Falling Into Place

Chapter Five

*Maya's POV*

"What?" Riley asked, obviously confused. "He wasn't districted to this school."

"Don't you think I know that?" I said, slightly irritated. "He was in the main hallway with a bunch of other guys." The anxiety I felt when I first saw Billy is still running through my body, and I felt like I was going to puke.

"Maya, you're shaking." Liam pointed out. I looked down at my hands and, sure enough, he was right. My hands were shaking and I noticed my breaths were shaky aswell. I nodded in response to Liam question and looked up at Lucas and Riley.

"Lucas don't." Riley said, blocking the front classroom door.

"Move, Riley." He responded through clenched teeth.

"No, Lucas. You can't beat people up!" I think Lucas rolled his eyes... I saw his shake his head. He picked Riley up under the arms and moved her away from the door before walking out of it. "Lucas!" Riley shouted, following him out the door.

I'm sure she was curious as to why I wasn't stopping him, but I didn't care if he beat up Billy at this point. He didn't even seem to care about how he brought himself on me or that Lucas broke up with me because of it... Or becuase I lied, whatever.

"Who's Billy?" Liam asked. I jumped, forgetting there was anyone else in the room with me.

"Oh, um... He uh-"

"You don't have to tell me. Just seems like Lucas really doesn't like him and you're pretty shaken up." Liam sat down on the floor and looked up at me. I chuckled and slid down onto the floor next to him.

"It's okay. I have to be able to talk to you. Riley and Lucas know, you're one of my good friends, you should know." I sighed. Liam nodded and waited for me to continue talking. "Last year Billy did something." I started. There I was, sitting on the floor of my history class spilling my guts to Liam Moore. I told him how Lucas and I broke up for a bit because I was scared to tell him the truth. I told him how Riley forced us to talk because Lucas didn't want to talk to me. Everything.

"It's okay." Liam wrapped his arms around my shoulders and I sniffled. I started crying somewhere between "Billy kissed me..." and "Lucas dumped me..."

"It's not okay. He's back. That's what I wrote!" I cried into his shoulder. I wrote down what Billy did. I never wanted that to happen again and now that he's back, I kinda think it might.

"It's not going to happen again, Maya. Lucas loves you and cares about you, he's not going to let Billy come near you," He reassured me. "and neither am I."

"What?" I looked up at him and laughed slightly at his statement.

"Seeing how scared this Billy kid gets you, really makes me angry. You've been an amazing friend to me since I got here and I intend to do the same for you. Trust me, between Lucas and I, Billy won't ever be able to lay a finger on you."

"Thanks, Liam..." I sat up off of him and wiped under my eyes. "I'm sorry." I laughed, realizing how stupid I must look, crying infront of him like this.

"Don't apologize. Bad things always seem to happen to good people." He smiled.

"I must be a real good person then." I mumbled.

*Lucas' POV*

"Lucas stop!" Riley repeatedly shouted down the hall after me. I ignored her, but could hear her foot steps following me toward the main hallway until I saw Billy and his friends.

"Billy."

He turned around, as did his friends. Billy had a smug look plastered on his face, which irritated me even more than I already was.

"Hey, Friar."

"What're you doing here?"

"I got transfered." He smirked. "Maya didn't seem too happy to see me." All of his little delinquent friends chuckled along with him. Riley stepped up and stood beside me. "You back to messing around with Riley? So you dumped Maya? She's free then right?"

"Like hell she is!" Evidently furious, I took a step towards Billy and his group of five friends. Riley stepped forward aswell, probably to make sure I didn't hit anyone. "You don't mess with her." I warned. "She's happy, don't take that away from her. She has an amazing group of friends that won't tolerate you or what you've done to her."

"Yeah, Riley really has my knees shaking." Billy laughed.

"Just stay away from her." I turned away, and started to walk back to Mr. Matthews' room.

"Lucas." Riley shouted after me. I stopped, turning to face her. "I'm proud of you for not beating up, Billy." She laughed.

"Thanks." A small smile appeared on my face. It took a lot from me to not punch Billy in the jaw, or break his hands so he couldn't touch another girl again, and I really appreciate that Riley took notice of that.

"I should go check on Maya." I turned back around and Riley agreed. I'm not sure how long we had been out of the classroom or if Maya is okay, but hopefully she's okay.

"Maya are you okay?" I asked, walking into the classroom.

"Yeah." She basically whispered. She stood up off the floor and hugged me. I don't think I've ever hugged her so tight. She sniffled a few times, looking up at me to see if I noticed.

"Were you crying?" I asked.

"Well yeah, but it's okay. Liam and I were just talking." She laughed. I pulled her back into a hug, turning to face Liam. He nodded and I smiled. I mouthed Thank you to him and he smiled. If I wasn't around to comfort her when she was crying, it's nice to know he was.

Maya pulled away and fixed her hair before taking a deep breath. She looked up at me, then she looked over to Liam and Riley.

"God, I'm a mess." She laughed. We all laughed with her and we decided against going to Topanga's today. Liam asked Riley if they could still hang out and Riley smiled, stating that she would like that.

I think I see it now...

Maya and I went back to my house to work on homework.

"I'm glad Liam and Riley are hanging out." Maya spoke while writing on her paper.

"Yeah, they're cute." I laughed.

"He's really sweet ya know?"

"Yeah, I know" I nodded. Maya set her pencil down and scooted next to me on the couch.

"But I don't like him, you need to know that."

"I do." I lied.

"No you don't." My eyes widened and she laughed, causing me to laugh aswell. "You still think I like him, I can tell. I notice how standoffish you get when I talk to him or something." I didn't say anything because she was right. I just looked into her eyes and hoped she would continue talking. "I don't know what to do to make you believe me."

"Well, what made you finally believe me?"

"What?" She laughed and turned her body to face me, sitting criss-cross on the couch.

"When you thought I still liked Riley and didn't believe that I really liked you. What made you believe me?"

She looked around the room for a minute to think of the answer. I was actually pretty curious to find out the answer to this question because I didn't know when she truly started to believe me.

"You kissed me." She smiled. "I knew you wouldn't hurt Riley, and if you liked her you wouldn't have kissed me."

I smiled, knowing her first kiss was a good memory for her. God, I remember that day! It seems like it was so long ago... Maya and I arguing over her dad, her trying to convince me I liked Riley, not her...

"I knew I wouldn't regret pinning you to that wall."