#fic: Cold Cape Cod Clams | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

imaginarybird · 5 years

Text

Unwilling and unable to face everyone on her own when it comes time to attend Auggie and Ava’s wedding, Riley Matthews hires a solution in Lucas Friar. Loosely based on The Wedding Date.

Part One // Part Two // Part Three // Part Four // Part Five // Part Six // Part Seven // Part Eight // Part Nine

Rating: Around a PG 13/14

Notes: Well, I’d apologize how long it took to get this done and promise never to do it again but I think we all know it’s entirely possible given my track record. But I promise that I’m never gonna abandon the fic until it’s done so you will get an ending eventually.

Continuing over from last chapter is a blanket content/trigger warning for some non-graphic, veiled references to depression/suicide/death.

In this chapter, an explanation is given.

page break since they took the function away wtf tumblr

“I wanna see what Claire can do.”

“I can’t do anything.”

“Now, everybody can do something.”

Lucas gets back to their room at the bed and breakfast about an hour after leaving the restaurant, and finds Riley curled up on the bed in a nest of blankets and pillows and watching The Breakfast Club on her laptop.

His first instinct after realizing that Riley had fled from the disaster of a party had been to try and call her cell phone, but that instinct had been proven faulty when, with one phone ringing up against his ear, Lucas had felt a second phone buzzing in the pocket of his khakis and remembered that Riley had asked him to hold onto hers due to a lack of pockets in her dress. She hadn’t retrieved the car from the valet and kids working there had insisted that they hadn’t seen her since they had dropped off the car at the start of the night (and Lucas had had plenty of time to ask around in the twenty minutes it had taken to retrieve the vehicle). With no way of reaching his client and no idea of where she might go aside from their hotel, he’d had no choice but to make the drive back and hope that she was already there or at the very least was safe wherever she ended up.

Finding her back in the room, safe and not completely devastated is a relief. He doesn’t know when exactly she decided to run or how much of Eric’s revelations she had heard, but he had been more than a little worried that the violation of her trust and humiliation would have been enough to do her in, regardless of the strides she had seemingly been making earlier in the day (and given exactly what Eric divulged the most irrational parts of Lucas’ brain had been busy visualizing exactly what he might find if it had for the entire ride home). Actually seeing her helps Lucas to breathe again.

Seeing her watching one of his favorite movies leaves him feeling a bit more even-footed with where she stands and how he might be able to be there for her moving forward.

The Breakfast Club has always been the visual equivalent of comfort food for Lucas--with just the right balance of humor and drama and everything else to not be too much no matter what mood he’s in, and helping him even things out and return to zero when he needs to. That Riley had gone back to the room and set to watching it after the night she had had leads him to believe that it holds a similar place in her heart. Just one more thing they seem to have in common.

She’s further in the movie than should be possible, but he reasons that she might have skipped ahead to a part that she wanted to watch.

He does that sometimes too.

Lucas kicks off his shoes at the door, only speaking when he’s seen her eyes on him so he knows he’s not starling her. “You made it back safe?”

She glances down, blushing. “I ran down the street a bit to a bar and had them call me a cab.” She discloses softly. Her voice is strained, giving away that there had at least been some tears in the hour since they’ve seen each other. “I had some cash in my bra to pay them, and the manager here let me back into the room. I’m sorry I left.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t notice to come with you.” Lucas crosses the room, sitting on the edge of the bed. He doesn’t want to invade Riley’s space, particularly when he knows she’s feeling vulnerable, but he doesn’t want to talk from across the room either. Apologies shouldn’t come from a distance. Not if you mean them. “I let my curiosity get the better of me and I got distracted from what was really important.”

“No one with a pulse could look away from that fiasco.” Riley shakes her head, dismissing the amends. She pushes away from her makeshift nest and sits up. She’s still dressed for the party.“I needed to be alone for a little while anyway.”

Given that it’s barely been an hour (less really if he factors in the time she spent getting back to the bed and breakfast) Lucas considers offering to go out and let her have her space for a while longer. It’s not that late and there are plenty of restaurants and bars in the area that stay open well into the night. Hell, he’d be happy just going to swim some laps somewhere and working out some of his own angry energy, vacillating under the surface over the damage that Riley’s so-called family have managed to cause her. If Riley needs time by herself, it would be easy to give it to her.

“Do you want me to--,”

“Do you think it’s true?” Riley interrupts him.

Her question comes in a soft, uncertain tone that doesn’t seem like a good fit on her to Lucas, and he realizes quickly that he’s not sure what she’s asking about; Cory and Eric had made a lot of claims while shouting at each other--any one of them might make her question things when she’s already vulnerable. “Do I think what’s true?”

“What they’re talking about…” She casts her eyes back to the laptop.

“It’s unavoidable. It just happens.”

“What happens?”

“When you grow up, your heart dies.”

“Do we all just...lose our ability to love and become our parents? Is that what’s waiting for us?”

OK. So maybe The Breakfast Club isn’t always the best choice for a movie.

Lucas has always just found it comforting to see a group of kids he could really relate to opening up and being honest and finding small ways to buck at the system that’s strangling them, and he’s never gone down the path of wondering if there’s any truth to the cyclical nature of the world the characters are worried about.; since giving up on trying to please his family he’s been so certain that he’ll find a way to be better than them that he hasn’t had to. But for Riley--who had, as best as Lucas can discern, experienced her parents’ transition from loving and caring to conditional and dismissive--becoming some version of her parents is a very real fear. Of course it would be.

He leans across her to press the spacebar and pause the movie, lest they go further down the existential rabbit hole (not to mention, he knows what confession is coming up and while he can’t be sure if what Eric let slip about Riley’s state of mind when she left her family is true, Lucas hardly thinks an extra reminder on the subject will be helpful either way). “Riley,” he says as he draws back, “I’ve spent the last week wondering how outside of appearance you could possibly be related to your parents. Believe me, you’re nothing like them.”

“They never used to be like them either. I mean...when I was little, they were great. It’s just that the older I got...I didn’t need them in the same way and they didn’t understand me and they just...stopped trying. They drifted further and further, and put their focus on the people they thought needed it more. And then when I stopped following their plans and making the choices they thought were best for me...it was like I stopped being their daughter at all. I was just...the disappointment who shared their DNA.”

Riley tears her eyes away from the frozen movie. She only glances at him before looking down at her fidgeting hands, but it’s just long enough for Lucas to see the pain she’s grappling with.

“Lucas, the idea that one day I might hurt someone like that, that I might do that to my child...It’s terrifying.”

“If there is one thing I am 100% certain about all of this, it’s that you are in no way capable of being that awful to someone.” Lucas can’t entirely explain his confidence given that he’s only been around for a few days to observe her, but he knows--just knows-- that Riley’s not the sort of person who could hurt someone the way her family has hurt her. Even unintentionally. He doesn’t believe for a second that she has enough malice in her heart to treat anyone that poorly and he can’t bear the thought of her spending any time whatsoever doubting and torturing herself over something that could never happen. “You are, without question, a bigger and better person than the people who raised you.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“Of course I can. Do you think for one second that if the situation were different, and your parents had to walk into a lion’s den like this that they could show up with a smile on their face and not cause a scene? Do you think they’d bother to show up at all?”

“I only came back because Auggie asked me to.” Riley shakes her head in protest. “That doesn’t make me better than them.”

Lucas lays a hand on top of hers, partly to reassure her that he’s not buying into her argument, and partly to ground himself; he’s here with Riley and helping her and as long as that’s the case, he doesn’t have to, and in fact can’t, give into his anger over the self-doubts her family has caused. “You came back for Auggie, even though you knew dealing with just about everyone else would be awful, because he’s your brother and you love him and you would have felt terrible letting him down. In a similar position, would your parents have made the same sacrifice? Would Josh and Maya? Or anyone else here?”

Riley doesn’t give him an answer.

“That’s what makes you better than them. You’re here in an impossibly difficult situation, standing tall in the face of all this...shit being thrown at you and barely sending a single angry word back, even though some of these people really deserve it. You are so strong and open and caring...There’s not a doubt in my mind that it would be impossible for you to turn into your parents, even if you wanted to.”

“I wish I had your confidence.”

Lucas takes in everything--Riley’s softness and the way her eyes flick down to their joined hands and her teeth worrying at the corner of her lip--and he feels his heart clench. It hadn’t taken him long after meeting her for Lucas to realize just how much Riley really had going for her, leaving him wondering why she needed to use an escort like him the first place, but the more he’s gotten to know her, the more painfully obvious it’s become that she just doesn’t see the same strengths in herself that he can see in her.

He brushes his thumb across the back of her hand, pressing down gently. “Riley, do you trust me?”

“Of course I trust you.”

Riley’s gentle smile and forehead crinkled ever-so-slightly in confusion plow into Lucas and it’s all he can do to keep himself from closing the short distance between them and drawing her into another kiss. It’s not the time, Friar. She’s had a roller coaster of a night and she doesn’t need your feelings mucking it up even more. Besides, she’s a client. Whatever you think is there, it’s not. He settles for fully taking his hand in his and squeezing. “Then trust that I’m telling you the truth and that I’m seeing the best in you, even when you can’t.”

Riley’s eyes slide closed. She takes a deep, controlled breath, her head tilting backwards as she exhales, shaking her head ever so slightly.

“What’s wrong?” Lucas frowns. He’s not sure what reaction he was expecting, but this isn’t it. Riley seems almost pained.

“People don’t say things like that.” Riley says. She brings her head back down, opening wet eyes to look at him again. Thumbing at the tears that are threatening to spill over, she looks away just as quickly, her gaze landing on her lap. “Not to me.”

Lucas doesn’t think about what he’s doing. He just wants Riley to look at him. To understand that these aren’t just lines he says to any old client. That he 100% means what he’s saying.

He reaches over with his free hand, easing Riley’s chin up with the knuckle of his bent finger. “Then you haven’t been talking to the right people.”

Riley’s eyes go wide, but she doesn’t blink. Her jaw twitches, but she doesn’t open her mouth. Whatever response is lying in wait on her tongue, she swallows around it.

“Riley, you are...extraordinary.” Lucas says, his hand still hovering just beneath her chin. “And I don’t understand how nobody here sees it, or why the people in your life aren’t tripping over themselves every day to tell you, but you are. You have to believe that you are.”

Riley blinks. Her eyes flick down, then lock on his. She doesn’t speak. Several moments pass.

“I know it’s not-,”

“They all think I’m selfish. Self-centered.” Riley blurts out. She ducks away from his hand, pulling her own arm back. “Half the time I think they’re right.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

Riley speaks after taking a deep breath. “I met Charlie Gardner in preschool. And even back then he was a charmer.”

“Momma! Daddy! Come meet Char-lee!” Riley runs to meet her parents at the door of the classroom. It’s not every day that she gets to have both of her parents at the same time--they both have a lot of responsibilities (her dad told her that was a grown-up word for doing things you don’t like instead of what you really want to be doing)--but today was her first day of preschool so it was special. She has so much to tell them about her day about all of the games they played and nap time and the snacks, but most of all she wants them to meet Charlie.

She grabs onto their hands and pulls them across the room, almost running into a partially constructed block tower and stumbling a little over an abandoned doll to the small table in the corner where she and Charlie have been coloring.

“Char-lee, this is my mom and my dad. I call them momma and daddy, but they’re not your parents, so you can just call them their names. Cor-ee and Tuh-pan-guh.”

Charlie stops his drawing and holds out his hand “‘S nice to meet you.”

“And it’s lovely to meet you.” Her mom shakes his hand with a smile.

Riley grins back. “Momma, Daddy, this is my boyfriend Char-lee.”

“Your what now?”

“Mr. Cory,” Charlie turns to her dad with a serious expression on his face, “when Riley is a grown-up lady, can I marry her?” “Sounds familiar.” Lucas comments when Riley reaches an obvious break in her story.

Riley nods. “Everyone thinks so. Charlie and I ‘dated’,” and here she puts finger quotes, “through kindergarten, when his parents got divorced and he moved with his mom out of the city. I missed him a lot, but it wasn’t long before I had plenty to distract me.”

It’s the first recess on the first day of first grade and Riley’s enjoying herself, picking some of the flowers growing at the edge of the playground fence. Most of her class is over on the blacktop playing a game of tag, or taking turns on the swingset, but no one had asked her to join them. She doesn’t really mind. She and Charlie hadn’t played a lot with the rest of the class last year so it’s not like she’s missing anything, and she’s used to making her own fun.

“Reminiscin’ this and that and havin’ such a good time,

“Oo-de-lally, oo-de-lally, golly what a day.”

She skips along, plucking a flower every few steps and singing a song from one of her favorite movies., not a care in the world. Then a little down the ways she spots another girl, blonde, with messy pigtail braids and scruffy pink jeans, climbing around the monkey bars by herself. Riley doesn’t think she’s ever seen her before.

A new girl playing by herself who doesn’t even look like she’s having fun? That’s just not right.

Riley bounds over to the monkey bars, and when the blonde swings down to the ground, Riley grins and thrusts her makeshift bouquet into her face. “Hi, I’m Riley! I brought you these.”

The girl blinks at Riley, looks down at the flowers as she takes them from Riley’s outstretched hand, and back at Riley before she smiles. She’s missing a tooth. “Maya Penelope Hart.”

“Maya and I were fast friends.” Riley pulls her knees up to her chest, looping her arms around them and resting her chin. “Inseparable. By Christmas she was like one of the family. If I did something Maya was there, and if Maya did something… well most of the time I was trying to stop her or getting dragged along for the ride.”

“Bit of troublemaker?”

“No. I mean….yeah, she did a lot of stupid stuff and had attitude that could power a small city if science could figure out how to convert it. Still does, from what I can tell. But really she was just a kid whose family didn’t have a lot of money and whose parents didn’t get along all that well and then her dad just up and left one day...she was angry and hurt and decided that if she made herself tough enough nothing else would hurt her.

“She had her problems but everyone does. And I was brought up that friendship means sticking with a person and setting an example. Giving and doing everything you could to help them grow into a better version of themselves.”

An admirable standard, Lucas thinks, but a lot to lay across the shoulders of a kid. Especially one with an already open heart. “That sounds like a lot to live up to.”

“It was. But it didn’t always feel like it. It just felt like... I had a best friend.”

“What’s your favorite color?”

Riley looks at Maya across the lunch table; all day her friend has been asking these sorts of questions --favorite animal, favorite tv show, favorite tv character--and Riley can’t figure out why, all of a sudden, after three months of friendship Maya is curious about that sort of thing. “Oh, I like every color.”

Maya shakes her head. “Yeah, but if you had to pick one. Or maybe two. Three tops.”

“Hmm…” Riley considers the options carefully. Favorite colors are no joking matter. “Blue. And red. And purple!”

“Interesting. Very interesting.”

A week later, at Riley’s birthday lunch, Maya hands her what used to be a plain white envelope, but that has been decorated with Maya’s somewhat familiar art style and is covered with cats and bunnies and flowers. Riley opens the envelope very carefully to preserve the art (much to Maya’s impatience) and finds a braided bracelet.

A friendship bracelet. Like Riley’s seen some of the older girls at school exchange. It’s her favorite gift of the day.

Lucas shifts so he’s sitting next to Riley on the bed, feet up and off the floor; this is shaping up to be a lengthy conversation and he wants to be comfortable for it. “It sounds like you were really close.”

“Thunder and Lightning, that was us.” Riley confirms. “We never really had a big friend group but we always had each other, and it was all we needed. My family loved her and welcomed her with open arms even when she was getting into trouble… They all liked to say that she was the Shawn to my Cory.”

It shouldn’t surprise Lucas to hear the comparison--to have it officially confirmed that people were laying the weight of not one extraordinary, one in a million, relationship across Riley’s shoulders, but two--yet it somehow still leaves him stunned. Most of the adults he knows can’t handle living in the shadow of something like that, and she’s been dealing with it for over twenty years...And from all sides it seems like. “From what you told me that’s an impossible standard.”

“I was little and it was the story I had been told all my life. I just...thought I was lucky.” Riley shakes her head. “That I had such great examples in my parents and had found a good person so I was able to build a friendship as great as my dad and Shawn’s, and I’d keep it as long as I put the work in.”

But something went wrong along the way. Obviously. Riley would almost certainly rather get a root canal than deal with Maya and the barbs Maya sends her way are far from the light teasing of a best friend, even distanced by time. She’s been downright hostile, and those on Riley’s side like Auggie and Eric are more than happy to return the favor. “So what changed?”

“For a long time, nothing. Maya and I were best friends. In middle school Charlie’s mom got remarried and he ended up back in the city at our school and it was like he’d never been gone. We got back together and everything was perfect.”

The parallels now are more than blatant and Lucas can see where the next bit of pressure will come in, but Riley keeps talking so he doesn’t get a chance to say anything.

“I had my Shawn in Maya, my Topanga in Charlie.... I even had my own Minkus in Farkle.”

The names click together in Lucas’ mind. “Wait. That was really Farkle Minkus belting out Queen back there?” He had, of course, thought that the impossibly skinny man he had caught glimpses of on the stage while trying to help Eric and Shawn wrangle Cory looked familiar, but had dismissed his idea as a trick of the eye and mistaken identity. After all, why would the heir to one of the world’s richest and most innovative technology companies be at a party for a comparatively small wedding in Cape Cod?

“His parents went to school with mine. And then he went to school with me. Auggie’s not super close with him or anything but they were always friendly and our families our close enough to merit an obligation invite. And apparently an obligation attendee.” From the rain clouds in Riley’s eyes that seem to shift and darken with her explanation, Lucas ascertains that there are likely problems between her and Farkle as well, though perhaps not quite as contentious as those with Maya or her family. “Anyway, he was one of our little group of misfits. Farkle, Maya, Charlie, and me.

“For a couple years, the four of us did everything together. Maya and I were best friends, Charlie really helped Farkle come out of his shell, I think we all helped Maya grow into a more hopeful, happier person... and Charlie and I were in love. At least, as much as you can be at that age.” Riley stops talking, casting her eyes down.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the story is about to take the turn that truly starts the trouble; all the seeds have been planted, all they need is a good rainstorm to sprout up into a craptastic garden of problems. Lucas prompts her softly when she doesn’t restart her story. “Then what happened?”

