Riley woke up the following morning and immediately felt something was off. The sunlight was beaming through her bay window like most mornings, but instead of it fueling her usually effervescent attitude, she pulled her covers back over her head and sunk deeper into her pillow. She squeezed her eyes shut and silently prayed for it to be Saturday. When she realized God would not be granting her plea, she pulled the blanket down to her chin and awaited the arrival of her best friend.

She didn't have to wait long before a blonde mass of hair entered through her bay window.

"Cough, cough. Sniffle."

"No, no, no, no." Maya immediately countered Riley's feeble attempts at feigning sick. "You can't be sick. I don't know how to do this life thing alone."

"I think I have the foo foo plague." Riley knew she was being ludicrous, but she enjoyed the soft morning banter between she and Maya.

She was even beginning to feel a little better about the upcoming day, the two girls giggling together, when suddenly it was ruined.

"Okay, can we please go to school now and get out of Rileytown?" Riley felt her face fall, and by the look on Maya's face, she had caught it, too. "What? I just said can we get out of Rileytown-"

And suddenly Maya found herself being pushed out of the warm enfolds of Riley's bed and sitting painfully on the cold, hard wood floor. "What is it with you? That's just a word I made up."

"I know what it means." Riley's voice was hollow. "It means that I'm goofy and silly and weird."

"It means you're unique!"

"I don't want to be unique." Riley's brown eyes usually twinkled, but right now they held a different glisten that Maya hadn't seen in her best friend before. "I don't want anybody to notice me."

What should have been a typical morning in the Matthews household took a drastically unfamiliar turn as the morning wore on.

"You're a bully." And if Riley had not been so consumed by her own torment, she would have taken note of the hurt in Maya's eyes.

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It was halfway through her father's history lesson that Riley heard the familiar ding of her phone go off. She pulled it out of her bag and glanced at it quickly.

"Riley, no one should be texting you in class." Her father chided, and she placed it back in her bag.

Her eyes briefly caught Maya's raised eyebrows and Lucas' concerned expression, but they rested on Zay, whose gaze was unwavering and held disquietedness. He clicked the inside of his cheek with his tongue, but he was not the first to break their stare.

Riley turned around. "I agree." She turned her attention to Maya. "I don't want you to say Rileytown anymore."

Maya rolled her eyes. "I like Rileytown. I like you and I like to say whatever I want."

Before Riley knew what was coming out of her mouth, and in perfect likeness to her father's lesson, she had challenged her best friend to a duel.

"So, why am I telling you guys a story about what happens when you fail to resolve a conflict peacefully? Lucas?"

Lucas kept his eyes on Riley, who was still staring intently at Maya. "People get hurt."

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After challenging Maya to a duel after school that day, Riley had lost her appetite and decided to forego lunch entirely, trading in the pandemonium of the cafeteria for the quiet seclusion of the janitor's closet. She had scurried out of her father's class without waiting for Maya, which is something they never did, regardless of what their current circumstances were.

She hugged her knees to her chest and pushed her sandwich to the side.

She half expected Maya to come bursting through the door and demand for her to tell her what's been wrong, and stubbornly not leave until she got an answer.

She half expected Farkle to knock gently on the door before letting himself in and sliding beside her, asking her sweetly if she wanted to talk about it.

She half expected Lucas to push through the door, ask Riley if she was okay, and then chastise her about not going to them to begin with.

But, most surprisingly, she almost fully expected Zay to open the door with a reproachful look and sit beside her anyways.

Instead, Riley sat in the janitor's closet for the whole lunch period, by herself, sandwich untouched.

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"Maya, as the one challenged to this duel, you get the first shot." Zay explained, standing in between the two girls. "Alright, you'll take three paces, turn and fire."

"How do you know how to do this so well, Zay?" Farkle questioned.

"Well, back in Texas, we call this a Wednesday." Zay half-shrugged before continuing. "Ice cream ready? One, two, three, turn, fire!" He stopped abruptly. "Wait a minute, something's wrong." Lucas and Farkle smirked at each other before each grabbing one of Zay's arms and pulling him back a couple feet. "Oh, that would have been bad!" He paused for a second, glancing quickly from Maya to Riley. He briefly entertained the idea that perhaps Riley needed this, if for no other reason than to let out some of the pent up aggression of keeping such a secret. "Fire!"

Maya took one step towards Riley before turning around and handing her ice cream cone to Mr. Matthews.

Despite the praise her parents bestowed upon Maya for her mature resolution skills, Riley was not easily swayed by her mother's insistence to do the same.

"You're a sweet, weird little goofball and I love you just the way you are, deal with it." Maya smirked as she walked towards her best friend with her arms outstretched; but instead of falling into her embrace, Maya was met with the cold reality of an ice-cream cone to the face. She wiped the sticky goo away from her blue eyes just in time to see the backside of Riley storming out of Topanga's.

The four friends sat in the bakery, discussing amongst themselves what could be wrong with Riley, Zay unusually quiet.

"Why are you so calm?" Lucas asked Maya, watching as she took her towel to dab at some more ice cream that had been missed during the first couple of cleanings.

"Because, this isn't her. This isn't Riley at all."

"This is like when I always used to wear my turtlenecks and then there was somebody that didn't like that I-" Farkle's ramble fell flat and Zay immediately noticed the pause in his voice and looked up. "Oh my gosh." Zay tried to meet Farkle's gaze with his own, but Farkle was already focused on Lucas.

"What? What are you looking at?"

"You gotsta go. We need more towels."

"What?" Lucas truly did not understand the sudden urgency for more towels, and he looked briefly at Maya.

"Maya needs more towels!"

"I'm fine." Maya tried to argue, but Farkle was determined.

"Get her more towels!"

Zay understood what Farkle was doing and quickly jumped up to go with Lucas. "Okay!"

Farkle's head was spinning as he moved closer to Maya to explain to her what was happening to their usually perky best friend. He mentally kicked himself for not seeing the signs sooner. It all made perfect sense now; the hollow stares, the sudden moodiness with her friends, her absence at lunch.

"I think she's trying to get you to hear her." Farkle explained further to Maya, gently and subtly; he wanted her to comfort her best friend the way they had all comforted him when he was going through the same thing, though he still felt loyalty to Riley and didn't want to be the one to fully divulge her secret.

"Hear what? Why does she keep talking about a bully if she knows I'm not-" Farkle watched as Maya finally realized what he had just discovered only moments ago. "Oh no."

As soon as the realization hit, Maya had run out of Topanga's as fast as she could, and Farkle was left to explain to Zay and contain Lucas.