother will I be to her, you know?"

Shivani nodded. "You know what's weird?"

He let out a sarcastic laugh. "What isn't weird?"

She laughed a little too. "Good point. What I was going to say is that it's weird that things are always weird between us."