Riley looks up, with an expression that Lucas can’t quite read on her face. “Maya’s world crashed down.”

It takes Riley a moment to notice the persistent tapping at her window. She’s half asleep, having gone to bed nearly twenty minutes ago, but when her brain finally registers the sound her eyes snap open. Her parents insist that she keeps her bay window locked at night, and her friends normally respect the curfew, but it is their preferred entrance to the apartment so she knows if someone is showing up late at night, something major has happened.

Sure enough, in the glow of her novelty bunny night light, she can just make out Maya on the other side of the glass. Riley’s out of bed, unlocking the window in an instant.

“Maya--,”

“Can I stay here for a while?” Maya cuts her off, blowing past her as she crawls through the window to. She quickly stands and starts to pace at the foot of the bed.

“Of course.” Riley nods, trying to keep track of Maya’s whirlwind pace. Her friend doesn’t have a bag with her, which makes her think that she decided to leave her place suddenly, and a part of her wonders if Maya had bothered to let Katy know that she was leaving, let alone where she was going. “You know you’re always welcome here. But why? I thought tonight was the night.”

Maya stops in her tracks, facing away from Riley. “Shawn said no. Mom asked, and he said no and they broke up.” She turns around, her face scrunching up as she tries and fails to contain her tears. “My mom and Shawn broke up.”

“Wait.” Lucas blinks, trying and not quite managing to process the information. “Are you talking about your dad’s Shawn? He dated Maya’s mom?”

Riley seems to consider her answer for a brief moment. “Shawn and Maya have a lot in common. When they met he connected with her right away. I think he probably saw himself--who he was when he was a kid--in her and wanted to help her see that things could get so much better than what she was feeling. Hanging around more to be there for that led to him meeting Katy and after a little bit of contention, there were sparks, so they started dating. But…”

“But?” Lucas probes. It takes him a brief study of her face as he waits for her to continue to realize that her careful consideration of her words isn’t reticence to share on the subject, but her thinking about all of the past events and relationships, probably applying a mature and further outside perspective than she could have managed as a teen.

“But while Katy was falling in love with one of the first stand-up guys to walk into her and Maya’s life, and Maya was starting to think of Shawn as her dad and that she and her mom were gonna get a happy ending and have a family, Shawn was...I think he was enjoying being the hero and the mentor. Not a lot of people have ever looked at him like that. And when we were sophomores and Katy asked him to move in, he realized that they were on separate pages, and he couldn’t stay in the relationship. He said no and broke things off to do the right thing.”

Ouch. Lucas has been on both sides of that break up before and it’s not a good place. You either feel like a moron for not being able to read your partner and see what they’re feeling, or like a grade-A jerk for being the one to break their heart; he can’t imagine being a kid who thought they were getting a family out of it all and finding out that that was never really in the cards. “I’m guessing Maya didn’t see things that way.”

“No she didn’t.” Riley shakes her head. “And the fallout was bad.”

“You gave Maya an F on her term paper?!” Riley storms into her dad’s classroom just after school lets out, unable to control her disbelief and anger after her friend had sullenly begged out of their afternoon plans, apparently due to her mother grounding her via text after Riley’s dad had called to give her an update on Maya’s latest school troubles. “And a week of in-school suspension?! You know yours is one of the only classes that she even bothers to try in anymore and if you fail her she’s--,”

“I gave Maya an incomplete,” her father corrects, the picture of calm as he puts down his pen on top of the quizzes he’s grading and removes his reading glasses, “because she turned in an essay that she bought online that I’ve already read three times this year from other kids. And instead of turning her into the Honor Committee like I did the other students , I gave her the in-school suspension to serve in the library to give her the opportunity to write the paper properly and get an actual grade on it.”

“Maya wouldn’t--,” Riley stops herself this time. Because she knows her protest would be a lie. The Maya from last year, or even just three months ago wouldn’t have considered cheating and buying an essay , but the Maya that’s been showing her face with increasing frequency lately almost certainly would. She sighs, feeling her ire rush out of her chest in a flood.

Maya had been steadily improving since middle school. Trying hard in all of her classes, building a good relationship with her mom, talking about paths she might take after school--some of which even included attending college.

But ever since Katy and Shawn broke up, it’s like Maya’s forgotten every bit of growth she’s made. She’s rebuilt her tough shell and attitude in record time, shutting everyone but Riley out (and sometimes even her). She’s skipping out on homework and classes, and Riley knows a few people have said that she’s been starting to circle around some of the school’s most notorious burnouts… Nothing Riley has tried has gotten through to her, and she knows everyone’s waiting for things to go back to normal. For her to get things back to normal.

“Dad, I don't know what to do. I don’t know how to help her.”

Her dad leans back in his chair. “Riley, you know how hard it is for people like Maya and Shawn to admit that they want something, and then to have hope dangled in front of her only to have it snatched away...that’s not easy to deal with. She’s hurting in a big way, and it’s not going to disappear overnight.”

“But I’m her best friend! I know I can’t make it all go away but it’s my job to make sure she gets through it.”

“She needs to see that even though she didn’t get this, that doesn’t mean she’ll never get anything she wants.” Her dad advises. “You need to give her a win.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Lucas blinks, shaking his head in disbelief, convinced that he can’t possibly have heard Riley right. Because there’s no way that a grown man--a teacher--Riley’s father had actually told her it was her job to make her friend’s dreams come true so she would get back onto the straight and narrow; that’s just not what people do.

Riley repeats Cory’s recommendation.

“That is...wow.” Lucas just manages to stop the first word that comes to mind, that word being insane, from coming right out of his mouth and casting too much judgement over the situation. Riley’s affect hasn’t changed much from that of a mostly neutral storyteller thus far and it’s hard to read how she feels about what her dad had advised her to do. Given that she’s choosing to trust him and open up (and hadn’t she said something about only a couple of people having heard the whole story?) the last thing he wants is to do or say anything that will make her regret or rethink the decision. “I mean, maybe my perspective is a little skewed since my dad would have given me the exact opposite advice and tell me to cut all ties if I had a friend acting like that but…”

“It’s OK if you want to say it’s crazy.” Riley says. She pushes herself off the bed and heads over to her suitcase, continuing to speak as she opens it and digs through its contents. “It is crazy. No reasonable person puts the burden of one person’s happiness and success on their sixteen-year-old’s ability to make that person’s life magically come together.”

“I mean....it’s not great.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not how I saw it back then. I just tried everything I could to keep Maya afloat and find out what she wanted so I could find a way to give it to her. I dragged Farkle and Charlie into it too.”

“It sounds like it took a while.”

Pajamas in hand, Riley crosses to the bathroom and steps inside, though she leaves the door cracked and continues talking as she changes. “Til August before junior year.” She confirms. “Our class went on this team-building hiking trip thing right before school started.”

It’s not the best start to junior year. Oh, the hiking trip at Mount Sun was supposed to be all fun and games, a nice way for the class to have one last weekend of fun before the stress of AP courses and college prep kicks in. But that’s not how it’s worked out so far.

For one thing, it’s hard to have too much fun when both of your parents are there to chaperone. Not that she doesn’t love them and love spending time with them, but the trip was supposed to be her opportunity to have a few days away from the constant prodding about how she’s doing on the Maya front (and maybe actually get to sit down with Maya, who has been dodging her for most of the summer, and have a real talk about what’s going on with her) not to mention a chance for her and Charlie to catch up after a month of Skype dates while he went out of the city to visit his dad.

Neither is very easy with her parents hovering.

And her plans only get further dashed when, while bringing her bag upstairs to her assigned room, Riley had tripped and wrenched her knee on the steps, leaving her unable to participate in all of the planned activities. Instead she’s been laid up with ice packs in the window seat of the lobby, watching her friends and classmates complete trust exercises in the front yard, chatting with lodge employees, and reading once her class had moved on to other activities.

It’s not the fun weekend she’d been looking forward to, although it improves a little when everyone returns to the lodge for dinner and even more when the chaperones make themselves scarce from the game room (and Riley’s trying very hard to pretend she did not hear her parents talking about making use of the lodge hot tub) and a fairly large game of truth or dare gets underway.

Truth or dare is by no means her favorite party game, but if it lets her actually spend some time with her friends and not sit around by her lonesome, Riley is more than willing to dive in.

“Truth.” Even if diving in means being at the mercy of Missy Bradford and her devious little smirk.

“Did you and Charlie send each other any special pictures while he was away this summer?”

Riley refuses to blush at the implication. “Charlie and I don’t need to resort to sex to feel close to each other, if that’s what you’re implying.” From next to her, Charlie rests his hand on top of hers.

“So that’s a no.”

“Not everyone has to take their clothes off to get boys interested in them.” Maya snarks and Riley feels a rush of optimism for her ability to help her friend; they may not have spent as much time together over the summer but at least she’s still jumping in to defend Riley.

Missy purses her lips. “That’s not what I’ve heard.”

Yindra and Dave jump in to get the game back on track before things can get too heated, and a few innocuous lighthearted rounds go by before Darby targets Charlie for her turn, and Charlie picks dare..

“I dare you...to kiss someone other than Riley.”

Charlie immediately draws his hand back from Riley’s.

The room titters; everyone there knows that Charlie was Riley’s first kiss--both the innocent peck of a kindergarten romance and the version that counted when they rekindled things in middle school--and since they’ve only had a few brief periods of turmoil where they weren’t actually dating, it’s generally assumed that neither of them have kissed anyone else. Even if just in the context of a game, this would be a big deal.

Riley trusts Charlie, knows their relationship is strong and comfortable and that a kiss given on a dare is not the same as a kiss you choose to give someone, so she gives him a small smile and nods her assent when he looks over at her, as though to make sure she’s OK with him fulfilling the challenge.

He nods back and returns the smile before turning back and scanning the room.

Riley only starts to feel funny about the whole endeavor when Charlie’s eyes lock with Maya’s.

Lucas can guess where this is going. After all, it’s hard to forget Auggie’s comments from the confrontation on their first night there. “Tell me he didn’t…”

“Didn’t what?” Riley asks, coming out of the bathroom in her pajamas with her dress bunched in one hand. “Shove his tongue down Maya’s throat? No, it was nothing quite that dramatic.”

Riley sees the whole scene almost as if she’s floating above herself.

Charlie inches into the middle of the circle of players on his knees and leans across to Maya. He sweeps her hair behind one ear, cupping her cheek. They draw closer together, lips parted, eyes closed. And then they kiss. Not a brief peck, but a soft, lingering moment.

Riley can see the way Maya’s shoulders tense. She starts to bring her hand up to Charlie’s chest at the same time that he starts to run his fingers through her hair, although immediately afterwards they both seem to remember where they are and who they’re with and they practically jolt apart. They stare at each other, breathing heavily as they draw their hands back.

The whole room watches, fixated.

It’s obvious, Riley notes while trying to school her emotions, that something more than a kiss for Truth or Dare just happened. There’s a sudden electricity lingering between Maya and Charlie--a connection or chemistry that goes further than the friendship and playful antagonism she’s noted between them before; because if anything they’ve always seemed like brother and sister to her, but what she just saw was definitely not something between faux-siblings.

Her mind races, trying to process, but she’s all too aware that now is not the time for her to react. Anything other than a calm acceptance will have her classmates labelling her as jealous or juvenile.; more than that, she doesn’t want to make matters with Maya worse by making her think that she’s mad at her.

So when Charlie finally returns to his spot next to her in the circle, Riley offers what she hopes is a smile of reassurance, and briefly squeezes his hand.

By the time Riley has finished this part of her story, she’s finished putting her clothes away and is glancing around the room. It takes Lucas a moment to realize that she’s trying to find something else to do while they talk; they’re at the part of the story where things are starting to go wrong and she’s maybe nervous of how he’ll react or embarrassed by it all or she just doesn’t like to talk about it but it’s all manifesting as restless energy, regardless of how drained she was earlier. Or she’s just eager to not have to look directly at him while she talks.

Either way, she’ll quickly run out of distractions in their small room, and he has a feeling if that happens, she’ll keep carrying the whole weight of her past entirely on her own.

“It’s still pretty warm out.” He comments off-handedly, glancing towards the door towards their room’s little porch overlooking the beach. “Want to walk while we talk?”

Riley nods. “Yeah. That sounds nice.”

A quick hop over their porch railing later and they’re down on the beach, walking away from the lights of the various hotels and inns at the top of the beach to the moonlit shoreline, cool sand pressing beneath their toes. Lucas decides that his best choice is to not push Riley further. He waits for her to speak and they walk several minutes in silence before she continues recounting her past.

“I sat there for a few more rounds of the game, long enough that no one would think I was leaving because of the kiss, before I left saying my knee was hurting and I wanted to go get some more ice and aspirin from my parents and go to bed. I did go up to my room, but I just wanted to think.

“And I thought myself in circles. I knew Charlie wasn’t cheating--he’d been nothing but adoring and faithful our entire relationship--but he and Maya were obviously much closer than I realized and that closeness wasn’t what I thought it was. I couldn’t figure out if they really liked each other or if it was just that physical chemistry some people have...I didn’t know how any of it really came to be or what it meant for me and Charlie. I loved him with my whole heart, but he was clearly attracted on some level to Maya… I finally decided I needed to find my mom and talk to her about it and see what she thought.”

“Topanga, I don’t know what to do.”

Riley stops in her tracks, a few steps up from the bottom of the stairs, when she hears her best friend’s voice. Before leaving her room she’d heard plenty of classmates returning to their own rooms as curfew was imposed; Maya hadn’t shown up in their shared space, but Riley assumed that was just her friend doing her rebellion thing, looking around parts of the lodge they weren’t supposed to be in, not her taking the same chance Riley wanted to capitalize on for some private advice with her mother. Topanga was the chaperone spending a little extra time downstairs to make sure no students were breaking curfew and making trouble, so it should have been the perfect opportunity.

“I’m a little lost. Start from the beginning and tell me everything and we’ll see what we can figure out.”

Eavesdropping is wrong. Riley knows that. But she’s been confused about Maya and her behavior for months now, and to throw her kiss with Charlie on top of it...she’ll take any piece of information she can get, however she can get it. She stays frozen on the stairs, out of sight of Maya and her mom.

“Well, you know how Riley and Charlie and Farkle have all been trying to fix me?”

“That’s not what they’re trying to--,”

Maya blows right through whatever assurance Topanga is trying to offer. “Because of that, Charlie and I have been talking a lot more. Texting and skyping all summer… We’ve gotten way closer. I just… he understands where I’m coming from so much better than Riley or Farkle. His parents had their divorce and things are still really messy there and...it feels like we have this connection.”

“A connection like you and Riley, or more like you and Josh?”

“Like me and Josh.” The words rush out. “I know it’s awful. He’s been Riley’s boyfriend for forever and they’re in love but there’s just something about talking to him and seeing him and being around him that’s so...good. And then tonight we kissed…”

“Oh Maya…”

“Not like that! The class was playing truth or dare, and Charlie got dared to kiss someone other than Riley, and Riley was right there and she told him it was OK so he started to look around the room and his eyes landed on mine and for a moment it felt like we were the only two people in the room. We kissed and it was like this fire ignited in my chest, it felt so good. I’ve never had a kiss feel like that. And I know he felt something too… But I just feel so awful.

“I know nobody was cheating or breaking trust or anything but I know Riley and I know she only thought it was OK for him to do the dare because she thought the kiss wouldn’t mean anything, but then it was this amazing kiss and there were sparks and my stupid crush that I already felt horrible about is now this big ball of feelings.” Maya practically spits the word though her voice is starting to become thick with tears. “And I can’t ever do anything about them, even if Charlie feels the same way, because he’s Riley’s boyfriend. If they break up it’s not like they’ve only been on a date or two. They’ve been together for years, and Riley loves him so much, so I would never be able to be with him.

“And I know I have to be OK with that because that’s life and that’s always been the way my life goes anyways so I shouldn’t be surprised, but...kissing Charlie felt right. It felt so right, and now it all hurts so bad.”

Maya starts to cry. Riley can hear her mom trying to soothe her friend, and pictures her drawing her into her arms to offer comfort. Deciding that she’s heard enough, Riley turns around to hobble up the stairs (hopefully silently), her own heart breaking as she starts to move.

Whether it’s for her friend’s heartache or some other reason, she’s not entirely sure.

“All of that came as such a shock.” Riley confides. “Maya and Charlie’s relationship had always been...contentious. When he moved back to the city and we started dating she didn’t like that she wasn’t the only person in my world anymore, and he was the sort of guy that was never mean or anything but had this way of casually flaunting things. So they would butt heads a lot, even though over time it got much more good-natured. But they never seemed like they were getting particularly close.”

“I mean, it does sound like there were at least some elements of their relationship that they were hiding from you.” Lucas points out. “If they had been talking all summer and neither of them mentioned it to you...Usually a secret like that is a sign that they know it’s more than just talking and they’re feeling guilty about it.”

Riley nods, crossing her arms over chest. “That’s where I eventually landed after a lot of thought. For whatever reason, they hadn’t wanted me to know the whole picture. And suddenly I had it anyway. But I also knew Maya was trying to hold her feelings back and be a good friend, and Charlie was never the one to initiate the breaks in our relationship, even if it was an issue with him that was causing our problems, so somehow it was up to me to decide what to do.”

There are really only a couple of options that Lucas can see. Either Riley chose to break up with Charlie, fracturing the friend group (it’s only logical that he would drift away from the group without Riley to tether him to the others) or Riley chose to stay with him but it eventually came out that she knew about Maya’s feelings for him, prompting the idea that somehow she’s selfish for putting her own feelings first. Either way, he can see how the emotional fallout from such a choice could start to build the rifts that have been festering for ten years.

“I didn’t figure out what that was until the next morning.”

Breakfast is...awkward, to say the least.

Riley, Charlie, Maya, and Farkle have grabbed food from the buffet and settled in the far corner of the dining hall, away from everyone else. No one is talking. Well… no one but Farkle is talking. Which might be a product of the fact that he appears to be the only one there who has gotten any sleep, or because he’s never been one able to stew in an uncomfortable silence.

“I wonder if they’ll cancel today’s hike or have us go anyways.” He comments, glancing towards a window where rain is pounding against the glass. “I’m not sure everyone brought rain gear. The forecast when we were packing said that today would be partly cloudy.”

