//I can remember being nothing but fearless and young We’ve become echoes, but echoes, they fade away//

But that was three years ago.

In the beginning, he was so certain of their future.  After all, he was in Texas, in large part, because of her.  He wanted to be worthy of her.  He wanted to become a veterinarian so that she could be free to pursue whatever career path she wanted to.  

As he watched the tears stream down her cheeks outside of the airport, he vowed that they were going to make it.  A flash of something crossed her features.  Lucas wasn’t sure what it was, but his heart constricted at the sight.  Later on, he would realize why his heart ached when she looked at him like that.  But for the moment, he dismissed it as he kissed her goodbye and promised that he would be back for fall break.

He was determined to start building their future the moment he left the city.  He was only 19 years old at the time, but he knew.  He knew that one day they would look back on this time in their lives and laugh at the dramatics of it all.  

He dove into his studies during those first few months.  He made friends with a few people in his classes, and went to several study groups, but for the most part, he kept to himself.  He called her every single day.  Most of their conversations were one on one, but sometimes, he would call and she would be with Maya or Zay, so they would all end up talking about how their classes were more difficult than they initially thought they would be, but that they were still happy to be out of high school.

He came back to the city during fall break.  She met him at the airport, and he had never been happier to see anyone in his life.  Her fall break wasn’t scheduled until the week after, and she was right in the middle of midterms, so most of his days were spent in his old bedroom working on a project for his marketing class.  He didn’t mind or even think much of it because the time he was able to spend with her was nothing short of magical.  He felt lighter whenever she was around.  The future still never seemed so bright.

Leaving at the end of the week was hard, even harder than his initial farewell.  They both had more of an understanding as to what they were up against, but they still swore that they could make it work.  They just had to take it from one visit to the next.  They knew what they were working for.  They knew that one day, they would be able to live in the same city again and then, everything would be perfect.

//We’ve fallen to the dark as we dive under the waves (I heard you say)//

The first year came and went in a flash.  Lucas made it back to the city for Christmas break as his family went to Austin for Thanksgiving that second year.  He was only in the city for two days when he and Riley got into an argument.  Sure, they’ve argued before, but this was different.  They hadn’t argued at all since he left for Texas freshman year.  They were always so caught up in spending time together, that they had nothing to argue about.  It wasn’t as if it was a horrible argument either.  She only told him that she wanted to talk to him more.  Their daily conversations had turned into twice a week phone calls that sometimes only lasted for a few brief minutes.  She simply expressed her desire to actually speak to her boyfriend for more than ten minutes a week.  Initially, Lucas took exception to that.  He had to spend a lot of extra time in the biology lab, he constantly had to study with his study groups, not to mention the fact that he became more involved with some of the student organizations on campus, due in large part to Riley’s suggestion that he get more active to curb the loneliness he felt in a city where he didn’t really know anyone.

After a few minutes of intense back and forth, he had to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.  They were wasting their precious time together by arguing about not being able to spend time together.  Even though she still seemed upset by it, he kissed her and promised he’d made a better effort with his time management skills.

That’s when it happened.

For the first time since he first left for Texas, she gave him that look again.

He frowned when he saw it.  If anyone else had looked at him in that way, he’d understand that it was a look of doubt, but he knew that couldn’t possibly be the case with Riley.  Riley was the most optimistic person he had ever met.  She had never doubted their future, not even for a second.  There was no way that she could possibly doubt him now.  He promised he would call her more, and he would.  This was just a little hiccup.  He just needed to adjust his schedule.  It was going to be ok.  After all, they had made it through a year and a half.  All of the other couples he knew in high school had already broken up.  Even two of his best friends, Farkle Minkus and Isadora Smackle, called it quits right before the end of freshman year, and they even went to the same school. Perhaps that was where the flash of doubt came from.  High school relationships were a dying breed, but they were going to go the distance.  They had to.  Whenever he thought about his future, he thought about her.  Whenever he was away from her, she was on his mind.  Even though he hadn’t been able to get to the phone, that didn’t change how he felt about her.

He was still convinced that his future was with Riley Matthews.

//The devil’s on your shoulder The strangers in your head//

The summer before junior year was rough for them.  They argued a lot.  Lucas knew that they had argued more in those three months than they had since they first met.  It wasn’t over anything major.  It was a bunch of small insignificant things.  He got mad that she was half an hour late to one of their dates.  She was furious that he had to cancel one of their days together to go to Ithaca with Farkle to check out Cornell’s campus.  She had no idea that he only went with Farkle to see if going to veterinary school there would even be a possibility for him.  He didn’t tell her about it because he knew it would only lead to a bigger argument.

He went to Texas in the first place because A&M was his dream school.  Now he was considering moving back to New York?  He knew Riley would never let him do it, and he wasn’t entirely sure if that was what he wanted.  He was so confused about everything that summer.  He hated fighting with her.  He hated the thought of leaving her with their relationship so fractured.  Where he went to school wasn’t nearly as important as them being on the same page with one another.  She was the most important thing in the world to him, but he knew if he even breathed a word about transferring, she would get upset because she never wanted to be the reason he didn’t get everything he wanted in life.

