One Day At A Time - Revised Edition

The weekend comes and Ava, Rose, and Lucas are all piled in Lilly's car on their way to the corn maze.

The car ride is pretty peaceful, except for the fact that Lucas won't shut up about wanting the AUX cord. (Not in the way Ava likes routines, but the AUX cord debacle is par the course for any trip the four of them take.)

"Oh my god, what do you even want to play?" Rose groans.
Lucas opens his mouth to say something, but they cut him off before he can give his answer. "If it's the Newsies soundtrack for the millionth time, I swear-"

Lucas puts his hands up in mock-defense.
"It's not! I swear it's not! I had a Fall playlist set up, if y'all are okay with that. Jeez!"
They're all in agreement on it, so Lilly has Ava pass him the AUX cord.

Fifteen minutes or so later, they pull into the parking lot and jump out, heading toward the admission booth.
It's five dollars per person and they all scrounge around in their jacket pockets for the money they'd brought.

The four of them step aside from the booth after they've paid as Lucas asks,
"So, how are we gonna do this? We could do it in teams."
"Teams?" Ava looks at him curiously.
"Yeah, we can make it a friendly competition."
Lilly looks at him and (with double-sided hesitancy) asks,
"What are the teams?"

He doesn't need to think at all, but he stays quiet for a moment, acting like he's thinking it through.
He looks at Rose and winks, a little awkwardly. Though, he's still confident as ever.
"Rose and I'll be a team and you and Ava can be a team. How's that?"

His wingmaning couldn't be anymore obvious. Neither could his lack of subtlety that makes Lilly's stomach fill with butterflies.
Lilly stares at him, solely thinking, "I can't back out now, can I?"

She wants Ava to know, but that's the problem. Her problem.
She's constantly conflicted between being brave and saying it or backing out and not risking anything going wrong. (She might fixate on things more than Ava does, which is ironic, maybe even a funny kind of ironic. Though, she knows there isn't a nagging voice in Ava's head all the time.)

The four of them move to the start of the maze and, as Lilly expected, Ava's hand is holding hers. She's stirred out of her own mind. Grounded, focused.

"You guys ready?" Rose asks the group.
"Yep!" They all reply.
"One... two... three... go!" Lucas shouts, his voice cracking on "go!" as he briskly starts to walk into the maze with Rose right next to him.

Ava runs off with Lilly into the maze, making two quick random turns before stopping.
"We have to think quick." She states, eager to win the friendly competition.
"Well- hold on- we don't have to be too quick. This is a big maze, we can take our time." Lilly retorts, taking a second to catch her breath from the whiplash-inducing turns.

Ava gives her hand a squeeze, and takes a deep breath.
"You're right, I got excited. We've got time."

They can either turn left or right.
Lilly picks left and turns the corner.

"Ava, can I, um, talk to you about something?" She asks, looking up at Ava, who's squinting her eyes at the path ahead of them.
"Of course." Ava's voice is chipper, always chipper when it comes to Lilly.

Words are in Lilly's mind, desperately wanting to come out, but her throat closes up and she can't say them.

"I... uh, well, I- sorry." She shakes her head, pausing herself.
Today isn't the day the words come out.
She can't tell her, she just can't and that pisses her off.

Lilly has had these words in her head for years and she feels awful for backing out every time. (If those words were to jeopardize a life-long best-friendship, she'd feel more awful than not saying them to begin with.)

"Are you okay?" Ava absentmindedly runs her thumb over Lilly's knuckles, back and forth.

That makes Lilly's mind ease up, while her heart flips back and forth in her chest.
She takes a deep breath and nods her head.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine."
"What did you want to, to talk to me about?"

Lilly thinks quickly on her feet.
"Oh, I was gonna ask you if you have your Halloween costume planned out yet. I'm still working on mine." She says, it comes out a little forced, but it's believable enough.

Ava perks up, grinning a bright smile:
"Yes!"

They wander through the maze as Ava explains her costume idea in detail, as she explains most things. Detailed and precise.
Lilly looks at her with perpetually heart shaped eyes.

They get lost in conversation, making random turns without much thought.

There comes a point a little while later, where Ava refocuses and remembers the getting-out-of-the-maze task at hand, and looks at the winding path ahead.
"We're lost. Really lost, aren't we?"

She tugs at the hem of her shirt with her free hand, a nervous stim she's done for as long as she can remember.

But Lilly reassures her with a squeeze of her hand.
"We're not too lost. It's just a few more turns and we'll be out, alright?"

Ava looks at Lilly, she trusts her fully.
"Alright." She rationalizes it in her mind that, worst case scenario, there's someone who can rescue them if they end up trapped in the maze.

Truth be told, they actually are really quite lost, but they trudge on, thinking through every turn.

Eventually, they see Rose and Lucas in the distance, standing in the exit of the maze.

"Damnit! They beat us!" Ava says it, feigning frustration. She's only a little upset about losing, happier than anything to no longer be lost.
Lilly smiles with relief upon seeing them.

"Hey, losers!" Lucas taunts. Rose playfully punches his arm, sighing,
"We were sure you were stuck in there." Lilly turns back to look at the maze,
"We almost thought we were stuck! But we survived."

"You guys won, good job." Ava tells the two of them, smiling.
Lucas smiles cockily back.
"Yes we did! I think that's earned us a prize!"
"What do you want?" Lilly asks, watching him think it through.
"Do you have any money left?" Lucas retorts.

Lilly takes a second to search her jacket and pant's pockets, pulling a lucky, though crumpled and torn at the corner, ten dollar bill out of the former.
"Yep. What do you want with ten bucks?"
"We could get hot chocolate down the road?" Rose suggests, being met with nothing but agreement.

On the way back to the parking lot, Lucas whispers something to Rose, who whispers it to Lilly.
"Did you tell her?"

With a sigh, Lilly tells them, "No."
Rose looks at Lucas, shaking their head, giving Lilly's answer to him.

They switch gears as all four of them pile into the car again and drive off to the shop down the road to get their hot chocolate.

While they're in line, Ava leans towards Lilly, asking,
"Do we still get hot chocolate even though we didn't win?"

Lilly chuckles faintly.
"Yes, we do. We worked hard to get out of that maze."
That works out well enough; they're all more than happy, sitting together.

Lilly switches her own gear in her mind: after tried and failed, tried and failed attempt after attempt, she's going to stop with the plans. They never seem to go according to plan, so what's the use?

"Let it come up, if it comes up." That is the phrase that Lilly sets into her mind.