She Likes Girls ;~ Rilaya

Girl Meets Library

Riley's POV

Auggie finished up his dinner and put his knife and fork down. "It was a good day. And then my friends treated me nicely. And then my teacher measured us and then I'm growing. And then Jenny Lewis loves me. I think because I'm growing."

"It wasn't a good day." I sighed, cutting up my last bits of food. "And then my friend pulled my hair out. And then my teacher took my phone away. And then my teacher was also my father."

"At least you're growing."

My mum put her hand on mine. "Honey, please don't let this affect you too much. It won't be that bad... just think of this as a wonderful opportunity to spend time with your family."

I shrugged and nodded, then looked over at Auggie who looked back at me. "Hello, Riley."

"Hey, little brother. How ya doing?"

"I'm good. I had a good day, want to hear about it? My-"

"Mum!"

"Forgive her, Auggie. She misses her telephone."

"Well then, she can have mine." He pulled his toy phone out from somewhere and passed it to me across the table.

I looked it over but as soon as a cow noise came out of it I put it down and looked at my dad. "Why are you really doing this?"

"Riley, I want you and the rest of the class to become human beings. To feel feelings and be able to communicate them properly without having to rely on your electronic devices, and I believe that by doing this, you guys can learn to become human beings."

All of a sudden the intercom buzzed and a voice came through it. "Hey, losers. It's Maya."

"Except her." I rolled my eyes and laughed before getting up from the table and heading over to the intercom, pressing the buzzer and telling Maya to come up.

"You know what? It's going to be fine. I'm going to go to the library with my friends, do the research, write my report and hand it in to you tomorrow."

"Of course you are, sweetheart. You're going to get the work done and learn a lot, about the subject and about yourself."

I didn't have time to reply before Maya burst through the door and said, "Looking forward to that."

"Do you miss your phone, Maya?"

"Nah, not really. I was the only one in class without a smartphone but now I feel as if everybody's even." Everyone was surprised by how relaxed Maya was, although I think we all agreed with her about the whole class being on even ground with the assignment.

I jumped as the intercom buzzed again. "Farkle."

"Be ready in a minute."

It buzzed a second time. "And Lucas."

"Just a minute."

Farkle's voice came through the speaker again. "We brought candy." Maya and I paused and looked at each other for a second before speeding out of the door and towards the boys with candy on our minds... and the class assignment, of course.

~~~

"Woah... there's so many of them." I said, turning around as I walked through the library so I could take in the masses of books piled up on the many shelves.

Farkle ran his fingers along a line of books. "This is where the ancients stored all of their wisdom."

"Look." Lucas pulled a book out from a shelf and blew the dust off the cover of it. "'Tales of Human Interaction'."

"We'll take it." Maya took the book from his hands and dropped it on the closest table before taking a seat. "Thanks, quickdraw." She opened the book and began reading and Farkle soon joined her, leaving Lucas and I alone.

We both stared straight ahead, however I saw Lucas take a quick glance at me. "So."

"Yeah."

"Uh huh." He scratched the back of his neck and looked all around, eventually going back to the bookshelf and picking up another book. "Here, we'll read this one."

"Okay." I walked over to the table where Maya and Farkle were sitting opposite each other and sat down next to my bestie, and Lucas followed and ended up opposite me.

We read through the books in our pairs, looking for the most important chapters and making notes until Maya flipped to a certain page. "Here's something. Not until we put down our phones, switch off our computers and look in each other's eyes will we be able to touch each other's hearts." She laughed and shook her head. "Yeah, like that's going to work on anybody."

I slowly turned the page of my book and once I had Lucas placed his hands on the pages and made me freeze. I couldn't move any other part of my body other than my head which I slowly lifted up from the table to be face to face with him. Our faces were expressionless but it didn't matter; we made direct eye contact and I saw quite a bit more of him that I had before. The main thing I noticed was that he had a unique sparkle in his eye that I'd never seen before, not with anyone. It was intriguing.

Maya made me jump when she carried on her reading, and I looked back at the book in front of me. "Because it's not until you really look at each other and make a human connection that you can even begin to know each other."

Biting my lip, I fiddled with one of the pages of the book and looked back up. I looked at Farkle and Lucas and smiled at them, then I turned my head to Maya and she was already looking at me. Her smile grew bigger and mine followed, and then she reached her hand across the table and wrapped it around mine. I knew Lucas and Farkle were watching us but it didn't bother me at all; I just looked at my best friend and thanked everyone I possibly could for allowing me to have her in my life.