It's Not A Triangle

He could remember the first night it happened. When high school life had built up and the only sanctuary he could think of calling his was the bay window. In the night, void of any silence thanks to New York's bustling atmosphere, his walk was quickened by the thought that her face was calming silence. That night they had talked about how Farkle had finally sneaked out of his house for the first time, how the triangle persisted, and how he was still having trouble with not being the top in their class. In the intoxicating 1am air that filled their lungs like laughing gas they cracked up at their ridiculousness. They had covered their faces with pillows to drown out the sound, fearing it could leak into her parents room. When they pulled them away from their faces though it wasn’t joy that remained. It was an exhaustion that let loose rivers of despair they had managed to suppress around their other friends while their brains worked full function to keep their true feelings away from even their own psyches.

“Lucas will never pick me, he’s perfect.” “Be honest, am I useless?” Both sentences came slurred with sleep at the same time but when each of their sentences registered in the other’s ears both once again simultaneously spoke. “What?” Their words were nothing like those of just seconds before though. There was a crispness to them, an alertness that shooed away a large part of their grogginess and depicted just how much control they could harbor from their sleep deprived brains when they believed their friend was in trouble. Looking back at the event and thinking of the word ‘control’ made Farkle laugh. He had to laugh at it in a sickened, bitter way. After all it was “funny”.

A lot happened after that. He had explained how Smakle wasn’t his problem, they all were, or at least he was. He explained how he loved them all but not being the best there is at knowledge made him feel like he wasn’t valuable to them in any way anymore. Riley did what he knew she would and filled him up with confidence that was really great. She gave his chattering mind that seemed to always create problems for him to try to solve silence and bliss. Even if it was only for the few hours until the sun started to creep up her bay window and he had to step onto the fire escape back to the real New York, just as awake as the one he’d left when he stepped into her room, that had been enough.

That though a memory he would always remember wasn’t the reason this night swooshed through his brain now. It was the night the list had started. A tight smile pressed onto his lips as he remembered the lighthearted way in which his voice had started it. “Funny” how now all it sounded like to him was a death march. “For one we know he can’t ride sheep.” Engulfed in pain he still found pleasure in the memory of her sweet giggle. It was music. The finest he had ever heard so he had continued. “Number two he can’t wash a car in the right time.”

“Farkle! Neither can I!” “Right. But the point is that no one’s perfect. I’ve seen you show you don’t think you are so much more than needed to to make it observable. You don’t need to anymore. You’re perfect everywhere it counts, Riley. We’re talking about Lucas and how he could definitely pick you. He’s got faults just like all of us. You need to see that. But most of all you need to see that you deserve to be loved by anyone you care about.” “Thank you, Farkle.”

It would have been fine if the list had ended there but it hadn’t. Then again Farkle assumed that wouldn’t have made for a “funny” story. And who would want a story where the sweet girl next door didn’t end up with her prince. Lots of people actually. He thought it was really “funny” how Shakespeare wrote more comedies than tragedies but his most famous plays are in fact mostly tragedies. He thought it was rather “funny”, in a way that made him feel rather uncomfortable of course, that he ever considered himself a main character in his thoughts because clearly the pretty maiden had ridden away with her knight in shining armour, something he could never be as he had clearly shown himself to be the evil warlock if he had any part in this play at all anymore. He was getting ahead of himself though and he had said at the very beginning he would think this all through from start to finish to maybe somewhere find something that could help him mend his endless pitfalls.

“Number twenty-three, he’s not the best at expressing his emotions… but I understand him anyways.” that one was said with a small smile from Riley a couple of days before Lucas announced he’d chosen her.

Number twenty-four was shot out by both Riley and Farkle at Topanga’s the day after those events when Lucas announced he couldn’t eat peanuts. The gang gave them both strange looks all wondering what their random number shouting was about. Farkle explained how him and Riley had once (Multiple times actually, they had joined and had private late night conversations multiple times actually, it seemed more like something that had slipped his mind instead of a lie at the time. “Funny” how that was) made a list of some of Lucas’ faults to make her less freaked out about the whole decision thing. It only took Riley listing a couple of the odder ones to get them all laughing and soon begin an ongoing joke that they all pitched in on.

