Maya looked around the room, and she had to admit, it was hard to find any section of it that wasn’t covered in paint splatters. She didn’t know how she’d gotten to the point where she’d lost her composure like that -- she tried so hard to conceal her feelings, to act like she didn’t care about anything. But it had all been building up: Riley getting along with their neighbors so much better than she did, her friendliness letting her blend in with the humans with minimal effort. That stupid ghost floating into their apartment all the time, and the fact that Riley seemed so fond of him... and that Maya was starting to like him, too. The fact that the full moon was coming and she didn’t want to leave their new, stupid home to deal with her transformation...
“Yeah, we sure did, Riles,” Maya told her, forcing a smile. She didn’t know how Riley could just smile at her like that, when Maya had ended up throwing paint on her and starting this whole color was in the first place. But that was how Riley was -- kind, forgiving, understanding. She knew that Maya hadn’t meant it; that she just needed to get her frustrations out, even if it wasn’t fair to take them out on her. The way Riley was smiling, though, it seemed like she’d almost had fun throwing paint on each other and screaming so loudly that the neighbors had had to ask if everything was all right in there. Farkle had even floated in to watch the grand finale, when Riley had missed Maya entirely and covered the wall in paint. Maya crossed over to hug Riley with one arm, rubbing more paint in her hair as she did and nodding towards the wall. “Well, I did say I hated the grey color -- guess now we’ve really got an excuse to redecorate.”