Nobody answers him. He continues talking anyways.

“Of course, if we really wanted to know when it was going to rain we could get a bee colony and observe their behavior. A study in China determined that honeybees increase their activity and production the day before a rainstorm. They think that the bees are able to register changes in barometric pressure and in the….”

Riley feels slightly bad tuning out her longtime friend while she considers the conundrum sitting across her shoulders, but she reasons that finding a solution to the emotional entanglements that leaves everyone in her friend group content is more important to her than the activity patterns of bees. So she ignores Farkle’s nervous babble and attempts to subtly study her friends, hoping a solution will jump out at her.

She starts with her boyfriend.

Charlie sits across from her. He’s resting his elbows on the table as he eats. He’s pale, the way he gets when he doesn’t get enough sleep (last year when his parents were renegotiating their custody agreement he had seemed to be a permanent shade of milk), and he’s mostly just staring at his plate. When he does look up, he’s very deliberate with his gaze, Riley thinks.; his eyes go to either the window or to her. Nowhere else.

Then there’s Maya.

Her best friend looks absolutely miserable. Puffy, bloodshot eyes, hair up in a messy knot instead of one of her normal intricate styles...she’s stirring her oatmeal and letting it drip from the spoon back into the bowl rather than eating it. Riley doesn’t know what advice her mother gave Maya after she had made her escape, but she knows that Maya has been silently gluing herself to her side this morning, distancing herself from Charlie as much as possible.

The pair are very blatantly avoiding each other, but when the boys had been coming downstairs that morning Riley had seen a moment where their eyes had met. It had been less than a second before they looked away and Charlie had hurried to reach Riley and greet her with their normal kiss on the cheek, and she’s fairly certain they haven’t looked at one another since. Which tells a story in and of itself.

Riley thinks. Even though they hadn’t acted on anything outside of the game last night, it’s clear that something is happening between Maya and Charlie. She knows Maya felt whatever connection they had come to life when they kissed for the dare, and based on the way he’s acting, it’s probably reasonable to guess that the same is true for Charlie. At the same time, she knows Charlie has heard her parents’ story and spotted all the parallels it has to their relationship; he’s said more than once how great it is that they’ve found each other as early as her parents had and had their example to guide them, and if she lets him, Riley figures he’ll treat this problem as their own version of her father’s ski lodge affair--a hurdle, but something they can get past with a little angst.

Meanwhile it looks like Maya is willing to break her own heart further to let Riley and Charlie stay together. And Riley can only imagine what path that anguish will lead Maya down.

The very thought grabs at her heart. She’s supposed to be helping Maya find her hope and joy again, not making things worse. She’s supposed to be finding Maya a win.

Just like that, Riley knows what she has to do.

“The whole thing is actually really strange, because honeybees hoard resources and they wouldn’t need to--,”

“Farkle,” Riley interrupts his impromptu lecture softly. She pushes her plate away, and rests her hands, one on top of the other, on the table. “Can you give us a moment, please?”

Or, Lucas realizes, there was a third option. One where Riley ignored her own feelings in favor of following an extreme version of her dad’s ridiculous advice, and gave Maya something that she wanted. He can honestly say he’s dumbfounded. For one, because he truly can’t fathom that anyone would be quite so selfless as to do that, but for another, Riley doesn’t exactly sound sad or like she regrets doing it--she’s just...tired.

“I don’t get it.” He says without much thought. “Did you realize right then that you didn’t love him anymore? Or that Maya’s happiness was actually the secret to stopping global warming or something?”

“What?” Riley stops and looks at him, furrowing her brow.

“I’m sorry I just...I can understand breaking up with someone you still love even though you know he’d stay because you’re pretty sure he has feelings for someone else. Or maybe giving your friend permission to date someone that you don’t love anymore. But I don’t understand giving your friend and your ex of sixty seconds your blessing to explore their feelings. All because your friend hadn’t gotten anything she wanted in a long time and was acting out?”

Riley crosses her arms over her chest, her posture stiffening. Belatedly, Lucas realizes that he’s started passing and sharing judgement, despite the fact that from what he can tell, she doesn’t deserve the judgement and doesn’t need any added pressure coming from him. He opens his mouth to apologize correct himself but Riley beats him to it.

“I was stuck between two relationships.” She says. She casts her eyes down to the sand, where they stay. “Between two people I loved so much. A guy that could maybe be the person I married one day, and the girl that was my best friend. I didn’t want to lose either of them.”

“Riley…”

Riley starts walking, and Lucas hurries to keep up. “So I started doing the math. The odds of me meeting my soulmate in preschool and dating and marrying him and having kids and everything working out like my parents did...one in a million at best. That’s just not how it happens for people. But the odds of Maya and I staying best friends…? Those were a lot better. I mean, it’s still not super common but there are way more examples of childhood friends going through life together.”

“So you decided to kill two birds with one stone. Dive into what you thought was likely inevitable and break up with Charlie, and do what your dad told you was best and give Maya a reason to hope again by getting her a real chance at something she wanted.” Lucas fills in. “You didn’t want to lose them.”

She nods. “Happy people are less likely to leave. They had feelings for each other, and they weren’t going to do anything about them and eventually they weren’t going to want to deal with how ignoring them felt. Telling Charlie I didn’t love him anymore and giving them the chance to explore their feelings was the best option. And it all worked out.

“They started dating, Maya straightened herself out... Junior year started and everyone was happy.”

“Even you?” Lucas probes. Doing something that makes your best friend happy might usually make you feel good, but he has his doubts when that something means breaking up with someone you still have feelings for.

“I was happy for--,” Riley cuts herself off and shakes her head before starting over, a self-correction if Lucas has ever seen one. “I should have been.” She sighs. “I wanted to be. Everyone else was in a really good place, and I put them there which should have felt good but...even though I wanted them to be happy it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be to watch it play out.”

“So anyway, would you be super mad at me if I skipped out on movie night tonight?”

Riley doesn’t think much of Maya’s request; her friend hadn’t really said why she needed to miss their sacred tradition of Friday night movies and a sleepover, but she’s sure that whatever the reason, it must be important. They hardly ever cancel. “Of course not. We can hang out tomorrow instead.”

“Well, actually…” Maya hems, but doesn’t get to her actual protest before Charlie bounds up and pulls her into a deep kiss.

Riley quickly turns to her locker to swap the books in her backpack for the ones she’ll need for her weekend homework. The stabbing pain in her heart isn’t anyone’s business but her own, after all. For all Maya and Charlie and everyone else know, she’s thrilled for them. But if she has the option to look away and not plaster a smile on her face while the happy couple engages in the sort of close physical relationship after dating for a week and a half that she and Charlie had never achieved in their many years together… she’s going to take it.

“Hey, beautiful.”

Riley closes her eyes at Charlie’s greeting. The nickname--and its implications--are just one more thing that he already has with Maya and never had with her. A nasty voice in the back of her head whispers that he’s always liked Maya better, because everyone always does, and that he only had ever asked her out when he moved back because it was the expected, safe option. She refuses to let the tears that prickle her eyelids at the thought move any further. She tells herself it’s not really true. It just feels like it right now because Charlie and Maya are in the honeymoon phase, and everything is more sweeping and romantic then.

“Did you ask her yet?”

“We were just in the middle of that.” Maya says.

“Ask me what?” Riley opens her eyes, finds the happiest ‘Smiley Riley’ expression she can manage and turns around again. It takes everything in her not to let it falter when she sees how they’ve landed, Charlie standing behind Maya with his arms wrapped around her shoulders while she nuzzles against his neck.

“My stepdad needs to close up his brother’s beach house in the Hamptons since he won’t be back in the States until next year.” Charlie explains. “My family’s heading down tonight to make a weekend of it, and I asked Maya if she could come too, but she said she had to check about missing your movie night before she could say yes.”

Oh.

Riley’s not sure if it’s her stomach or her heart that plummets through the floor. Maybe both. Maya wants to cancel their sleepover--the sleepover they’ve only ever cancelled three times since its inception (and two of those times were because someone was in the hospital)--to go on a weekend with Charlie. They had never cancelled anything with each other because of a boy, and here they are, changing everything once again.

She has to remind herself that this was her idea. She set this in motion and wanted this to happen; she wanted Charlie and Maya together because it meant that everything else would stay the same. And there have been some changes that she hadn’t anticipated and it’s a bit harder than she thought to watch her best friend date the boy she loves but at the heart of it it’s worth it. Because everyone is still there and friends and happy and that has to be the most important thing.

She forces her smile a little wider. “The Hamptons? Maya you definitely have to go. And bring a canvas. It’ll be beautiful there right now, I’m sure you’ll see something worth painting.”

“OK. So you were doing everything you could to let them be happy, and somehow that makes you selfish?”

“That part doesn’t come until later.”

“What comes next then?”

“What else? Public humiliation.”

“Riley, let’s just go. There’s no point in you making yourself miserable watching them. We can go back to my place and watch Pixar movies and drink milkshakes.”

Riley presses her lips together at Farkle’s offer. They’re closer than they’ve ever been (between throwing herself deeper into her school work and clubs to limit her time around the happy couple, and them sneaking off during the day and going on date after date, she and Farkle have been spending a big chunk of their time together) and he’s like another brother to her but their newly deepened relationship isn’t without its friction. As observant as he is, it hadn’t taken him long to figure out that she hadn’t been totally honest with Charlie and Maya about her feelings, and after he heard her out to get her reasoning and realized he wasn’t going to convince her to tell everyone the truth, he’s spent the last month and a half doing everything he can to distract her and make things a little bit easier. She loves him for it, but sometimes it’s clear by his suggestions that he doesn’t approve or understand.

“I can’t just leave.” She protests softly, tearing her eyes away from where Maya and Charlie are dancing. “It’s homecoming. I’m on the committee that put the dance together. I have to be here.”

Farkle raises an eyebrow, glancing around the decorated gymnasium; the dance is in full swing and everyone looks quite entertained and happy. “It doesn’t look like there’s going to be a streamer crisis anytime soon. And if there is I’m pretty sure the rest of the committee can handle it.”

“Farkle, leaving early looks weird. People will have questions...it’ll be better if I just tough it out and stay.” She squirms a little under his discerning gaze, but relaxes a little when he reaches over and grabs her hand.

“At least come dance with me instead of standing here and torturing yourself.”

Riley nods, and he pulls her off to a far corner of the dance floor.

Some time later, Riley is chatting with Maya near the punchbowl, as Farkle and Charlie have gone to the small backstage area to get the sound system ready for the homecoming court announcements, and she almost feels relaxed; it’s easier when it’s just the two of them.

“My mom’s been on my back all week about going to get a new coat before the weather changes,” Maya says, sipping from her punch. “So I was thinking we should totally have a girls day. It feels like it’s been forever since we’ve gone all out.”

Riley swallows back her instinctive response--that they haven’t gone out because Maya has been cancelling to spend time with Charlie--with a smile. “I love it! Where do you want to go?”

“I was thinking we go for the full makeover. Hair, clothes, the works.”

“Sounds great. New week, new us.”

“I’m just saying,” a voice filters out of the speakers on top of the music, “That you and Maya should tone down the PDA a little.”

Riley swallows around a suddenly dry mouth. It doesn’t even take her two words to recognize Farkle’s voice even with the music still blasting, and she quickly spots a handful of her classmates stop dancing and look around in confusion.

“Why? We’re just happy together.” Charlie’s voice chimes in, and if Riley weren’t so paralyzed with fear and disbelief she’d notice the familiar stab of pain at the reminder of the differences between her relationship with Charlie and Maya’s.

She can’t believe that Farkle is taking it upon himself to try and talk to Charlie about this. She can’t believe he’s doing it in public. She can’t believe that he’s apparently forgotten what happens when you turn a microphone on.

“Because…” Farkle draws out. “Not everyone is comfortable with it.”

“You’ve never seemed uncomfortable before, man.”

“Not me. Riley.”

The longer the conversation goes on, the more students stop their dancing. Maya crinkles her brow and stares at Riley.

“Why would Riley have a problem with me and Maya?” Charlie asks.

And naturally, the DJ seems to catch on that something is happening and turns off the music the same moment that Farkle gives his answer. “Because she’s still in love with you.”

Lucas thinks back to his high school years. He thinks about his fellow classmates and his friends and his secrets, and although nothing that he kept to himself was quite so personally devastating as a secret love for someone close to him, and he wasn’t as close to anyone as Riley appears to have been with her friends, he’s not sure that he would have coped with any of his secrets being revealed to the entire school. Especially by someone that he trusted.

Part of him growing up and letting go of his anger towards his family and becoming the sort of person that he could be proud of had been learning to be more open. Not to forget his past experiences but to let the past be the past, and look at everything else through a new lens. To look for the best in people. And he’d like to think that he’s come a long way with that but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know the reality of things.

People can be cruel. Teenagers especially so. And to be forced into such a vulnerable and open position without warning, around people that probably wouldn’t know better than to find the spectacle entertaining...he can’t imagine how much that would throw a person.

Especially someone who’s been working so hard to make sure no one knew the truth.

“Riley, I--...” He means to offer comfort, but cuts himself off almost before he starts; what is there to say exactly? It’s not like there’s any set of words that can undo the past or take away the hurt she felt in that moment.

If Riley hears his aborted comment, she doesn’t say anything. “So I’m standing there, stunned. Just completely in shock. Not only because my feelings had just been broadcast to the entire school, but I couldn’t believe that Farkle would even share them with Charlie in the first place. I know everyone is staring, but I’m so floored that I can’t even think about what to do. And all of that would have been bad enough, but the night wasn’t over yet.”

“There’s more?” Now Lucas knows he wouldn’t have coped.

“Riley, what’s Farkle talking about?”

Riley blinks in the face of Maya’s question. She can tell the eyes of her classmates are all locked on her and it’s so silent that it feels like the air is being sucked out of the room, but there’s only one thought running through her mind. ‘They know.’ It loops, over and over, getting tossed around as everything seems to tunnel out around her.

“Riley!” Maya shoves at her shoulder and the world snaps back into focus. “What’s Farkle talking about? What does he mean, you’re still in love with Charlie?”

There’s no getting out of it really. Oh, she could try to lie, to tell everyone that Farkle had misconstrued what she had said and this is all one big misunderstanding, but it’s not like anyone would actually believe her at this point. No one’s going to believe that the resident genius didn’t comprehend what someone was trying to tell him to the point that he spread completely false information. And really, the only reason she had gotten away with lying about her feelings in the first place is because she had gotten to plan what she wanted to say and how she wanted to say it; she’s an actress when she can prepare and anticipate but spontaneity is not her friend.

Riley takes a deep breath, steeling herself, before facing Maya and giving her answer. “Exactly what it sounds like. I’ve been keeping it to myself because it’s not anyone else’s business or problem but...I still love Charlie.”

“That’s not what you said when you broke up with him at the lodge.” Maya protests, her brow furrowing deeper.

“I know it’s not exactly…” Riley drops off as Charlie comes to a stop in front of them breathing heavily, having rushed from behind the staging area. Farkle, not known for his athletic prowess, is several feet behind.

He says her name, but nothing else. For a moment they’re just staring at one another, and it’s almost the same as the quiet moments of comfortable tension in their relationship where everything just felt closer. More connected and intense. There’s a split second where Riley thinks that maybe there is still something there between them, in spite of the last couple of months. But the spell breaks just as quickly when Maya speaks again.

“I don’t understand. At the lodge you said your relationship had run its course. You said he and I should explore our feelings.”

“Maybe we should take this some place a little more private.” Farkle urges shortly after his arrival, glancing amongst the trio and then crowd, rapt with attention.

Maya ignores him. “Why would you say all that if it wasn’t true?”

“Because…”Riley hedges for a moment, trying to decide how honest she should be...how much detail she should share. But she quickly realizes that there’s not much use in hiding anything. Maybe things will be less awkward and horrible if they knew she had done this to make them happy. “I thought things would be better for everyone if I stepped back. The two of you had some kind of connection, whether you wanted to admit to it or not, and I didn’t want that to come between us. I’d much rather have you guys as my friends than to lose one of you--or both of you--because I was keeping you from something you wanted. I thought that my feelings would fade, and as long as you two were happy, whatever I went through would be worth it.”

“Then why have Farkle come talk to me?” Charlie asks, finally finding his voice again. With more words spoken, Riley can hear the taut edge in his tone--the confusion, but also the anger.

She takes a step back. “I didn’t want Farkle to tell you anything.”

“But he did.”

“Guys,” Farkle steps closer to the group, gesturing between them, “don’t you think we should at least go out to the hall?”

They ignore the suggestion, staring at each other for a moment longer, uncertainty painted across their faces. Riley wouldn’t be sure that any of them were even breathing except she can feel the familiar tightness of inhaling through anxiety in her chest. She’s not sure what she expects to happen, or even what she wants to happen at this point; she can’t even begin to figure out what her next step would be to fix the mess that’s been created in the last few minutes, and although her mind is racing, all she can do is stand there and wait for someone else to step up.

“Riley, you’re so special, and we were always good together. You’ll always be important to me.” Charlie says after a deep breath. Next to him, Maya tenses and Riley finds it even harder to take a breath. It’s entirely possible that Charlie’s next words are going to change everything between the group; it’s exactly what she’d wanted to avoid.“But when you broke up with me and told me to move on...that’s what I did. Dating Maya has been amazing.” He reaches over, weaving his fingers through Maya’s. “We’re really happy together, going in a great direction...I don’t want to move backwards.”

“Riles, you know how much I love you, and I hate seeing you hurt,” Maya adds on, “but we didn’t ask you to step back for us.. And now that you have and we’ve been together for a few months…”

Riley knows what happens next sets the tone for their friendship. She can give into every ounce of the heartache that is the guy she loves saying in front of everyone that getting together again with her would be moving backwards--all but confirming that he thinks things with Maya are better than they ever were with her--and cry and make a scene and make it all but inevitable that things will change beyond recognition or repair. Or, she can go with the numb shock of it all. Stay calm. And maybe it’ll be clear that she’s upset right now, but at least it will leave the door open for things to stay mostly the same.

“I would never ask you to give up the relationship you’ve found.” Riley jumps in as Maya trails off; her words fall flat, and even when she makes herself smile she know it sounds forced and strained. She presses on anyways. “That’s why I didn’t want anyone to know. It’s my thing, not anyone else’s. You guys are happy, and that’s what’s most important.”