He didn’t tell her that while they were there, Lucas spoke with an admissions counselor.  He didn’t tell her that he applied to transfer that very day.

After all, what good was staying in Texas going to do if it cost him the most important relationship in his life?

She wouldn’t understand, so he kept it a secret and made Farkle swear to keep it a secret as well.  He knew that he would have to figure out some kind of way to tell her, but he hadn’t even been accepted yet.  Why risk another argument over something that might not happen?

//As if you don’t remember As if you can forget//

Now, here he was, flying toward her, his official acceptance letter in the front pocket of his carry-on bag.  He wouldn’t be able to do it mid-year, but next fall, he would be in the same time zone as Riley for the first time in three years.

He would only be a four-hour drive away instead of a four-hour flight away.  Admittedly, he wasn’t sure about transferring when the semester started, but as their arguing increased and intensified, he knew that it would be their saving grace if he got in.  The distance was starting to pull them apart.  He knew that if he could only be closer, they would fall back into who they used to be.    

He took a deep breath when he saw the lights of the city rapidly approaching.  Her 21st birthday was in a few short hours and he managed to convince his professors to allow him to take his finals early, citing a family emergency.  

He wasn’t lying.  It was an emergency.  His estranged girlfriend was about to celebrate her 21st birthday and he had to be there.  He had to surprise her.  He had to make that effort.  He had to tell her that they were only a few months away from being rid of this nightmare.  They were only a few months away from being able to start over and becoming better equipped to handle the distance between them.

Things would get better between them, if they could only hang on for one more semester.  

//It’s only been a moment It’s only been a lifetime//

No one was at the airport to greet him, but he didn’t expect for anyone to be.  No one knew he was in town.  He wanted to surprise her and that meant not telling anyone that he was there.  He found the closest cab and immediately went to his parents.  On the way, he texted Zay in order to figure out where they were going to be at to usher in her birthday.  Zay told him that they were going to a new club that was a client of Josh’s.  They were all going to be in the VIP area and dance the night away.  He told Lucas that he hated he wouldn’t be there, but would be sure to take a ton of pictures so he wouldn’t completely miss it.

Lucas thanked him just as the cab pulled up to his parents’ place.  He quickly made his way inside, and spent the following half hour explaining everything to them.  When he felt as if he couldn’t speak anymore, he finally escaped to his room where he quickly changed his clothes.

Before he left, he made sure to grab the letter.  

His heart raced the entire ride to the club.  He wasn’t sure how he was going to bring it up.  He wasn’t sure how she was going to react, but God, he was so excited.  He couldn’t wait to tell her that they had made it through.  They were going to be fine.  Riley and Lucas had defied every ridiculous statistic about high school relationships.

He spotted the long line outside of the club and knew he wouldn’t be able to wait.  Reluctantly, he pulled his phone out and called Zay.  Zay could barely hear him over the thumping music.  It took several minutes for Lucas to get him to understand that he was outside of the club.  After what felt like an eternity, Zay finally emerged from the flashing lights and pulsating music of the club.  He was shocked to see Lucas, but with a grin, he told the bouncer that Lucas was with Josh Matthews’ private party.

After officially welcoming him back to the city he used to call home, Zay led the way upstairs toward the VIP area.

As soon as Zay pulled back the black velvet curtain, Lucas saw her.

//But tonight you’re a stranger Some silhouette//

She was standing on top of a table, arms linked with Maya as they danced to the beat of the song that played.  There were a ton of people that surrounded them.  Lucas had a hard time believing that this was any kind of VIP area.  It seemed like a miniature version of the club he briefly saw downstairs, but in the center of it was his girlfriend, clad in a mini dress, dancing on top of a table with her best friend.

His jaw dropped at the sight.  Of course the majority of the crowd that surrounded her were guys, seemingly gleeful with the view they had of the girls above them.

Lucas glared at Zay as Zay bobbed his head to the beat of the song.  Zay never noticed the look as he smacked Lucas’s chest and yelled that they needed to get closer to get their attention.

It took an entire song and a lot of pushing and shoving before Lucas and Zay were close enough to the girls to try to get their attention.

Riley had her eyes closed as she moved to the beat of the song.  It wasn’t midnight yet, but the club had already provided them with bottle service.  She wasted no time in celebrating a little early.  What was a few more hours anyway?  In some parts of the world, she was already twenty-one.  Besides, the fact that Lucas wasn’t there may have contributed to her eagerness to throw caution to the wind.

She missed him, but that wasn’t anything new.  She had been missing him for the last three years.  God, how was she supposed to keep doing this for the next six years?  How was she supposed to act like everything was ok when everything felt so wrong?  They were fighting more and more and it was over the most ridiculous things.  They had slowly morphed into that couple she swore they would never become.  He had always been more than just a boyfriend.  She knew that was one reason why they had been able to make it work, but the last year had been hard on them.  She couldn’t help but to wonder that if they kept misunderstanding one another, what would remain of them even if they could find a way to make it for the next six years?

