The Preview II: Our Little Infinity

Chapter 1: All That Remains

Riley's POV

It started with Smackle.

Smackle. That was where it all began. 

Sophomore year had been a tumultuous ride for all of us in the Inseparable Six. It started with the one breakup no one ever anticipated. Farkle had let his beloved Isadora go. I can clearly remember how long I sat there with him after he had told her, deaf to his long-winded explanation, wondering how two people that were so compatible could fall apart so quickly. In hindsight, maybe it was a matter of just how much similarity there was between the two of them. There was no imbalance- no yin to yang. 

After that, the group didn't see much of Smackle, and we became the Forever Five. She still smiled and waved at us when she passed us in the hall- all but Farkle, but every day she drifted further and further away. It wasn't until the start of the second semester that we really lost her. She was offered a decent scholarship that would allow her to return to her old, fancy private school. Without any ties holding her back, she took the money and went on to do who knows what incredible academic things.

Our junior year rolled around, and it became my turn to join the lonely hearts club band. Out of seemingly nowhere, Lucas had to move back to Texas. During the last few days I spent with him, he didn't waste his breath trying to tell me just why he had to leave, only that he had no other choice. He told me he loved me and would miss me like crazy, and then he was gone. He took a piece of me with him, I think. Yes, I'm quite sure a bit of Riley Town has been left to float, lonesome down the Rio Grande.

Without Lucas around, Zay grew apart from us. He joined the football team and made new friends. It didn't take long for him to forget all about us and to start replacing his grandma's famous cookies with expired Jack Daniel's and pot brownies at senior house parties.

Two more down. The Thundering Three.

If Maya and I were thunder and lightning, then Farkle was certainly the rain. The three of us had been together since the first grade when Farkle fell in love with the both of us. Sure, I missed Lucas, Maya missed bothering Zay, and Farkle felt the ache of having hurt Smackle, but we still had each other. It was just like old times.

For a while.

The summer after our junior year, Maya cracked. She had been so strong through all of the changes we were going through, but she had reached a breaking point. Shawn, her stepdad, was never home anymore, and she was constantly bickering with her mom. One day, she just disappeared. There was no note, no warning- she was just gone- her art supplies, too. Her mom called me, then the police. My parents called Josh. He would be the one to find her, even when she didn't want to be found.

And find her he did. She was camped out in a park where he had first kissed her, drenched with rain and acrylic paint that had been flooded from her easel and palette. He drove her to my place, and we all just sat for a while, wondering what was supposed to happen next.

Josh had gotten an apartment right after his freshman year at NYU and was now almost a junior. He was more than willing to have Maya stay with him for a while to give her and her mom some space. Katy Hart-Hunter didn't take too well to that. Though she was very hesitant at first, Maya was nearly eighteen, and Josh was a Matthews. As far as Katy was concerned, her daughter was safe in the hands of any and all of the members of the Matthews' family.

So it was settled. Maya moved in with Josh. Everything was supposed to be all better. But now that Maya lived across town, she could no longer go to school with Farkle and me. She took classes online and got a job at one of NYU's spirit shops to help pay for her classes there next year. She was so busy that I hardly ever saw her anymore. 

Thunder down. The Timeless Two.

Going into senior year, I'm not sure what I expected, but I knew that Farkle was all I had. And I was all he had. With that, I guess I assumed we'd simply wind up being lonely together. I never imagined just how happy we could be when it felt like everything we'd ever known to be gospel truth was faded like a pair of well-worn jeans. Maybe we just grew up.

One way or another, the grand finale of my adolescence danced hand in hand with the overture to my adulthood, and the music was beautiful, loud, and all too memorable. Nothing in the previews could fully forewarn my once youthful innocence of what was to come.

So now I leave you with this unusual tale of a long-legged princess, a tender scientist, a wounded rebel, a dark-eyed hero, and our little infinity.