“After that...Farkle and I weren’t talking. I was upset he had violated my trust and he...was not used to getting things wrong or messing up in such a big way so I’m pretty sure he didn’t know how to apologize. So things were bad in that direction and probably even more awkward with Maya and Charlie…”

“The happy couple didn’t handle things very well?” Lucas has to think that a trio of well-adjusted adults would have trouble maintaining their relationships in a similar love triangle situation, so for a group of hormonal teenagers it would have to be next to impossible.

“They weren’t sure if they needed to change how they acted around me, so they tried but that was changing a big part of their relationship which made things weird between them. Plus, I think all three of us were worried that the wrong comment or nudge or whatever would give someone the wrong idea or hurt someone so we were all tip-toeing around each other, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not but Maya doesn’t do all that great with awkward.”

Lucas thinks back to the various derisive and sarcastic comments he’s heard the blonde make in response to an uncomfortable situation. “She doesn’t seem to.”

“It didn’t take much more than a week for her to hit her limit and take matters into her own hands.”

“Riles, can we talk about the Charlie thing?”

Riley is so taken aback by Maya’s question, coming in the middle of their art class that she drops her paintbrush. It’s the first time since homecoming that anyone has addressed what had happened directly and she’d been mildly hopeful that the radio silence would continue until a long time had passed; maybe several years down the line they’d be able to have an open discussion about the whole thing but she knows how precarious things are between them right now and even one comment could damage things further. Thankfully, Maya continues talking without waiting for a response, and she gets to find out more before she commits to anything one way or the other.

“It’s just that...this is weird for all of us, ya know? You’re like my sister and I know you said that you’re OK with Charlie and me being together because you’re like, the greatest friend a girl could ask for, and the last thing me or Charlie want to do is do anything that hurts you, but we’re just...not really sure where the line is right now? Like I said, we don’t want you to be uncomfortable but as a couple we’ve always been more…” Maya shifts in her seat, tilting her head back and forth as she hems over her answer.

When two seconds go by and Maya still hasn’t finished her sentence, Riley takes the hint. “Physical?”

Maya snaps her fingers and points. “Exactly! It’s not like that’s the only aspect to our relationship but it is a big one, and I know you want us to be happy, but at the same time, it’s like I said, we don’t want to hurt you. So I guess what I’m asking is…”

“Maya, you and Charlie should have exactly the relationship you want.” Riley presses her lips together, then reaches over and rests a hand on top of her friend’s. “Don’t worry about me.” After all, she thinks as Maya grins and thanks her for being so understanding, and she bends down to retrieve her paintbrush, what’s one more sacrifice to keep your friends?

“She actually went to you, barely a week after she found out that you still loved Charlie, and asked if you were OK with them making out in front of you?” Lucas can hardly believe what he’s hearing. “And she was your best friend? How were you OK with that?”

“At the time I thought I had to be.” Riley answers. As she walks she reaches up and takes down her ponytail, starting to braid her hair instead. “Remember? According to everyone my job as her friend was to give and do everything I could to make her happy and help her grow. How I felt was never a part of the equation.”

Right. Lucas had almost forgotten that particular mountain of bad advice. How parents could advise that level of self-sacrifice to their child...even if Riley had been misinterpreting what they had been saying, shouldn’t they have stepped in and clarified at some point? Or maybe comforted her and given some advice? Like when they saw her making herself completely miserable? His esteem for the elder Matthews, not particularly high to begin with, drops down a little further.

“That said, it didn’t take me very long to realize that as much as I wanted to take all of my feelings about the situation and shove them into a box at the back of my closet where I would never have to deal with them, that’s not really something a person can do. Or at least that I can do.

“I wanted to be OK with Maya and Charlie being together, but even in spite of him saying flat out that his feelings for me had changed and putting that closure between us, I still felt something for him. It hurt to see them together and how different he was with Maya. I tried my best to swallow it down and hide it but I wasn’t very good at it and between that and the ongoing mess with Farkle… There was so much tension that it was easier for everyone if I limited my time with them.” Riley ties off her braid, letting it rest on her shoulder.

“Wait, really?”

“Alanis Morissette eat your heart out, right?” Riley huffs. “All I wanted to do was make sure my friends were happy enough to stick around and all I did was make it too painful for me to stay.”

Lucas frowns. Sure, the choice that she made to break up with Charlie in the first place had been a mistake but it wasn’t the only factor that made things hard. From the way she tells the story, the others hardly sound blameless, not from his perspective. “And none of them saw a problem with how they were acting or tried to fix it?”

“They were getting along fine without me. I mean, every once in a while Maya and I would try and hang out on our own but things were still awkward. The more we were apart, the clearer it was that we didn’t have as much in common as we used to and we both felt like we had to be careful with what we said… so that didn’t last very long. By Thanksgiving or so I was pretty much entirely on my own.”

“What do you mean on your own?”

“I was a goofily optimistic, klutzy kid. Whose dad taught at her school. There weren’t a ton of kids lining up around the block to be friends with me. The ones who didn’t ignore me were happy I had lost the protection of Maya and Charlie.”

Lucas doesn’t like the sound of that at all. “Protection?”

“Farkle and I were easy targets for bullies and mean girls. But being friends with Maya and Charlie gave us a layer of protection, because Maya was tough enough to scare most everyone and Charlie was one of those guys that the whole school liked so nobody really wanted to upset him.”

“So what? You drifted apart and it was open season on Riley?”

“For a few kids, yeah.” It sounds so matter-of-fact and nonchalant coming out of Riley’s mouth that Lucas can’t tell if the anger simmering in his chest is an overreaction.

“And nobody did anything?”

“Most people didn’t know. It was mostly texts and emails. Catty comments in the girls’ bathroom. Nothing super noticeable. It would have been completely manageable if I’d been in a better place. Anyways, we’re getting off track. That stuff was a factor, not a major point in the story.”

The hasty dismissal tells Lucas that his anger is not misplaced, and it likely wouldn’t have been manageable, whether or not she’d had the support of friends, but he knows better than to press the issue further. “OK. So it’s Thanksgiving, and your friend group is pretty non-existent.”He recaps. “Where were your parents during all of that? I would have thought they’d offer all the advice they could to try and help you keep everyone together.”

“Talking to them never really worked. My mom was super busy between work and Auggie and being Maya’s go to adult for advice, so every time I managed to get her alone for five minutes, something more important came up and she dashed off with a promise to make it up to me later.

“And my dad...he was so reluctant to discuss anything about boys and my dating of them that we only had one real conversation about it and even that was less than helpful.”

“Riley, a moment please?”

Riley stops packing up her books the moment her dad makes the request, while everyone else filters out of the classroom. He hasn’t kept her behind after class since middle school unless she’s left her lunch money at home and they’ve already had lunch today, so she’s not sure what he could possibly want. They haven’t had any papers or tests lately that she might have done poorly on.

When the room is empty, her dad sits on the edge of his desk, directly in front of her usual seat. “You know, as a teacher I hear pretty much all the gossip that circulates around this school. Not to mention I have students that come to me for advice when they aren’t sure what to do with the problems they’re dealing with.”

“I know.” Riley laughs nervously. Between her mom and Maya and the school’s gossip network he’d probably heard every last detail about her breakup with Charlie and the subsequent homecoming fiasco a few weeks ago. Does he want her to talk about that with him? Not that she’s completely opposed to getting some parental advice on the matter--she’s felt completely lost for a while now and could really use a little guidance--but her dad never wants to talk about this sort of problem with her.

“And I can’t help but notice there’s been a massive change with you recently.” He continues, and Riley feels a bit better about her chances; sure they don’t normally talk about boys and those sorts of feelings, but if he took notice of her struggles, maybe he was swallowing back his reservations to try and be there for her. Isn’t that what fathers do?

“Well, things have been--,”

“So what’s going on? Why aren’t you spending time with Maya anymore?”

Just as quickly the hope stoking in her heart plummets down to her feet. She’s so stunned that that’s her dad’s question she can’t even think of an answer.

He only lets them sit in silence for a few moments. “Look Riley, I can’t pretend I understand what made you decide that breaking up with Charlie and telling him to explore his feelings for Maya was the right thing to do; that wasn’t really what I meant when I said you needed to find a way to help her be happy again. That said, what’s done is done. Part of growing up is learning to live with the decisions we make. You can’t turn back the clock just because something is harder than you thought it would be.”

Riley knows that. She doesn’t want to turn the clock back. She just wants to know how to get past it all and stop hurting, but she can’t figure out how to explain that to her dad.

“The good news is Maya’s attitude has really turned around.” Her dad continues. “She’s doing good in school again, talking about what colleges she might apply to. However misguided it was, it looks like this was the win she needed. But she’s still hurting. None of it feels any good to her without her best friend by her side.”

“So, let me make sure I’m understanding this.” Lucas shakes his head as if to clear it; it’s not that he can’t believe that Riley’s dad would ignore her feelings in such a blatant way--almost every interaction this trip has been a demonstration of his skill in that area--but it just feels jarring to have it laid out that he’s been doing it since she was so much younger, and to hear how it chipped away at Riley’s picture of him. “Your dad hears the whole story, sees that you’re having a hard time, and sits you down to tell you to suck it up and go back to Maya?”

Riley nods. “That’s the way things were. If we fought, I apologized. If she got into trouble, I got her out of it. If she liked something I had, I shared it with her. So if she wanted her best friend around, I was supposed to find a way to make it work.

“I could tell my dad was let down that he was even having to talk to me about it, which was the last thing I wanted. Plus I was so lonely and tired, I thought that going back to my friends and dealing with a little heartache would be better than having no friends and disappointing my parents. I was the good kid. I’d never gone against what they wanted before and it didn’t seem like the time to start. So I told him I’d be better, screwed on my smile and put everything I had into being the only Riley anyone seemed to care about--the happy, helpful doormat. I told Farkle all was forgiven, told Charlie the time apart had done wonders and I was over him, apologized to Maya for abandoning her and went back to the old routine of jumping for her before she could even think to ask me to. As far as everyone else was concerned, the drama was over. All was well.”

Lucas can practically hear the narration continue in his head. But all was not well. Nothing Riley has just described to him was remotely healthy. He knows because he’s done it. He knows how ignoring everything he was feeling and pretending to be a person he wasn’t had chipped away at him and left him a mess that he’d barely been able to hold together long enough to make it to college and get away.

And Riley is such a people pleaser she had probably thrown herself into the effort with 310%, no matter how hard it was to do so.

“How long did that go on for?”

“A few months. I slowly realized that I was the only one really trying--no one noticed that I was faking everything, or how much I was constantly giving up or setting aside to make sure everyone else got what they wanted, and never getting anything more than a smile and a pat on the shoulder in return. Even the bullies realized no one was going to notice or care, so they kept at it. Still, I ran myself into the ground, trying to convince myself that I just wasn’t meeting everyone’s standards, and if I just pushed myself a little harder and gave just a little bit more, I would and things would get better. The only time I ever got to let it all go and breathe was if I was alone, and every time I did, it was harder to put the act back on.”

“Did you ever think about not putting it back on?”

“Not until April.”

“What happened then?”

Don’t you think it’s a bit pathetic to still be clinging to Maya and Charlie? It’s not like they actually want you around.

No one wants you around.

Not even daddy talks to you anymore.

Who can blame him with how obnoxious you are? I’m sure your parents only let you stay with them because they can’t kick you out until you’re 18.

Riley clamps her teeth onto her inner lip as she scrolls through the latest additions to the group text she can’t seem to escape no matter how many numbers she blocks on her phone. They’re hardly the nastiest she’s ever been sent, but the harshness hardly seems to matter anymore; these days every comment seems to chip past her defenses easier than the last. Reading each word hurts, and even after she closes the messages and puts her phone down they keep running through her head.

She never gets a break anymore.

If she’s not dealing with the texts and the notes shoved in her locker and the not-so-accidental shoves, elbows, and trips in a crowded hallway, she’s dealing with the drama of Maya and Charlie. They have officially exited the honeymoon phase of their relationship and are starting to face some challenges. And Riley gets put in the middle of every spat.

Charlie needs insights into Maya’s personality. Maya needs someone to vent at. They both need help arranging grand gestures of apology. Riley provides it all with every ounce of sympathy she can drudge up, no matter how difficult. And boy is it difficult.

She’d never realized how needy her friends were until she was in the position of needing some support of her own. Now it’s hard not to notice how little they seem to care about how she’s doing.

After that, every interaction is harder and seems to drain her more, to the point where she’s taken to sneaking off in the afternoons and studying at a coffee shop near Bryant Park, a journey no one else is likely to make, just to get a couple hours away from it all every day. She does her homework in peace, away from self-centered friends and nasty classmates (at least, if she turns her phone off) and it gives her just enough relief to be able to go back to her home and keep up the act that she’s just as happy, just as helpful, just as unaware of the imbalance in all her relationships (with both friends and family) as always.

Riley’s settled in at her favorite table for one such afternoon, having been working for a good hour already, when the bell above the door tinkles. She doesn’t pay much attention to the customers that enter; the cafe is packed to the brim with students either avoiding their work or getting a caffeine fix prior to a late class as it is almost every day and she’s gotten quite adept at ignoring the chaos until it interferes with her work.

Only…

“You think you’re so cute, don’t you?”

The laugh of blonde walking past her table to join the line of patrons sounds incredibly familiar.

“That’s what you said last night.”

And so does the boy who has an arm slung over her shoulder.

“That was about your butt, not your face.”

Reaching behind himself, he catches her hand just before it can land a playful slap on the aforementioned butt. “So you only want me for my body, is that it?”

“That and what you can do with it.”

The blonde stretches up on her tiptoes, pulling him into a searing kiss, just as reality gives way to Riley’s shock.

The girl is Maya. But the boy is not Charlie.

Lucas is almost positive that he hasn’t missed the bit of the story where Maya and Charlie decided they weren’t meant to be together. And he’s certain that if their relationship was less serious and the type where they were open and free to see other people that Riley would have mentioned it before now. Which means that whatever was happening in the coffee shop, it was behind Charlie’s back, in spite of all the feelings professed and happiness claimed. “Do I even want to know who she was with?”

“Probably not but it’s part of the story so…”

Riley rushes to close her textbook and gather her things to make a hasty exit. She does not want to see anymore or even worse, have them see her; if they realize they’ve been caught, there will surely be a scramble to make her understand the situation and to convince her to keep the secret and she’s not ready to deal with that. She’s not sure she’ll ever be ready to deal with that.

Unfortunately, the universe does not agree with her plan.

In her hurry to get her belongings together, her elbow collides with her tea, sending the cup to the floor (with what feels like a surprisingly loud crash for a paper travel mug). Several patrons turn to the source of the noise, including Maya who immediately starts to fluster.

“Riley!” Her eyes widen and she jumps away from her companion. They both rush to speak at the same time. “This isn’t what it looks like!”

“What are you doing here?”

Riley is fairly certain that there’s no alternative explanation for what she’s seen that would excuse Maya and her Uncle Josh making out in a coffee shop when earlier in the day she and Charlie were making moon eyes in the cafeteria and feeding each other bites of slightly stale cafeteria cake. She’s never been one for confrontation with her friends or family, but the heat of frustration and upset rises before she can even think to swallow it. “I study here where I can get some peace and quiet. I’d ask why you come here but I make it a point not to waste people’s time by asking questions I already know the answers to.” She turns back to the table pulling several napkins from the dispenser to try and deal with the mess. The sooner she cleans up the spill, the sooner she can leave and not have some sort of embarrassing emotional reaction.

“Riles, this isn’t what it looks like.” Maya repeats her initial insistence.

“Are you still dating Charlie?”

“Wh--I--that’s--,”

“It’s a simple question Maya.” Riley cuts off her sputtering, turning back around. She can practically feel her frustration and anger sparking in her eyes, something she normally does everything she can to tamp down. She finds she doesn't care.“Are you still dating Charlie?”

“Well, yeah but--,”

“Then it’s exactly what it looks like.”

“That was the last straw for me.” Riley informs. “I was done. I had given up the boy I loved for Maya, and even though they were supposedly both happy with each other, she turned right around and cheated on him. And because it was with Josh, she didn’t even see it as all that wrong.”

Lucas is beginning to wonder if they’ll run out of beach before the story is over. Every piece of Riley’s tale seems to bring up more questions to unpack than it answers, and he has a feeling they haven’t even reached the climax yet. “Why would it matter that it was Josh instead of someone else?”

Another heavy sigh escapes Riley’s lips. “Ever since they first met, Maya had the biggest crush on Josh. And even though she could be pretty bold and obnoxious about it, Josh never really shut her down other to bring up their age difference. But as time went on even that got to be less and less firm.”

“Three years is a big gap when you’re still a kid but it just keeps shrinking the older you get.” Lucas nods, familiar with the argument.

She nods. “The attraction was definitely reciprocal. And they had an unspoken agreement that neither of them were supposed to just wait around and not have a love life, but if, when the age gap wasn’t so...problematic, they were both available, they were probably going to give things a shot.”

Which still doesn’t explain how the fact that it was with Josh made Maya think she had some sort of pass on the cheating thing. The key word Lucas could pick out of Riley’s explanation of the agreement was ‘available’, which Maya clearly wasn’t. “How does that make it OK for her to date two people without both of them knowing and agreeing?”

“Come on, Riles. You could at least talk to me. Let me explain.”

Riley spins on her heel, whirling to face Maya; she and Josh have been chasing after her since Riley had stormed out of the cafe, some five blocks thus far, trying to get her to stop and listen to whatever it is they have to say. Riley can’t say that she’s particularly interested in the explanation right now, but she also knows that Maya isn’t going to give up her pursuit any time soon, and she had been so flustered upon her exit that she hadn’t thought to do the sensible thing and get on the subway or hail a cab where they wouldn’t be able to immediately follow. “Fine.” She bites out, crossing her arms over her chest. “Explain.”

“Josh and I...it’s totally unexpected. We only got together last week.”

Riley blinks, uncertain as to what in those two sentences was supposed to make her understand the situation. Maya hesitates but keeps talking.

“There just hasn’t been a good chance for me to talk to Charlie yet.”

