Their World | Rilaya

45: ...On...

"Go talk to a dolphin."

"You seriously want me to talk to a dolphin?" Maya asks, raising her eyebrows up.

"Why else would we be in here?"

Maya just looks at Shawn blankly. "Shawn, in all seriousness... Are you crazy?"

"Maybe," Shawn replies, as he starts pushing Maya over to a dolphin's pool. "But we will worry about that later. For now sit down and talk to a dolphin."

Shawn pushes Maya down, so that she is sitting on the ground.

"How will this help me with Riley?" Maya looks up at Shawn.

"I don't know, it just does," Shawn answers.

"What am I suppose to say to it?"

"Whatever you need to say to it," Shawn explains, as he leaves.

Maya watches Shawn walk away before turning back to a pool.

A dolphin swims up to Maya.

"Hey," Maya says with a smile, as she admires the dolphin.

"So I guess I'm suppose to talk to you for some reason. I don't really know why, but that's what my stepdad told me to do."

Maya thinks to herself.

"Shawn... He really is a great guy... I'm so lucky to have met him, even though he may be going insane," Maya laughs. "But hey, here I am talking to a dolphin that probably can't even understand me."

The dolphin makes a sound.

"Huh, maybe you can understand me. Anyways, so I guess I'll just start from the beginning... My girlfriend decided she needed a break from me and that was four months ago... We were suppose to come here to Florida together, but at the last minute I decided not to go. I figured I would give her the space she wanted... My friend told me I was making a mistake by not going with her, so I changed my mind, but she thought it would be best if I stayed behind, so I did."

Maya takes a breathe and takes another minute to think to herself.

"I had a nightmare about my girlfriend and her new boyfriend, and woke up screaming in the middle of the night. Then Shawn came into my room... He bought me and him tickets to Florida to win back Riley, that's my girlfriend's name. Shawn and I came here and after hours of looking we finally found Riley... She got mad at me and then Shawn brought me to talk to you... Do you have a father?"

The dolphin makes another noise.

"I'm going to take that as a yes... I've never told Shawn this, but I don't think I could have ever imagined a better father than him in my wildest dreams. I love him so much."

A giant smile forms on Maya's face, as she thinks of how much Shawn has done for her, but it soon disappears.

"What am I going to do? My girlfriend hates me... I just realized that I have been calling Riley my girlfriend this whole time, when she isn't even mine anymore... I guess I just always believed it would be Riley and me in the end, but it looks like that isn't going to happen... It's just that I met my special someone and I just hate knowing that she's out there and she's the only person I will ever care about like this, and she doesn't understand how I feel... I tried to win her back, but it didn't work... At least I can say that I tried, right?" Maya ends with a fake smile.