Number 334 came when Farkle found his way back to her sanctuary through the ice cold rain at the end of his sophomore year. Everything felt wrong about that night, the strangely large clothes belonging to Mr. Matthews that Riley had brought for him to change into, the fact for the first time since before his first day at Abigail Adams he had no reason to send Smakle a goodnight text, the feeling he had that though everything was wrong he was exactly where he belonged. Looking back at his first relationship it was pretty “funny” how he had felt like the world was ending then. For kids their age they had a pretty darn good run and thankfully it was a mutual decision. One that hurt both deeply at the time but they were both smart, they had always been, and they had made the right decision to salvage their friendship something “funnily” enough that he now that he was thinking about it could be more than tarnished as he lay in bed thinking. It probably already was with everyone in his group. He still smiled though because he remembered number 334. “Lucas can’t make girls dump him like you can.” He remembered how insane it was that she had said that and how he was so stuck in his gloomy world he hadn’t really heard anything she was saying to him before that. He knew she knew he wasn’t dumped but she somehow had known how to click him out of his little self loathing bubble and he remembered he had laughed. He laughed with her at 1am like the air was made of laughing gas and nothing was right except for her and that had been enough.

Number 371 had come when she rode in uncomfortable elevator music for what seemed like an eternity before she got to his apartment a crying mess. Number 371 was “He hurt me. He hurt me like no one ever has.” The “funny” thing though was, it was the number he most defended. Lucas was his friend, is his friend if he’ll still allow it, and he made Riley happy. So that night while he held her and was there for her as much as he could be, he also showed up for Lucas, in the figurative sense, though he did eventually console him with Zay about the events of that night in the day following number 371. “Lucas loves you, Riley. He made a mistake. He’s not perfect. I have 371 ways to prove it.” that was the first smile he’d seen on her that night. It was the reason he could breath once more. And for right then that had been enough.

Number 428 was where everything had gone wrong. He saw it now. How it was so obvious, it was “funny”. Just as the numbers on the list had grown with the years, so had his love for Riley, so had his pain whenever she added to the uncounted lists of ways in which he was so amazing. The pain had started like any rain would. There was drop by drop at first sometimes so far apart he could hardly tell it was even there but then it picked up and sure he noticed but well it was just water. He wouldn’t melt. He was fine. But then he’d had enough. A steady downpour was upon him and he was freezing down to his bones. He had that “funny” word control with him until they went to that party. He had it until Riley and Lucas got into their fight. He had it until it was 1am and the air turned to laughing gas. He remembers having his first drink that night. It was just one which now in his junior year he took under the pretenses that everything deserves to be given a fair trial. It wasn’t enough to intoxicate him but for Farkle ever since the first grade Riley had been enough for that. He remembers following her down to the basement while Maya ran after Lucas each trying to do their best for the couple to find a resolution. He could never figure out exactly how he got to the point of saying “Number 428: he could never love you like I do.” Never understand how he could have leaned down and kissed the emotionally weak girl, the only reason he could find as to why he can swear he remembers her having kissed him back for a moment before Lucas’ broken “Riley?” rang through the room that to him a second before had been totally silent. When he jumped back exposing himself to all his incredulous friends he’d sealed the total betrayal Lucas felt. It would be a look he could never forget. With a quick “Sorry.” he bolted from the room and from every one of his best friends for what he imagined was the last time.

Farkle couldn’t believe he had done what he had. “Funny” he could believe it was all some very strange dream if he hadn’t heard the thousand text messages coming from his phone as he laid in bed thinking everything over and staring at pluto. It hurt and he wondered what insane thing his pain could make him do next. He supposed he deserved the thousand whip lashings coming through on his phone so he picked it up but his eyes could only focus on two distinct texts.