“That’s funny, I seem to remember you being with him before classes, study hall, lunch, PE...I wonder if any of those times would have given you the opportunity to bring something like this up? Or, and I’m just throwing things out here, what about right now? I mean, surely if you stopped shoving your tongue down my Uncle’s throat you could find the time to sit down with your boyfriend and tell him that your feelings have changed.”

“Riley, that’s not fair.” Josh jumps in.

Maya nods, continuing after him quickly. “It’s not that easy. Charlie and I have been together a long time, I can’t just break up with him out of the blue. He deserves better than that.”

Riley doesn’t even know where to begin with that. The belief that the few months Maya and Charlie have been dating could be considered a long time...the idea that carrying on a secret relationship with someone else is somehow kinder than breaking up with a person...the light insinuations about Riley’s own break up with Charlie...it all flabbergasts her to the point of stunned silence, which Maya seems to take as the dawning of Riley’s understanding, and she’s more than happy to keep talking.

“So it’s not that we’re trying to have this secret affair or anything. I just need a little time to figure out how to tell him in a way that won’t hurt him. It’s not like I don’t care about him. I’ve been really happy with him while we’ve been together--he’s a great guy and he was exactly what I needed to get me through until--,”

Maya cuts herself off, but all it takes is a glance down to her hand, still interwoven with Josh’s, for Riley to fill in the blanks. He was exactly what I needed to get me through until Josh and I could be together. Whatever Maya’s feelings for Charlie are, they don’t compare to her long-harbored feelings for Josh. When the time came and opportunity rose up Charlie was ultimately nothing more than a placeholder for her.

Riley can barely swallow around the rock that forms in her throat. “I have to go.”

“Wait! But Riley--,”

Riley ignores their duet of protests. “Good luck with your new relationship.” The words don’t come out happy, enthusiastic, or anything remotely resembling an actual congratulatory message, but Riley’s not sure if she means them at all or is just habitually wishing them well so she doesn’t correct herself or add anything else, instead turning and stepping off the curb to hail a --thankfully empty--approaching taxi. She gets in quickly, shutting the door in Maya’s face and rattling off her address to the driver. It’s nearing dinner time so even if her study time hadn’t been interrupted and her sanctuary invaded, she’d need to be thinking about heading home anyways; she can only hope that Maya will take her fast exit as a sign to stay away, and that her parents will, for once, be understanding.

“I’m guessing they weren’t.”

“It went better than I thought it would.” Riley shrugs. The answer doesn’t give Lucas much hope that things are about to take a turn for the better. “I had a few days of quiet. My parents didn’t sit down and talk to me about what was going on or anything, but they also didn’t make me see Maya or Josh either. It’s stupid looking back on it but even that little bit of inaction on their part was enough to give me hope that they were at least somewhat on my side; they knew what was going on so it seemed like maybe they were accepting my feelings about everything, even if they weren’t actually trying to help me through it.”

If nothing else, the fact that Riley had ever seen this bare minimum of effort--that doesn’t even really seem like much of an effort at all--as them being accepting spoke volumes about their relationship and how they had been treating her. Only there’s no good way for Lucas to say that without coming off at least somewhat judgemental of Riley that he can find, so he once again stays quiet.

“It was a different story once Maya came clean and broke up with Charlie.”

“How so?”

“Nobody liked that she had cheated on him. And you’ve seen how the Matthews’ act with people they disagree with.”

Lucas nods.

“Ending the situation with Charlie and getting his forgiveness got rid of that issue and repositioned her halo. She had done what she needed to do to be happy and made things right so to speak. Me being upset about it regardless of that was the only thing keeping things from going back to 100% normal.”

“That doesn’t even remotely begin to--,”

“‘Riley, we let you have your tantrum but you’re dragging it out a bit long, don’t you think?’ ‘Maya’s your best friend. Can’t you see it’s hurting her that you’re not happy for her?’ ‘It’s time to stop acting like a child and be reasonable.’” Riley cuts him off, parroting the words with such precision and bitterness that it’s clear these are very specific, very real examples of things people--not just people but her family--had said to her. “Maya was the priority. She was the mature one who had earned her feelings and I was the kid, who didn’t understand the depth of what they were talking about and acting out because I wasn’t getting my way.

“The longer I stood my ground and didn’t crawl back, begging for her to forgive and accept me, the harder it was to deal with anyone. My parents especially. They made their disappointment in me very clear, and didn’t bother to even try and hear where I was coming from. All that mattered was that I had stopped prioritizing my friendship with Maya over everything else and Maya was unhappy, so I was in the wrong.”

Lucas doesn’t even realize his indignation has made him stop walking until Riley turns around to face him, brow furrowed. “But you were unhappy too.” He protests. “And you were their daughter. Not Maya. What made them prioritize her feelings over yours?” He doesn’t expect Riley to have an answer for him, not really, but it’s such a foreign concept to him; as hard as his parents were to deal with and as much as they didn’t really consider his feelings on anything, they also never would have put anyone ahead of him except for themselves.

“They saw her as another daughter. And to them this was my big rebellion. They raised me to be the best parts of them put together. Smart, strong, loyal, hopeful, giving… Cutting ties with Maya went against everything they had told me to be. And if they were upset with me before, it only got worse when I turned down Charlie’s promposal.”

“Charlie’s prompos-- you mean he had the nerve to ask you out again?”

“Our school always had a Spirit Week in the spring that ended with a lip-sync competition. Charlie took the lead for the junior class performance and put together a One Direction number that ended with him asking me to prom and me saying no which nobody, including him, understood.”

“Riley, can we talk?”

Riley stops gathering her books, briefly closing her eyes to steel herself for the pending conversation; she knows exactly what Charlie wants--the same thing he’s wanted for the past two days--and unfortunately her habit of lingering in the safety of a teacher-supervised classroom rather than rushing out to the madness of the hallways with the rest of her fellow students has given him an easy opening that she can’t evade. “There’s nothing to talk about Charlie.” She says, reopening her eyes. She does her best to keep her voice firm, and returns to collecting her things. Maybe if she stays firm and keeps moving it will all be over quickly. “You asked me out. I said no. That’s the end of the discussion.”

“It can’t be.” Charlie protests, He takes a step forward, laying his hand on top of hers to still it. “I know you still have feelings for me.”

It would be easy to melt into his touch. It’s gentle and familiar and everything Riley has been craving for months. She could give in and the entire mess would be done with. It just...wouldn’t be real.

Her hesitation comes to a grinding halt and she jerks her hand back. “I don’t want to be with anyone who thinks being with me is a step backwards for them.”

“Who said that?”

“You did.” Riley sweeps her things into her arms and stands, unable to believe that the conversation that had caused her so much heartache was so inconsequential to Charlie that he had forgotten it.

“If I said that it was only because I was confused.” He sidesteps in front of her, blocking her path. “Riley, I know the past few months have been a lot but I still care about you. We can make this work. I mean….look at what happened with your parents.” He gestures towards the front of the classroom, where her dad is trying and failing to look like he’s simply writing out his next lesson plan on the board and not hanging on every word of the conversation. “They broke up and saw other people in high school and look at them now! Married for seventeen years! That could be us one day.”

Riley looks to her dad, eyes wide pleading for his assistance; surely he must understand how crazy Charlie’s premise sounds. The odds of her parents’ relationship working in spite of all of their hurdles and separations was one in a trillion. And really, the circumstances of their breakup and what happened in the aftermath were so different than this.

But her dad just nods. “He’s right Riley. Your story isn’t over yet.”

“If it’s my story that means I get to say when it’s over.” Riley argues, though she feels a stabbing in her chest and her resolve starts to weaken at the disappointed frown that deepens across her father’s face. She tears her gaze away, glancing at Charlie one last time. “I don’t know if you’ve genuinely realized that you still care about me or if you just don’t want to be alone, but I’m sorry. Either way, my answer is no. And it’s not going to change.” She ducks around her ex and hurries out of the room before either he or her dad can say anything else. But she still hears their chorused objections, and can’t stop her tears from falling as she rushes down the hall.

Riley wraps her arms around herself as she finishes this portion of the story, squeezing tightly. Lucas can’t tell if she’s getting cold in the night air or just trying to comfort herself. “From that point on I was on my own. If I caught my parents’ attention all I ever got was a lecture; my so-called friends spent most of their time explaining all the ways that I was being a selfish bitch--that’s if they could even be bothered to talk to me or spend time with me at all. Classmates harassed me, teachers just wanted to talk about my falling grades...It felt like the only person who still liked me for me was Auggie, and that was only because he was too young to understand why everyone else was mad at me. I couldn’t exactly confide in him.”

Riley stops walking. She turns to the ocean for a moment, chewing on her lip with eyes cast downward. It’s obvious that she has more to say but needs a moment, whether to simply gather herself or find her words or something else entirely.

It’s all Lucas can do to not reach over and offer her comfort. He’s hardly a stranger to consoling his clients; in this line of work he’s often called on by people with baggage and he considers it a part of his job to help how he can--how he would want to be treated if he were opening up to someone--yet with Riley he finds himself hesitant. She’s been warming up to him and getting much more comfortable with physical contact, both within the context of their feigned relationship and outside of it, but he can’t help but worry that the emotional place the story is putting her in will render that ease and the effects moot. Riley is clearly vulnerable at the moment, and the last thing he wants to do is anything that will make the situation harder for her.

(There’s also the added complication of their earlier kiss and how every touch between them seems to carry such a weighted spark, but thinking about that is going down a road that Lucas knows will lead to trouble so really, his reluctance to act is based solely on his concern for Riley and not on his worries over the complications of the growing tangled knot of feelings in his chest. Really.)

He’s so caught up in his mental debate and the ominous uneasiness over where the story is going next that he almost misses when Riley starts to speak again.

“I started drowning, and I couldn’t see anyway to save myself. I started to think that maybe I shouldn’t--,” Riley cuts herself off as her voice grows shakier. When she starts again, it’s still thick and wet, but firm. “Uncle Eric wasn’t wrong when he said that if he hadn’t stepped in I wouldn’t be here anymore. By the time my dad called him at the end of the school year I was in a really bad place.”

“Riley! Light of my life, the one and only, my favorite niece in the universe!”

Riley’s bed jolts with the impact of an adult launching himself onto the end of the mattress and bouncing as he settles. The movement causes her to fall out of her position, huddled on her side and staring blankly towards the window, and onto her back. She doesn’t move to correct it, or to look at the newcomer. She knows it’s her Uncle Eric, and knows, because her parents aren’t subtle in the slightest, that he’s there as their last ditch effort to make her see reason and crawl back to her friends.

It’s a specialty of his, understanding people and repairing relationships, and she knows her parents are hoping that he can make her see the light. That as her favorite uncle somehow his words will get through to her and she’ll rethink her choices.

Only Riley is well past the point of going back. And she doesn’t really want to look her favorite uncle in the eye while he tells her how big of a disappointment she is; she’s done that enough with everyone else in her life and to do it again would just be too much. Even hearing it will be too much but it’s not like she has a choice. She never has a choice.

“It is a beautiful day at the start of the summer and I find you holed up in your room.” Eric says, a teasing exasperated tone gracing his voice. “The curtains on your windows aren’t even open. What gives?”

“I didn’t feel like getting up.” It’s the first time Riley has said more than a word here and there in a number of days and her throat grates. She’d add a shrug to her words but she can’t muster up the extra energy.

“But days like today are meant to be experienced! Haven’t any of your friends been by to drag you out?”

Riley closes her eyes. For all of his positives, nobody ever said subtlety was her Uncle Eric’s forte. “We’re not exactly on speaking terms. Or even friends.”

“Yeah, I heard.” The bed starts to shift as Eric moves; Riley can tell he’s wriggling his way up to put her head on the pillows near her, even without looking. “What’s up with that?”

Definitely not subtle.

“If you’ve heard we’re not talking then you’ve heard the story.” Her parents surely would have ranted every event as they saw it to him in order to get him to come down so quickly. She’d only overheard their conversation about asking for Eric’s help a couple of days ago and while the Senate wasn’t currently in session he had plenty of other work that he couldn’t normally just walk away from. Someone had to have said something to convince him it was urgent.

“Well,” He draws out the word, “I’ve heard their side of things. I want to hear yours.” Eric nudges at the side of her head with his own temple; it’s his usual playful way but it seems wrong, if only because she hasn’t felt anywhere close to playful for close to a year now.

She shakes her head minutely. “It’s not that different.”

“Considering how the story I heard sounds nothing like you, I’ll bet it is.”

Riley doesn’t dare trust the glimmer of hope that sits in Eric’s words. Sure, they might mean that he knows she’s a better person and he’s willing to actually listen and believe her, but at one point she’d thought the same about her parents. And her grandparents. And Uncle Shawn. If she thinks for one second that Eric might actually be on her side, it’s only going to hurt more when he’s not. “I don’t care. There’s no point.”

Uncle Eric exhales heavily. “Ri, there’s always, always a point,” he says, fumbling for her hand and weaving his fingers with hers. “If you really don’t want to talk about Maya and Charlie and Josh or whoever else then I’m not gonna make you. I couldn’t care less about them. I want to know about you and how you’re doing. The truth.”

The truth.

Just the idea sends Riley’s breath into a hitch.

The truth is that she’s beyond exhausted, and lonely, and she’s more than starting to think that everyone’s right and she’s being a horrible person. Half of the time just breathing hurts. It feels like every negative thought she’s ever had-every upset and bad mood she’s ever bypassed and tried to ignore in favor of being happy- has multiplied by a thousand and returned to come crashing down in a wave across her shoulders and she’s drowning. Swept beneath the surface and drowning and there’s nothing for her to try and grab onto.

Riley shakes her head and her breath hitches again. This time her shoulders move with it and before she knows it, tears are falling hot and fast down her cheeks. Despite her best efforts she’s a sobbing mess within moments, but Eric just sits up properly and hoists her up into an embrace, rubbing her back and murmuring into her hair while she cries into his chest.

“Eventually I calmed down enough to actually talk to him and tell him the whole story and what I was feeling.” Riley finishes. “And Eric just…promised me that I wasn’t doing the wrong thing, and that he was going to do everything he could to help me.”

“Like having you move in with him and Linda.”

“Well it started with just a summer internship he found me with one of his colleagues. I went and stayed with them while I did that and he got me into therapy and kept my dealing with my parents to the absolute bare minimum. And when I told him that I didn’t want to go back to New York for my senior year he didn’t fight me, just found some family friends in education who were willing to call in some favors to help get me a super late interview at a great prep school he lived near and took the hit of telling my parents that I wouldn’t be going home.”

Lucas nods, trying to reconcile the explanation Riley has given with the display at the karaoke party between the Matthews brothers. It’s not exactly difficult. “Hence your dad saying he stole you.”

“Exactly. Only it was all my choices, Uncle Eric just didn’t want me to be the one to tell them when I was in such a bad place. And ever since then, and when I decided to go to college out west, every time I see my family or talk to them, it’s exactly what you’ve seen. Awkward and uncomfortable at the best of times, outright hostile and downtrodding at others… they don’t hate me but they don’t exactly like me either.”

Lucas thinks over that assessment. It’s not totally inaccurate; the Matthews’ certainly aren’t trying to freeze her out of being there for Auggie or anything like that--they aren’t actively trying to make Riley miserable--but it’s clear that their affection comes with conditions. You either think and act a certain way or you don’t belong. And even though he doesn’t think Riley is all that far from fulfilling every one of those standards in the present day, because she didn’t do exactly what they wanted in high school and refuses to apologize for it or be a doormat any longer, her family is refusing to see that.

His family had been similar, although he had definitely been further away from their idea of what a perfect son was, and they had treated him like that every time he drifted for as long as he could remember, so when he finally realized how wrong it was and had gotten out from under them, it had been a fairly easy choice to cut the cord and decide he wouldn’t deal with them anymore. Riley didn’t have that blessing. She had a family that had loved her unconditionally right up until the point that they didn’t, so she had more dissonance to reconcile in their behaviors; she had something that most everyone would want to try and get back.

Lucas doesn’t want to overstep any boundaries, or give advice where it’s not wanted, but he knows this is a painful and tricky situation and not many people involved can look at it without the blinders of family on. Even Eric, who had done so well to remove her from the toxic situation in the first place is clearly reluctant to do or suggest more, only throwing direct blame tonight when pushed by the situation. Ultimately it feels like, as an outsider who has taken on taking care of Riley, he needs to try and say something.

“Do you ever think about not coming back? I mean, I get why you’re here for this. It’s Auggie’s wedding, and he’s a good guy and your brother so that’s pretty unavoidable but outside of this...why are you even talking to them at this point?”

#rucas #rucas fanfiction #riley matthews #lucas friar #gmw #fanfiction #au #fic: cold cape cod clams #cw: suicide #yikes I hate this ending #this is an incredibly long text post and tumblr has made formatting a lot harder so apologies if something is a little off #but...#here we go

23 notes · View notes

imaginarybird · 7 years

Text

Unwilling and unable to face everyone on her own when it comes time to attend Auggie and Ava’s wedding, Riley Matthews hires a solution in Lucas Friar. Loosely based on The Wedding Date.

Part One // Part Two // Part Three // Part Four // Part Five // Part Six // Part Seven

Rating: Around a PG 13/14

Notes: ~12,000 words, several crises of self-confidence, pep-talks from angels like @sand1128, @shebe67, and @frankchurchillsaysrelax among others, and so many other things...I can now present to you Chapter Seven of Cold Cape Cod Clams.

One line in this chapter is based off of a text featured on Texts from Last Night, because I’m shameless and couldn’t resist.

In this chapter, the karaoke party continues, Riley feels conflicted, and Cory brings his own special touch to the party.

It takes a moment to register in Riley’s brain. Lucas’ lips are on hers. Lucas’ lips are on hers. His one hand is at the back of her head, gripping her hair with his fingers. His other hand is on her elbow, drawing her closer still.

She and Lucas are kissing.

And not on the cheek like she thought might be necessary to maintain their charade, or even a quick peck on the lips that had been considered and quickly filed in the ‘only in your wildest dreams Riley, now focus!’ part of her brain. This is full-on kissing.

‘Part your lips, go weak in the knees, and feel your heart freeze in your chest before it rushes back into action with a fluttery electric fervor’ kissing.

When did this become her life?

It’s all too easy for Riley to melt into the moment (this is not the way she’s used to being kissed) and to forget where they are and what they’re actually doing. At least until the raucous applause and wolf-whistles of the crowd grow so loud that they cut through the pleasant passion-fog rising in her head. After that it takes all of half a heartbeat for Riley to remember they’re on stage, singing karaoke at Auggie and Ava’s party, that the only members of her family not present are her parents, and that Lucas is the escort she hired to be her date for the wedding not the man so seemingly perfect she might as well have dreamed him into existence, sweeping her off of her feet.

She breaks contact first, breathing heavily biting the corner of her lip to try and quell her furious blushing. It doesn’t help, particularly when Auggie returns to his hosting duties, forcing his way into the space now between her and Lucas.

“Putting on a show for all of us, let’s give it up one more time for the man putting the moves on my sister, Lucas Friar!”

The applause swells a second time. Lucas’ hand finds the small of her back as they exit the stage and Riley wonders if it’s possible for a person’s cheeks to get warm enough to cook an egg through sheer embarrassment alone. It definitely feels like it. Between falling victim to the moment and kissing Lucas for such a lengthy period of time, forgetting herself and actually enjoying kissing Lucas, and the ribbing of the crowd, it’s suddenly all too much, too fast.

This morning she still could barely contemplate talking to her family or most anyone else at this party without thorough preparation, planning of escape routes, and a general sense of absolute necessity and a little over twelve hours later she has not only started asserting herself and showing that she’s actually not just a broken little mouse fumbling away their every attempt to ‘fix’ her, but she’s also started showing off. Grandstanding and singing to give everyone a taste of how happy and strong she is now.

Never mind that the only source of happiness they’re going to notice is the completely manufactured relationship with Lucas.

Never mind that this was never a part of the plan to begin with.

Riley can’t help but be embarrassed by her actions. Lucas was just supposed to be a support tool for the week--someone to stand by her so she wouldn’t have to face every stare and snide comment on her own. Yes, it was an added bonus that his presence might shut one or two people up or give them the impression that her love life is blossoming just as much as her professional life that they don’t seem to care about has, but it was never her intention for their ‘relationship’ to be anything more than quietly solid in the background of the wedding festivities. He was supposed to help her blend in and what did she just do? Only everything she could to make them stand out.

They (and really just her) are going to be a big topic of conversation again for the foreseeable future, all because she wanted to show off. And to top it all off, Lucas had been so good at doing it (because it’s his job, she reminds herself) that when he had been serenading her, staring into her eyes, dancing, and indeed kissing her, she had actually felt adored. Like she was the center of his world. So now she can’t even think his name without her stomach doing a somersault and her heart trying to convince her that there was a genuine spark somewhere in that moment.

She could just about tunnel into the earth and die for how much she wishes she could go back in time ten minutes and rethink what she was doing.

“I’m sorry for doing that.” Lucas’ lips near her ear, softly speaking as they weave through the party back to the table, draw Riley out of her shame spiral. What on Earth does he have to be sorry about?

“For doing what?”

“Kissing you like that.”

Riley stops in her tracks. Lucas is either apologizing because he thinks that she’s so different and delicate compared to his other clients that he doesn’t even consider kissing to be a part of this particular job, or because he’s noticed how incompetent she’s been at reigning her growing feelings and hiding them and he’s nice enough that he actually feels bad for exacerbating the situation even though it’s really her that’s putting him in an awkward situation. And either way, she’s feeling off-balance enough, and tired enough, and (in ways that she’s not sure she wants to examine too closely) secure enough with him that the very idea of the apology annoys her. “Why would you be sorry for kissing me?”

“I just mean, it wasn’t fair of me to put you in that position. It’s not something we’ve talked about and--,” Lucas explains, keeping his voice soft. He reaches to take her hand, but Riley pulls out of his reach.

She knows she can’t cause a scene and has to be mindful of her words, but she’s done with this attitude Lucas seems to have adopted that somehow, she’s different from all the other women he works with. To have him keep placing her in this separate category--making it clear that he’s doing things differently with her than he normally would because of who she is as a person--stings just as much as her family’s dismissive treatment, and she’s tired of maintaining her walls on both fronts.

Honestly, it would be so much easier to contain her own feelings if it felt like he was treating her just like any other client.

“Lucas, kissing me is part of your job. As my boyfriend.” She tacks on, thankful that it’s at that moment the crowd is cheering the current performer’s raunchy dance moves on. “I get that I’m probably a little different from the girls you’ve...dated in the past, but would you ever have apologized for kissing them in public?”

“Probably not.” Lucas at least has the grace to look moderately hard-pressed and contrite as she calls him out. “I just don’t feel right about getting-,”

Riley holds up her hand. “I know you appreciate how hard this week has been so far for me and you’re trying to make it easier. But honestly, it’s harder for me right now because I’m stuck constantly second guessing what I’m doing with you. I need you to just...be my boyfriend. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“You’re right.” Lucas sighs, pressing his lips together. “I’ve been complicating things, and I’m sorry. For doing that, not for kissing you.” He hastens to correct himself, the corners of his mouth upturning as he does so. “Forgive me?”

In spite of the emotional rollercoaster of the last fifteen minutes, Riley finds herself relaxing in the face of Lucas’ smile. It’s impossible not to, what with the soft glint that seems to show up in his eyes when he’s looking at her. Damn it. Boundaries, Riley. Boundaries. “Of course.”

“Oh, my goodness you two are just so cute together!” After a quick detour to the bar to grab some drinks, Riley and Lucas arrive back to the table to Linda’s effusive chatter. “I know you weren’t actually singing together but Lucas, when you brought her up on stage to dance with you...oh! And that kiss! I swear, I could have just melted right there.”

Eric, with his arm slung around his wife’s shoulders raises his drink in a salute. “She’s right. The both of you were good. Not as good as we’re gonna be when we get up there and recreate the first dance from our wedding, but good.”

Riley, feeling on more even footing than she had prior to her conversation with Lucas, thinks back on her uncle’s hodge-podge of a wedding, marred by weather disasters and a general comedy of errors, and can’t help but grin; the party won’t know what hit them. “Are you going to do the actual first one, or the official one from the reception?”

“Oh, we’re doing the actual first one.” Eric nods emphatically. “That one was the real representation of our relationship, after all.”

“What am I missing?” Lucas glances between Riley and the couple. “What was so special about your first dance?”

“Our wedding was....” Linda trails off, searching for the right phrase. “A hilarious disaster. It was storming, so everyone’s hair and clothes got wrecked, we got evacuated because of a risk of flash floods, and about five hundred other things that went wrong. But Eric and I were determined to get married anyways. So, in a storm shelter full of strangers, we had our notary perform the ceremony.”

Eric jumps in. “And of course, the most important part of any wedding after the vows is the cake. Followed by the first dance. But we didn’t have any cake so we had to skip right to the dance. And without the band we had hired--,”

The strains of the next karaoke performer start to get louder, interrupting Eric’s explanation.

“No chance, no way. I won’t say it no, no.

(You swoon, you sigh. Why deny it, oh oh?)

It’s too cliché, I won’t say I’m in love…”

They all glance towards the stage to see who’s performing, temporarily forgetting that their conversation. Riley vaguely recognizes the petite brunette in dark-framed glasses as someone she’s seen on Farkle Minkus’ arm at events over the past few years, but not enough to remember her name, or if they have even been introduced to each other. Farkle still tends to shy away from her on most occasions.

Her own recollection on the subject is cut short. Lucas, who’s sipping his drink when he turns to look, seems to gasp in surprise (at least that’s what she thinks happens since his eyes widen a little too) while he’s drinking, causing him to cough and sputter. She reaches over to thump gently on his back a couple of times. “You OK?”

“Yeah.” Lucas nods coughing twice more for good measure. His cheeks are red and eyes a bit watery but that seems to be the end of it. “Just caught myself off guard with that sip. Went down the wrong pipe.”

Riley has to wonder what the actual explanation is because there’s no way that someone as smooth and together as Lucas actually just...took a sip before he was ready to. That’s the sort of thing she would do as a certified klutz, but not him. Something else must have happened, but Lucas changes the subject before she can ask.

“So... you were saying about your first dance?”

“If you see a painted sign at the side of the road, that says fifteen miles to the --,”

“LOVE SHACK!! Love shack yeah, yeah.

“I’m heading down the Atlanta highway…”

In the face of Linda and Eric dancing...well, the kindest word for it would be enthusiastically, on stage and belting the B-52s at the top of their lungs, Lucas blinks. “This is really the first song they danced to at their wedding?”

Riley can’t help but laugh. Even when they hear the story of Eric and Linda’s impromptu wedding, most people don’t believe it. At least unless they’ve gotten to know the happy couple. But people know that Eric is a Senator, and they recognize that even though he seems a little quirky and tends to simplify the issues as he talks about them, so they assume that he has some level of tradition and decorum instilled in him. Then they get to know him and realize that when he’s happy--when he’s full of exuberance and love and joy--there’s not an ounce of tradition in him. And Linda is usually more than happy to follow. “They didn’t have a band or a DJ with them in the storm shelter, they had the radio. It was the first song that came on. So... it’s their song now.”

“What was their first dance supposed to be? If everything had gone right?” Lucas asks.

“They won’t tell anyone.”

Riley stiffens involuntarily at the newcomer to the conversation’s voice. Her grandmother has always been loving and doting (in many ways more so than her mother has) but she’s equally hard to please. Her displeasure with Riley’s path in life has been slightly subtler than that of Riley’s parents, but nonetheless, it’s been easy to notice.

“They were going to surprise everyone anyways, and Linda insists that every that happened was meant to be, so talking about what they were planning is a waste of time.” Amy Matthews continues, as Riley and Lucas stand and turn to greet her. Alan is next to his wife, awkward as ever with his hands in his pockets.

Not that that’s particularly surprising either. Like father, like son, grandpa Matthews hadn’t known how to handle his granddaughter turning out to be a girl, even after going through the process with his own daughter (though Eric swears things were just as bad when Morgan was growing up so in this case, Riley knows it’s not specifically a her thing, just a Matthews’ family trait seemingly carried on the ‘y’ chromosome).

“The two of you looked very happy up on stage.” Her grandma says after a perfunctory greeting has been exchanged and they’re all sitting at the table.

“I’m glad it comes across because we are very happy.” Lucas lays his hand across Riley’s on the surface of the table. “Riley’s the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time.”

It’s a small gesture, but Riley can’t help but marvel at how it helps her relax. There’s a large part of her worrying over what her grandparents have really come over to say (that it’s actually just to compliment her and Lucas is beyond unlikely) and the reassurance that someone is here with her to back her up--that Lucas is here to back her up--quiets the worry in ways that she’s not used to. She’s quick to smile at him to show her appreciation. “What about you and grandpa? Will we be seeing the two of you up there?” The answer to the question is unlikely to be yes which is, a bit unfairly, why Riley chose to ask it. Her grandmother has a lovely voice and is in no way averse to showing it off once in a while, but her grandfather would probably rather undergo a root canal; Ava may have decreed performance a condition of attending her party but if there’s a way around it, Alan will surely find it.

Indeed, Riley’s grandfather raises his drink to his mouth. “We’re still exploring our options.”

AKA, finding a way out of doing it at all.

“Well, I’m sure whatever you land on will be great.”

Amy accepts Lucas’ compliment gracefully and then, as expected, she moves to change the subject as Linda and Eric’s performance gets a touch louder.

“Sign says, ‘Stay away fools!’

“‘Cause love rules, at the Love Shack…”

“Anyway Riley, we really wanted to come over to talk to you about what happened out on the boat today.”

Riley relaxes a little more. That’s doable and familiar. People witness what looks like a medical emergency get handled by a professional and they like to talk about it, to say how cool it was or to sing some praise of the professional. Most of the time she sees it happen to the doctors she works with, but she’s gotten it once or twice too, and if that’s the conversation her grandparents want to have she can get through that a lot easier than the subjects she was anticipating.

“The way you handled everything out there was very impressive.” Her grandfather begins. “Things were chaotic but you kept your cool and got everyone else to calm down and do what needed to be done.”

Riley starts to demur the comment, firm in the belief that doing things she has trained and studied for isn’t particularly impressive, but her grandmother speaks before she can get much out.

“And I really think it was a wonderful gesture.”

“A gesture.” Riley blinks, unsure of where her grandmother is going with such a comment. Her stomach starts to clench with the sudden flip to uncertainty.

Her grandmother nods. “Yes, a very nice one. Rushing to your father and Josh’s aid like that after being away for so long… Doing what you did was a wonderful way to say that you’re done being stubborn and you’re ready to apologize and start mending fences.”

Riley nearly pushes away from the table for the way her stomach clenching turns to an icy element sitting on her chest at her grandmother’s words. Of course she had made the wrong assumptions about the elder Matthews’ intentions. They haven’t given her praise without wanting something else attached in over ten years. “That...wasn’t what I was doing.”

Lucas starts moving his thumb, swirling soft circles on the back of her hand.

“Of course it was!” Her grandmother dismisses. “Rushing to their sides and doing what you could--,”

“I was just doing my job. I would have stepped up for anyone.” Riley protests. “If someone needs medical help, it’s my job to do what I can.”

“But you’re just a nurse. You hand out compresses to little kids.”

Her grandmother couldn’t have known that this glib disregard for what she does would be enough to flip a switch in Riley and make her go from hurt and uneasy to hurt and ready to do something about it (because Riley hadn’t known either) but flip a switch it does. “Actually grandma, nurse’s work incredibly hard and there’s no such thing as just a nurse. And furthermore, I’m not just a nurse. I’m a nurse practitioner in a pediatric emergency room.

“That means I have my master’s degree. I can write prescriptions. Most of the patients I see are my own, not a doctor’s who I’m assisting. I tell people the best news of their lives when their family member is going to make it and the worst news of their lives when I have to tell them that they’re not. The injuries that dad and Uncle Josh were dealing with were nothing compared to the traumas that I see on a daily basis. So sure. I’m just a nurse. I am damn proud to be just a nurse.”

For a moment, Riley thinks she’s done, and breathing heavily, she watches her grandparents stunned reactions. But when she notices her grandfather opening his mouth to say something, she finds a few more words. “And by the way, you would know all of that if you spent even one iota of the time you spend lamenting the fact that I don’t just blindly follow my parents’ example listening to me instead. But I haven’t had the same best friend since I was five, and I haven’t married my childhood sweetheart, and I know until I do, I might as well just be any other nurse in the world to you, not your granddaughter.

“So as just another nurse, let me make it clear. What I did today was my job, not an olive branch. And given how this family has treated me the last twelve years, believe me when I tell you that you won’t be seeing any grand gestures coming from my direction. Not when I know the reception I’ll get.”

Riley stands, holding onto Lucas with one hand and grabbing her drink with the other. She starts to walk away, more than happy to take the route of retreat in order to avoid dealing with whatever fallout standing up for herself might cause. Particularly now that it’s the second time in a single day that she’s done so without facing many consequences. She knows her luck and that this is not it. The other shoe will drop eventually and while Lucas’ pep talk earlier covered a little bit of ground as to why she should be OK with it if and when the repercussions come (and maybe contributed to this instance of bold attitude and speaking her mind) a few wise words from a guy she’s only just getting to know was never going to undo a lifetime’s worth of aiming to please.

So Riley grabs Lucas and tries to flee before either grandparent can formulate a response.

After they make it a few steps away and Lucas has caught up so he’s walking next to her instead of trailing behind her, he leans in, smirking next to her ear. “I can think of a gesture or two you could give them.”

“Lucas!” Riley admonishes, although she’s unable to contain her giggles as she imagines the proposed scenario. Her family would be shocked. And horrified. And if she were the sort of person who did that kind of thing, it would be pretty funny. At least for a second or two until her manners and guilt caught up with her. “You’re terrible.”

“I’m just saying…” Lucas starts to guide her towards a corner of the patio that appears a little less crowded. “They’ve kind of earned it. And it would fit with the whole badass thing you’ve been rocking all day.”

If Riley had needed proof that Lucas is just saying what he thinks he should because she’s paying him, this is it; no one in the history of ever has described her as a badass. “Who have you been watching all day? Clearly it wasn’t me.”

“Oh, so taking charge at the scene of an emergency isn’t badass? Telling off your mother while you’re covered in your father’s blood? That’s not badass?”

Riley snorts. “You make it sound like I’m the one who stabbed him.”

“No, you’re just the one who was willing to take the future use of his hand into yours, if not his life.”

Riley still can’t figure out how Lucas gets that beautiful soft glint in his eyes, or how he can take something that she does every day and make it sound so special. It’s an incredible trick.

No wonder all the reviews on his website were so positive.

“Riley, I know it’s not always easy to see something that you do for work as something extraordi--,”

“There you are!”

A heavy hand clamps down on Riley’s shoulder in time with the boisterous shout and she can’t help but yelp and drop her drink in surprise. The glass shatters on the deck by her feet. She and Lucas both turn, with Lucas grabbing her forearm and guiding her to move behind him.

“I have been looking everywhere for you!” The enthusiastic visitor, Riley realizes a split second after her panic hits, is her father. “This place is crowded. Who knew Auggie had so many friends?”

Her dad is disheveled, to put it mildly. His injured arm is heavily bandaged, splinted in a sling. His shirt buttons are done up unevenly, his shirt isn’t tucked into his pants properly… A glance down at his feet reveals that instead of shoes, he’s wearing slippers. Riley can’t believe her mother let him out of the hotel room at all after the day they’ve had, let alone let him out looking like such a mess.

“Dad, you just had surgery, you should be resting back at the--,”

“Surgery, smurgery.” Her dad cuts her off, scoffing. “I wanted to come and see you. You saved me today and we have so much to talk about.”

Riley takes in the whole picture. Her dad’s appearance, his unrestrained overenthusiastic tone, pupils the size of pinpricks… She sighs. He’s not reacting well to whatever pain medication he’s been prescribed for his injury. “Dad, where’s mom? She needs to--,”

Her dad steps forward, moving his hand back to her shoulder. He glances from side to side, as though checking their surroundings, and lowers his voice to what he probably thinks is a whisper. “Shh! Topanga fell asleep. We have to be quiet so we don’t wake her up. She doesn’t want me to come here.”

Of course.

“If Mrs. Matthews is asleep, how did you get here?” Lucas asks. He gently takes her dad’s hand off of her. “You didn’t drive, did you?”

“I called an Uber on my phone.”

Riley opens her mouth to say something else, but Lucas shakes his head, warning her off. “An Uber?” He prompts.

“They’ll pick you up from anywhere.” Her dad enthuses, while Lucas starts to walk with him, guiding him to back towards the rest of the crowd.

Her dad continues to ramble, and Riley feels more than a little guilty for staying behind and leaving Lucas to find a solution to the problem (or at least someone to hand her dad off to), even though he had stepped up without her asking him to. She just has a feeling that if her dad gets the chance to have whatever conversation he’s gotten it into his head that they have to have tonight, that things will just get messier; either her dad will say something awful while his filter is at less than full effect that he’s restrained himself from saying sober and any hope of reconciliation that Riley’s still holding in the deepest, most secret recesses of herself will be crushed for good, or with his inhibitions loose and his sense of self riding high from the weighty experiences of the day he’ll try and fix things. Which wouldn’t be bad if Riley thought he might actually mean it, or could guarantee that when the medication wore off his attitude wouldn’t go right back to where it’s been.

As it is, she doesn’t want to, nor does she think she’s in the place to risk the heartbreak that will come from either of those paths.

If her dad is experiencing some kind of turnaround and wants to make things better, actually wants to talk things through and apologize, then they can do it when he’s not high on any prescription narcotics.

But Riley is 99.99% certain that he’s not, and that conversation isn’t anywhere close to being on the horizon.

“Huggin’ and a-kissin’, dancin’ and a-lovin’ and a love shack…”

Around her the party bursts into enthusiastic applause as Eric and Linda’s performance comes to its conclusion. Riley quickly decides that if she works to help Lucas take care of her dad, by way of sending someone to help him, then she at least will be doing something and might feel a little bit better. She heads towards the stage to grab her Uncle and fill him in on the situation.

“Seen any good movies lately?”

“Nope.”

“TV shows?”

“Not really.”

“Well, I’d ask you if you’ve read any good books but I’m pretty sure with a guy like Lucas in your life any thoughts about reading before bed begin and end with the Kama Sutra.”

Riley nearly chokes on the water she’s been sipping anxiously as Linda’s attempts at keeping a distracting and benign conversation going veer off course and catch her attention again. Her Aunt (in-law)’s valiant efforts to draw her attention away from the potential disasters of her dad’s presence as it stands and to keep her from travelling too far down the path of blaming herself for the entire mess have not been entirely effective to this point; it’s all too easy to get caught up in the worry of the unknown and get pulled into her own thoughts about it all. But Linda brings out the big guns with that comment and draws her right back to the moment. “Ha ha.” She deadpans, glancing around the patio.

Farkle Minkus is on the stage, putting on an enthusiastic, athletic performance of ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’. Auggie and Ava are just to the side, waiting to resume emcee duties. Out in the crowd, things are busy and packed enough that Riley struggles to pick anyone out without taking extra time to really scrutinize the details. She doesn’t think that she can see Lucas or Eric or her dad anywhere, but it’s not very comforting when she’s a) not positive that that’s true and b) not sure what might be happening wherever they have ended up.

“I’m just saying…” Linda smirks, sending Riley a knowing look out of the corner of her eye. “You can’t work the shifts you do, maintain your relationship, and have time for Oprah’s Book Club. And there’s no missing the heart eyes he’s been sending your direction all night so we know your relationship isn’t suffering…”

Riley blushes at the implication. She’s mostly gotten used to the winking implications about her relationship with Lucas (there’s no denying that he’s incredibly good-looking in what Zay would call a ‘I wouldn’t kick them out for eating crackers in my bed’ kind of way, and no one at the wedding appears to be shy about talking about those sorts of things) but it’s a little different with Linda, who for a long stretch of time was a sort of catch-all female in Riley’s life, acting as a big sister/mother/best friend...whatever Riley had needed at the time. With all the history between them, she might actually expect to hear some details.

Details that, of course, Riley doesn’t actually have. She’s not sure what she should do. Be semi-honest and just say that she and Lucas haven’t gotten there yet? Lie and make something up? Her mind goes completely blank of rational ideas.

“I’m a sex machine ready to reload!

“Like an atom bomb, about to oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, explode!”

Farkle’s lyrically appropriate dancing doesn’t help matters.

“I, uh, well...I--,”

“OK, my idiot brother is safely in the hands of Shawn, who just needs the valet to grab his car so he can deliver Cory back to the bed and breakfast and what I’m sure will be the wrathful hands of Topanga.” Riley is saved from having to truly answer Linda by Eric and Lucas’ arrival at the table. “So, I am like, 97% sure we’re in the clear and the crisis has been averted.”

“I just don’t understand what possessed him to come here.” Linda comments as Eric and Lucas take seats. “I mean, I know he’s never had the best reaction to pain medication but doesn’t he normally just sit in front of the TV and get sucked into a marathon of Unsolved Mysteries and get all paranoid?”

Lucas scoots his seat closer to Riley’s. “Well, when he wasn’t singing the name game under his breath, he was mostly just rambling.”

A pit forms in Riley’s stomach, sinking straight down to the floor. Lucas’ statement is just vague enough to be obviously hiding something. “And what was he rambling about?” She clips out softly, starting to fiddle with the wrapper from her straw.

“Hard to say.”

“Mostly nonsense.”

Eric and Lucas answer in unison, and entirely too quickly.

Underneath the table, Riley aims a firm, but gentle toe to the shin of her Uncle. “And what would the average person listening to this nonsense hear?”

“Did you just kick my shin? I am a respected member of the United States Senate. I could sic the FBI on you for this.” Eric’s attempts at deflection are good, and with a different topic, Riley might go along with them, but she knows what he and Lucas are doing. Trying to hide something, probably to try and protect her.

Only she doesn’t want to be coddled or protected. She wants to know as much as possible about where she stands with her father. “I’ll kick it again if you don’t answer the question. What was dad doing here?”

It takes two more beats of silence for the men to answer her. In the end, Lucas is the one to step up to the plate.

“He was talking about...repairing your relationship.” He sighs, finding her eyes. “Going on about how he never should have let you leave, and how he thinks you two have to fix things.”

Well. That answers that question. Granted, Riley had already figured on it being the case, but having her suspicions confirmed doesn’t do much to make her feel better. On the contrary, knowing just takes away the worry that Lucas and Uncle Eric were hiding something totally heinous from her and the sinking feeling makes way for a jumbled mix of uncertainty and annoyance.

“Because that couldn’t have occurred to him any other time in the last ten years.” She huffs, flicking the straw wrapper across the surface of the table.

“Riley…” Linda draws out her name, with the sort of sadness peppering her voice that makes Riley’s stomach turn for how much it sounds like pity.

“It’s fine.” Riley shakes her head, pressing her lips together. She wants to nip that in the bud almost as much as she wants the night to be over with altogether so she can take five minutes to think about all of the myriad developments that have happened away from the pressure of actually interacting with people while she does it. She just needs to make sure Linda and Eric know exactly how OK with this she is, and the she can hopefully change the subject. “We all know he doesn’t actually mean any of it, so there’s nothing to be upset over.”

The confusion on her Uncle Eric’s face surprises her. He’s always been her biggest--and at times her only--cheerleader when it’s come time to distance herself from her parents and look at things without the added filter of the need for a parent-child relationship. Now he looks like he doesn’t understand where she’s coming from at all. “You don’t think he means it?”

“I think he’s emotional from experiencing a trauma and high as a kite and it’s messing with his feelings and making him act like he wants to fix things. He won’t feel the same way when he sobers up.” The words come out clinically; it’s not easy to detach from the fact that the ‘he’ in question is her father, but Riley has forced herself to get better at it over the years. If she constantly looks at their actions while thinking of Cory and Topanga as her parents, it hurts too much. Her hopes float to the surface or everything feels more personal and she can’t help but take it that way and crumble. It’s better to separate herself when she can, particularly in situations like this where she has to defend her choices.

“Well, yeah, he’s high right now,” Linda concedes, “but it’s lowering his inhibitions. I’m not saying you should talk to him until he’s sober, but people sometimes need a push to say things that they’re afraid to on a--,”

Riley cuts her aunt off. She’s not going to get sucked down that road and if she can stop anyone else from going down it, she will. “When exactly has Cory Matthews ever needed a push to fight for the relationships he wants? Because I have heard all of the stories, and to my recollec--,”

“Damn it, Cory! When did you get to be so nimble?” From several tables away, Shawn’s winded voice cuts through the noise of the party and interrupts Riley’s thought.

They all turn to look. Sure enough, her dad is back. He’s got one of the binders that holds all of the potential karaoke songs. Actually, he appears to have taken the binder out of the hands of Ava’s maid of honor, and is flipping through it with gusto. “Nobody told me this was gonna be a karaoke party. I love karaoke! I’ve got to sing something!”

To his credit, although Shawn had apparently lost control of his charge at one point, he’s trying to regain it, grabbing onto her dad’s elbow and attempting to pull him away. “No, you’ve got to come with me back to the bed and breakfast. Topanga’s waiting for us.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Her dad protests. “I came here to talk to Riley and I’m not leaving until you people stop hid--,”

“O-K.” Lucas says a little too loudly, drawing her attention away from the sloppy rant. He loops an arm around her shoulders. “I don’t know about you but I am dying to get my hands on something with chocolate. Why don’t you and I go take a look at the dessert bar until things get a little less...crowded?”

The ease with which Lucas can manipulate a situation, from changing a topic of conversation to removing someone from a situation is something Riley can’t help but marvel at. Especially when he just seems to know it’s needed without any nudges or prompting. He seems to just know how to navigate these things.

“Yeah.” Riley nods, speaking softly. Being just as eager to avoid defending her belief that her dad doesn’t actually want to fix things to Eric and Linda as she is to avoid her dad realizing she’s there and trying to talk with her again, she’s more than happy to go along with Lucas’ diversion. “Something with chocolate sounds perfect.”

They receive no argument from Eric or Linda, just a set of understanding nods, so Riley and Lucas stand and start heading towards the opposite area of the patio. As they walk, Riley can just hear her dad’s boisterous, insistent comment to Shawn.

“This place doesn’t have the Theme from Ghostbusters. I’m just gonna have to pick something else, and sing the words to the Theme from Ghostbusters.”

“You know, we don’t have to stay.” Lucas says as they arrive at the dessert spread. Although the suggestion had probably been primarily made as a polite excuse to escape the scene and serve as a small distraction, Riley had quickly decided that the day had been enough of a roller coaster before the party had started with its singing and kissing and fighting (and now the grown-up version of hide and seek) that she had more than earned a trip to the sugary buffet table to load up a plate, indulge, and bury some of her feelings under a mountain of ganache. When given the chance, she had made a beeline for the sweets. “We’ve been here nearly two hours and we both did the karaoke thing… Auggie’s not gonna blame you for cutting out early when he hears about the stuff with your grandparents and the thing with your dad…”

Riley shakes her head. She can’t leave. It doesn’t matter the circumstances and whether or not people know about them, if she’s the first to leave the party, especially if the rest of her family is still there, it will just be more fodder for everyone. They all love to talk about how she runs from things and leaving this would be one more example. She won’t add fuel to that fire. Not after fleeing the welcome party their first night here.

And she definitely doesn’t want Auggie to hear anything about the fight with their grandparents, or their dad’s behavior.

Especially their dad’s behavior.

“We’re not leaving. And Auggie’s not finding out about any of this.” She answers firmly, grabbing a plate and starting to survey her prospects.

“I get why you don’t want to leave,” Lucas concedes after a moment’s thought, “because you’d never hear the end of it from some of these people.” And as he loads his own plate with a variety of mini cupcakes, Riley notes the hint of annoyance (or is it disgust?) in his voice, but it shifts just as quickly over to curiosity. “But why shouldn’t Auggie know about what happened? It’s his family too.”

“Exactly.” Riley glances over and sees that Lucas’ expression is still fairly puzzled. She sighs. “First of all, Auggie loves them. He understands why I don’t get along with them, but he hasn’t had the same problems with them that I have and I’m not going to do anything that might spoil that for him. Especially the week of his wedding.

“Second, Auggie still thinks that someday my parents and I will work things out. If he gets wind that my dad was trying to talk to me and ‘fix things’,” Riley makes finger quotes with her free hand, just to make sure Lucas knows how much she thinks the entire thing is total crap, “then he’ll think the same thing that Uncle Eric and Linda obviously did, and he won’t understand why I don’t agree and won’t indulge in the conversation.”

With their plates loaded down with desserts, they start to walk, seeking out a free space that won’t leave them too close, or too far, from the crowd. “And why exactly is that?”

Riley nearly clenches her jaw; she didn’t really think Lucas would question her or try and make her second guess herself over this. He’s been on board with all of her other decisions and reasoning, and for him to do so with this, arguably the hardest one for her to make and stay firm on, stings. She’s grown far too used to having his support.

“I’m not trying to change your mind,” Lucas clarifies as they reach a tiny, bar-height table top without seating and set their plates of sweets on it, “I just want to understand where you’re coming from.”

The hurt laps back. Riley takes a settling breath, and searches for the right words. Of course, once she finds them, it’s difficult to hold them back or to stop finding them. “The very idea that someone can only express their feelings about or to another person if they’re drunk or high is not nearly so endearing or sweet or exciting as people like to act like it is. At best, it’s awkward and sad. At best. Because they’re either hiding their feelings because they know they’re in some way inappropriate or they haven’t said anything because the feelings don’t actually run that deep or even exist at all, being altered just takes away the person’s filter, and come the glaring reality of sobriety, everyone is going to be confused and disappointed.”

“And you think your dad falls into the second category?” Lucas probes.

“Well, I know he’s not a heartbroken suitor on a tv drama who thinks he has to stay quiet about his feelings because I’m happy with someone else.” Riley stabs at a mini-cheesecake with her fork, carving off a bite but making no move to eat it. “Look, you can ask almost anyone, and they’ll tell you how naive I am because until I’m proven wrong I’ll believe the best in people. And for all of our differences, I still talk to my family regularly. There’s no reason for him to think that I wouldn’t give him a chance if he came to me and wanted to genuinely make an effort to fix things between us.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know how to do it.”

It’s almost a fair enough point. A parent is supposed to take the high road and love and care for their child regardless of what happens and if her dad realized he had fallen short of that goal, he probably would struggle to know how to handle it. Only there are options other than talking. And it’s really only almost a fair enough point if you don’t know Cory Matthews or his history with other problem relationships.

And Riley gets the feeling that Lucas thinks he’s just having a conversation...just playing devil’s advocate with the girl he’s spending time with for the week, but she has to correct him and even explain it in this minor way makes her heart clench and lodge in her throat.

“Even if he didn’t know how to say the words, my dad has had every opportunity to change the way he interacts with me. Over ten years of opportunities, actually. But he hasn’t. And I know you don’t know him, and you only know the few stories I’ve told you, but I know him, and I know them all. And I know that he fought harder to stay friends with Uncle Shawn’s ex when they broke up in college than he ever has to talk to me.

“And that’s how I know he doesn’t mean whatever this is tonight.”

Riley could say more. She actually almost wants to say more. That’s how easy it is to talk to Lucas. There’s something about how he listens; he barely even has to say anything, but the gestures he makes--the small nods and ‘mm-hmms’ and the brushes of his hand or knee against hers--make Riley feel so important and valued...like what she’s saying matters and is being understood, that she could almost open up right then and there. She could tell him the whole story. There’s a split second where she considers it.

At least until they show up.

“Mind if we interrupt?” Her Uncle Josh, bandage on one hand, his other hand gripped firmly by a rather blank-faced Maya, approaches the table. He rocks on his heels as they stop and looks, to Riley’s assessment, like he almost wants to be biting his lip. When they were kids, he would always do that whenever he was nervous.

“What I want hasn’t ever stopped anyone before.” Riley clips. She steps to the side, closer to Lucas. He wraps his arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer still until her side is pressed against him. “What do you need Josh?” She knows the question probably comes off as rude (she can’t exactly keep the sigh or the exhaustion out of her voice when she speaks) but she can’t really find the energy to pretend to care. She maybe could have managed after the encounter with her grandparents but the moments with her dad have drained her, and she knows for the rest of the night she’ll have to leave every barricade she has up when dealing with family.

Josh swallows around his first breath, speaking on the second. “About what happened on the boat today. I wanted to tha--,”

“There’s no need.” Riley cuts him off. She’s not going through this dance again. Not twice in one night. “I was just doing what I trained for.”

“Even so,” Josh is not deterred, though he licks at his lips before he continues, “what happened today was a lot and you couldn’t have been expecting it, and I know things between us and with you and your dad aren’t the best… I don’t want you to think that I don’t appreciate the way you stepped up. So... thanks.”

Riley feels Lucas’ fingertips tighten on her shoulder, but he doesn’t say anything, so she doesn’t know exactly what part of Josh’s comment he doesn’t like. She knows which part she doesn’t like, she’s just not sure it’s worth diving into that rabbit hole. She presses her lips together, forcing her instinctual response back. “You’re welcome.”

It quickly becomes evident that Josh either didn’t think that she would accept his gratitude so quickly, or he just didn’t plan on what would happen when she did, because he doesn’t say anything else. A beat passes. Then another. And then another.

“Seriously?!” Maya whacks the back of her hand against Josh’s chest, not quite glaring at her husband, but close just the same. “You make me come over here because you just had to talk to Riley and this is all we’re going to do? Thank her and stand here, catching the awkward?”

“I’m trying to be the bigger person.” Josh hisses in return. As though they aren’t standing a mere foot and a half away in total view.

“Well you succeeded.” Riley says quickly, glancing down at the floor and working her jaw over the words. She doesn’t bother to inject any tone or expression to make them convincing; this is just...going through the motions necessary to extract herself from the conversation without another fight. She’s too tired for another fight. “So thank you for that. I think we’re all set.”

Now Maya is pretty much glaring at Josh. “I thought we were coming over here because you figured out how to get her back.”

Riley’s first instinct is to take a step back. The only reason she doesn’t is Lucas’ steady presence against her. You figured out how to get her back. As though she was a cherished possession lost in an ill-advised poker bet, and not, you know, a person who makes her own decisions.

“I had an idea.” Josh replies. “But I didn’t know if it would--,”

“Work?” Riley cuts him off, crossing her arms across her chest. “No, it won’t. And I have to tell you, the single-minded tendency of everyone in this family to color their every interaction with me with an attempt to draw me back to the family like a little lost lamb isn’t endearing me to the thought either.” Riley feels Lucas brush his thumb on her shoulder in a reassuring squeeze, but her focus is on the expressions setting on Josh and Maya’s faces.

In an instant, Maya’s obstinate annoyance appears to shift and mold itself into a glistening expression of disbelief. “Riles, you can’t really mean that.”

“I’ve been saying the same thing since I left, Maya.” Riley shakes her head, exhaling in grim, spiritless laugh. “It’s just that none of you have been listening. Come on Lucas,” she steps out of his embrace to grab at her plate, even though she no longer feels much like eating it “there must be some corner of this place where we can sit in peace.”

Lucas follows her example without saying a word. His free hand finds her back and they turn to leave.

They make it two steps and Riley almost thinks they’re home free. Neither Josh nor Maya are the sort of people who think before they speak; they both move based exactly based on what they’re feeling in the moment and deal with consequences later, so it seems most likely that if they have anything to say, they already would have said it. Naturally, that’s not the case, as in the middle of the third step, Josh’s downtrodden voice cuts through the air.

“Wow, you really do hate us now, don’t you?”

And Riley’s torn between anger and sadness. Because she just can’t tell. Is Josh making some sort of play? An attempt at guilt-tripping her because the Riley he knows would have been horrified at the implication that she hates anyone, let alone her family? The thought of the potential emotional manipulation makes her face heat up. And yet that there’s a chance that he’s being honest and thinks that she could somehow hate him (a concept that baffles her, even with their disagreements) and the very thought leaves her feeling so cold and heavy that the sadness wins out. She turns back around.

“Putting myself first is not the same as hating you. I could never hate you, Uncle Josh. Either of you.”

“No, you just won’t talk to us.”

“Maya, I left because I was spending every ounce of myself on meeting everyone’s expectations and being the perfect friend and perfect Matthews, and none of you noticed or cared what that was doing to me.” Riley allows some of the rawness pushing at her being to bleed into her voice because to try and contain it all would at some point make her break. For so much of her life Josh was more like a beloved older brother than an Uncle, and her friendship with Maya felt deeper than anything she could possibly imagine; Riley’s felt close to the edge all most of the night, tiptoeing closer and closer with every fraught encounter, and this is just one more thing she has to deal with and fight against, lest it push her exactly where she doesn’t want to go. “And I can tell from the way you talk to me that things haven’t changed, and until they do--,”

“Oh come on, you left because you’re a drama queen and things didn’t work out exactly the way you had them figured in your head, and we weren’t coddling you anymore so you had to throw a temper tantrum.”

Maya’s words stop the breath in Riley’s chest, and she can’t explain why. They’re not any crueler than anything else she’s faced over the years. They’re probably not even the cruelest words Maya’s ever sent her way if she really thinks about it. But somehow in this moment they take her back to a time when having her feelings dismissed and belittled by Maya still hurt.

She’s a little surprised when Lucas leaves her side to step in front of her, directing a coldness in his gaze that she’s never seen before at Maya. “You know, for someone who supposedly wants to reconcile, you’re pretty rude.”

“Back off Sheriff Woody, nobody asked you.” Maya scoffs and rolls her eyes.

“Sheriff Woody?” Lucas repeats, blinking and staring blankly at his newly taken on adversary.

Not that Riley thinks they’re becoming mortal enemies or anything. It’s just that unless Maya has changed a lot since high school, she kind of sees everyone who doesn’t do things her way or agree with her as completely against her and gets defensive, and with Lucas probably not inclined to pull any punches...she can see the way this conversation is headed.

“From Toy Story…?” Maya explains, but gets no reaction in return. “The cowboy…? Because you’re some kind of goody-two shoes huckleberry from Texas…?” Lucas wrinkles his nose and shakes his head, but otherwise doesn’t say anything, and Maya’s exasperation wins out. “What? Are you so charming and perfect that no one’s ever insulted you before?”

Lucas’ eyes widen and his voice drips with barely disguised derision when he speaks. “Oh! That’s what you were going for. Ok, yeah. No. I get insulted all the time. I just wasn’t expecting a Pixar reference to be hurled at me but I totally get it now. I’ll get right down on your level and shouldn’t have any more trouble keeping up.” The wink that he sends Riley’s way, causing Maya’s eyes to flash and Riley’s heart to seize and flutter doesn’t help matters.

“Now who’s being rude?” Josh moves forward, squaring up right in front of Lucas.

A part of Riley worries that they’ll fight; she doesn’t think that Lucas, who appears to have an ironclad control over his every reaction from what she can tell, would start anything but she also doesn’t exactly see him blinking or backing off from Josh’s posturing. And Josh…

Well, the Matthews’ men have been known to lose their tempers and throw a punch on occasion.

“I’ll give you two as much respect as you give Riley. You just have to figure out if you can dish out what you think you deserve.”

Maya shakes her head. “Look, there are two sides to every story and I don’t know what pretty Princess Riley told you, but she’s not some innocent victim in all of this. She started the whole thing when made a choice and didn’t ask any of us how we felt. And then when it all worked out she refused to be hap--,”

“I don’t care.” Lucas shrugs, cutting her off. His nonchalance only seems to bother the pair standing opposite more, particularly as he takes a step back and removes himself from the direct confrontation with Josh. “Riley’s important to me. You two aren’t. You can resolve any issues that exist between you on your own. Or not. As long as Riley’s happy, I’m happy. But if you want respect from me, you’ll show respect to her. End of story.”

“Seriously, did you cast a spell on him or something?” Maya angles towards Riley. “Guys are never this into you. Especially guys like him.”

The words are another reminder of the cruelty of her past that Riley won’t allow herself to contemplate. And she doesn’t have time to. Maya speaks and Lucas blinks as he listens and it’s like watching him shift into an entirely different person. His posture becomes stiffer, seemingly more solid, while he squares his jaw and takes a tiny step forward. His gaze becomes so hard and full of contempt that she can almost picture the actual flash of lightning going off in his eyes, acting as a warning sign to those who dare cross his path. And Riley might be imagining things but he suddenly looks taller.

“Do you want to repeat that?” He challenges, voice as forceful as the look in his eyes. And was that a hint of drawl, lapping at his words?

Riley is suddenly rethinking her assessment that Lucas might start a fight, and uncertain as to what his motivations for doing so might be, she is more than eager to remove him from the situation and calm him down. She sets her plate on a nearby table and reaches for his hand. “Lucas let’s just--,”

“Oh come on, Riles.” Maya teases with the sort of edge in her smile that makes it clear that it’s not in jest at all. “Don’t neuter him completely. Don’t you want your handsome hero to rescue you from Big Bad Maya?”

“You’re the only one here to ever ask to be rescued by someone, Maya.” Riley snaps off.

“Right. You were just constantly running away from your problems. So much better of you.”

“Look.” Josh edges himself between the two girls. “We’re getting off track. We just came over here to try and get you to see that we still care about you. We want you back in our lives Riley.”

Lucas follows Josh’ action, standing tall over the older man. “Really? Because what I saw was a couple of bullies trying to emotionally blackmail Riley and chip away at her self-esteem until she felt like you were the only people she deserved. So if that’s you being nice and making your case I’d hate to see you with someone that you don’t want around.”

Josh shakes his head. “This is not a situation that involves you man, back off.”

“And I already told you. If a situation involves Riley, it involves me. If you can’t wrap your head around that, I’d be happy to talk a little slower for you.”

Riley sees Josh’s fist start to clench as Lucas speaks. She sees him start to draw back as the insult sets in. She contemplates the best method of interference to prevent bloodshed or a larger brawl, and settles on yanking on Lucas’ hand as hard as she possibly can while she steps to the side, drawing him out of the line of fire.

Josh’s momentum carries him straight into the dessert buffet. It, rather miraculously, doesn’t collapse and cause a huge commotion, although his face does wind up directly in a pile of cupcakes.

At the same time, up on the stage, Riley sees one of Auggie’s friends getting ready to sing his song. “Alright everyone,” he says in a playfully smooth and deep lounge lizard voice, “tonight has been fun but it is time that we slow things down a bit. I want you all to find your lovers, head out onto the dance floor, and hold on tight.”

Riley doesn’t particularly care what song he’s about to sing. It’s as good an excuse as any to remove themselves from the situation before Josh or Maya attempt to retaliate. “That’s our cue!” She starts walking, Lucas’ hand still in hers, before anyone can question it.

“And rain falls angry on the tin roof,

“As we lie awake in my bed…”

Somehow, they actually do end up dancing in the middle of a small, crowded dance floor, half in the frame they’ve been practicing for the big reception number, but mostly just swaying back and forth, middle-school style.

This is such a weird night, Riley thinks.

Continuously swinging from one extreme to the next. Dread, joy, confusion, rage...this party has had it all. Even a little bit removed from the near-fight with Maya and Josh, Riley can feel the tension bleeding out of Lucas’ form. He hasn’t said anything since she had maneuvered their escape, just allowed her to lead the way, brooding all the while, and Riley can’t help but think that maybe intervening had somehow been a mistake.

“Was I supposed to let Josh hit you?” She asks quietly as they sway.

“What?” The question jolts Lucas out of his seething.

“You looked like you were ready for a fight, I pulled you out of the way when Josh started swinging...now you’re all tense and sulking…” Riley explains. “Would you be happier right now if I had let Josh hit you and you could have thrown a punch his way too?”

Lucas shakes his head. “No, you did the right thing. I was baiting him and Maya when I shouldn’t have been… We never even talked about how you wanted me to handle defending you. If I’m supposed to get physical or just be the bigger person, but they kept mouthing off and insulting you and I just saw red. They are--,” Lucas drops off, briefly closing his eyes with a laughing exhale. “I know they’re technically a part of your family but wow, are you nothing like them. Have they always been like that?”

Riley tries to choose her words carefully. One thing that Maya said that was actually true was that there are two sides to every story. And as frustrating as she finds them and as much as she’s been hurt by their choices over the years, it’s not exactly fair of her to go and badmouth them behind their backs. “Maya’s dad left her and her mom when she was really little, and she’s always used sarcasm and insults as her first way of expressing and protecting herself. Even with people she cares about. So when things aren’t going her way she tends to get a bit...nasty.”

“And Josh? That Shawn guy? The rest of your family? What’s their excuse?”

“Based on what you told me, I would have thought that you’d be pretty familiar with the behavior of a disappointed family.” Riley knows it’s a bit unfair to turn the conversation on its head and redirect it to Lucas, but she’s not sure how much longer she can keep on talking about her problems with her family; not when Lucas has a tendency to point out the hard truths in completely reasonable ways and forces her to confront them. And definitely not after navigating all of the actual confrontations that she’s navigated today.

“When you disappoint the Friars, they call you a disgrace to the family name and then freeze you out entirely. From what I can tell when you disappoint the Matthews, you become the target of passive-aggressive attacks on who you are and everything you do.”

“And I’ve dropped out, I’ve burned up, I fought my way back from the--”

“OK, OK, enough of the prom flashbacks. It’s time for something important.”

Riley can’t come up with a response to Lucas’ assessment of her family because the party comes to a halt. And the party comes to a halt because someone climbs up onto the stage and takes the microphone from Auggie’s friend. A very familiar and unsteady sounding someone. She squeezes her eyes shut, letting her head fall forward against Lucas’ chest. “I can’t look. Tell me that’s not--,”

“Do you want me to lie?”

“Oh god.”

“I have been trying to talk to Riley all night.” The man on the stage slurs into his stolen microphone. “Riley Matthews. You know, my daughter? That Riley?”

Riley isn’t going to look. She can’t. To look would be to acknowledge that this is actually happening and there’s no way that this could possibly be an actual thing that’s happening.

Maybe when the yacht hit those waves earlier, she had actually hit her head and this entire day has been a coma dream.

Yeah. That’s a completely reasonable explanation. She’ll go with that.

“And everyone keeps distracting me and taking her away from me. Like I don’t have the right to talk to my own daughter.”

Only Riley knows what it feels like when someone is staring at her. And slowly but surely, she feels sets of eyes boring into her as the party goers locate her and seek her reaction.

She doesn’t have one to give.

She slowly pulls back from the safety of Lucas’ arms but all she can really feel is the cold dread, sliding down over her like a dozen eggs cracked over her head. Riley turns towards the stage, heart seized in her chest; this is certainly one of many train wrecks she’s been desperately trying to avoid. And it will be done live, in front of an entire party.

“But they don’t understand. They don’t get it. I just want things to be good again. And if I can’t talk to Riley alone then I’ll just have to do it here. Riley, I know you’re out there, and this song is for you.”

Her father starts to sing, and while the backing track from the performer he interrupted has halted, no music starts up for him.

“We were as one babe, for a moment in time.

“And it seemed everlasting, that you would always be mine…”

Riley knows that her jaw falls open, completely slack. She can hear the party-goers’ reactions--some shocked gasps and comments, some giggles--and is certain that there’s probably also a lot of pointing, but it all seems to tunnel out around her in a blur; all she can see is her disheveled father, bumbling about the stage and belting horribly off-key into the microphone.

He’s singing. To her. He’s singing to her and everybody knows it.

The mortification rises, a freezing tide of panic and nausea, but Riley can’t move. She can’t do anything. Not even look away. She’s stuck, frozen and staring, too horrified and heartbroken and five million other things that she can’t even begin to identify to do anything else.

“Why isn’t anyone stopping him?”

“You’ll always be a part of me.

“I’m part of you indefinitely….”

Lucas’ question goes unanswered.

Even if Riley knew the answer, and she doesn’t, she couldn’t speak if she tried for the lump lodged in her throat. Riley’s no stranger to embarrassment; junior year was one giant experiment in indignity. But she’d rather go back in time and live through that whole mess ten times over than be at the center of this nightmare.

She’s long given up on the hope that someday her parents would realize they missed her more than anything else and would try to make amends, but for a long time that was the dream. Not a sweeping romance with Prince Charming or being the best at whatever she chose to do, or winning the lottery and being able to help people without worrying another day of her life. Just...having her parents (or even just one) looking to make things right and rebuild their relationship. Riley had spent a lot of her time in senior year and college imagining what the conversation and reunion might look like, and while she stopped considering it a real possibility a long time ago, there’s still always been a small part of her insisting that it could happen.

Her optimism had been picturing heartfelt conversations, apologies, and tearful hugs.

Reality had given her fumbling, tone deaf public humiliation. And it’s chemically altered and most likely insincere to boot.

Not that anyone else is going to see it that way.

“But inevitably, you’ll be back again.

“‘Cause you know in your heart, babe, our love will never end…”

They’ll see the same thing: a wounded, heartbroken father, pouring his feelings out onto the stage just to try and get his callous, uncaring daughter to talk to him again.

Never mind that it’s only happening because he’s high on painkillers (surely that just means he’s been so upset that he needed a little extra courage to act on his feelings). Never mind that the song he’s singing is wildly inappropriate (weren’t you paying any attention? He’s high on painkillers. His judgement’s a little clouded). Never mind what actually happened to cause the split in their relationship in the first place (it was over ten years ago. Can’t bygones just be bygones?). Never mind that nothing close to an apology has passed through his lips (whatever happened it had to be her fault. He’s already being the bigger person by making this gesture).

There’s no winning after this. Of that Riley is certain. Everyone’s either watching him or watching her, waiting to see what happens. And she can either suck it up and stifle all of her feelings to join her dad and earn the party’s cheers only to return to the status quo in an hour or a day or however long it takes for the euphoric glow of the Vicodin to wear off, or she can listen to her gut and walk away, protecting herself but proving to everyone else that she just doesn’t care about her dad anymore.

Both ways end with their relationship still stifled and distant. One just dangles hope in front of her face and makes everyone like her for a little while before yanking it away again.

It’s probably not worth it.

“Oh, don’t you know you can’t escape me.

“Ooh darling, ‘cause you’ll always be my baby…”

“What do you want me to do?” Lucas asks, sliding his hand down her arm to wrap her fingers in his.

With a touchstone drawing her back from the cold and her thoughts, Riley’s struck by two things: the uncertainty and the agonizing pounding of her heart.

She doesn’t know what to do. Lucas has so far done everything she’s asked of him, so she could send him up to the stage to drag her dad off and put an end to the performance but doing that wouldn’t really end anything. Everyone’s watching and waiting, and that’s not going to go away now that the idea is out into the universe. What comes next is going to be the conversation point whether her dad’s on that stage or not, and whatever she chooses is a no-win answer and Riley just wants to cry because none of this is supposed to be happening.

Her reunion with her parents was never supposed to be like this.

Her relationship with her parents was never supposed to be like this.

But it is, and now there’s no masking it out of politeness. Everyone can see it in its full fundamentally broken and ugly glory. And it hurts. More than she would have thought considering she’s been dealing with it for over ten years.

Maybe it’s because she’s tired or maybe it’s something else, but whatever the reason, this suddenly feels like a fresh wound and Riley doesn’t know what to do.

“I--,” She starts and breaks off just as suddenly. Her voice cracks, wet and tiny and weak and that’s not the sort of thing she even lets her best friend hear most of the time, let alone a deck full of partygoers or a near-stranger fake boyfriend; Riley can’t move forward without at least trying to swallow that down and be strong. “I think I’m ready to go back to the hotel now.”

“We can do that.” Lucas nods. He starts to navigate them through the throngs of people, drawing her closer when the partygoers notice and start variations on pointing, commenting, and giggling.

Riley leans into the embrace, trusting Lucas to guide her and deal with anything else that might come into their path. She draws from his steady warmth and gentle presence, keeps her eyes on the ground as she walks, and doesn’t even realize that she’s lost the battle with her tears until her vision becomes so blurry that she can barely tell when her feet step in and out of view.

#rucas #rucas fanfic #rucas fanfiction #riley matthews #lucas friar #gmw #fanfiction #au #fic: Cold Cape Cod Clams #cw: drug use #of a sort #they're prescribed legally #it's just an adverse reaction

54 notes · View notes