They had both changed so much since he first boarded the plane to Texas over two years ago.  He had thrown himself into his academics as a way to cope with being away from her while she filled up her social calendar.  Both were busy.  Both were trying to survive.  But it was in the midst of that self-preservation that they began to fall apart.

She couldn’t talk to Maya about it.  Maya’s perception was skewed when it came to Lucas.  He was like a brother to her now.  She had been there through every moment of their relationship.  There was no way that Maya would ever tell Riley that she might have to face a very difficult decision one day.

So, Riley opened up to some of her new friends, people who didn’t know Lucas or anything about their relationship.  She wanted an unbiased view.  She wanted to know that everything she was feeling was validated.  She wanted to know that she wasn’t being ridiculous with the stream of thoughts that had overtaken every ounce of hope she had for their relationship.

They all said the same thing: you shouldn’t have to put more into a relationship than what you’re getting out of it.  It was obvious that she was in a constant state of depression.  She knew that it was why she had started to go out more.  First it was college parties, but now, she spent most of her weekends at whatever club her uncle was at.  She managed to skirt around the ID check with him in tow, and he never once reprimanded her for it, because he understood that she was going to do it anyway.  It might as well be somewhere that he could keep an eye on her.

When she felt Maya stumble beside her, Riley opened her eyes.  The blonde had managed to recover, but in the process of trying to regain her footing, Riley’s balance faltered.  

It happened in a flash.  Just as she expected to hit the floor, she felt a pair of arms reach out for her.  Still incredibly buzzed and positively gleeful that she hadn’t cracked her head on the floor underneath her, she giggled before she finally opened her eyes.  

The moment she looked at her savior, her laughter slowly faded.  Had she died or something because there was no possible way that this was reality.  As she stared into the green eyes that bore into her, she knew that she had to be dreaming.  There was no way that her estranged boyfriend had showed up.

//Let’s go out in flames so everyone knows who we are ‘Cause these city walls never knew that we’d make it this far//

Lucas quickly checked to make sure she hadn’t hurt herself before he slowly stood her up.  She seemed completely dazed as she refused to tear her eyes away from his.  She was still trying to figure out if this was all some dream or not when Maya finally turned around and spotted him.  “Cowboy,” she squealed before she hopped down from the table and threw her arms around his neck.

Lucas hugged her back even though his eyes remained locked on Riley’s.  He was more than a little surprised by her appearance.  When Zay told him they were at a club, he thought that it would be something more low-key.  This didn’t seem like the type of place his girlfriend would hang out in, let alone choose to celebrate her birthday at.  The way she swayed on her feet indicated that she was more than a little drunk.

As he took in her appearance, he knew that he would need a lot of alcohol to avoid doing the one thing he swore he wouldn’t do on her birthday—get into another fight.

As if he read his mind, Zay appeared next to him with two shots.  Lucas wasn’t sure if Zay meant to keep one for himself, but he quickly reached for both and quickly downed them.  The last thing he wanted to do was to fight with her, so he knew he had to join in.

“Lucas,” she finally said after he handed Zay the shot glasses.  He was actually here?  “What are you doing here?”

He gave her a small smile.  Reflections of the girl he fell in love with were lost somewhere underneath the layer of alcohol that shone through her eyes.  He missed her.  Even if this was the version of her he would be with tonight, he couldn’t help but to be grateful for his professors to let him take his finals early.  All of that time studying was well worth it now that he could actually spend her birthday with her.  “I wasn’t about to miss your birthday.”

She furrowed her eyebrows as she looked at him for a long moment.  “But you missed the last two,” she laughed ironically.  “I figured you’d miss this one too.”

He sighed.  He quickly reminded himself that it was the alcohol talking.  The girl in front of him wasn’t his Riley.  She was just drunk.  “I talked my professors into letting me take my finals early so I could come back and help you celebrate your birthday.”  He reached forward to tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear.  “I’ve missed so much.  I didn’t want to miss this too.”

She swayed slightly as she looked at him.  Her features softened as she slowly smiled back at him.  “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Really?”

She launched forward as she wrapped her arms around him.  She buried her face in his neck as she took a moment to breathe him in.  She hadn’t seen him since August and even then, they didn’t leave one another on the best of terms.  The chasm between them seemed insurmountable, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t insanely happy that he showed up.  God, she missed him more now than ever, and he was literally in her arms.

Lucas’s smile widened as he held her.  This was what he wanted.  He wanted her to be in his arms.  He wanted to feel every ounce of love they shared.  He wanted to know that everything was going to be ok.  He wanted to know that there would be an infinite amount of tomorrows between them.  

He wanted to be reassured that they still belonged to one another.

//We’ve become echoes, but echoes are fading away So let’s dance like two shadows, burning out a glory day//

As the night wore on, Lucas realized that he definitely needed to drink more to dull the edginess that he felt.  Their hug was good, reassuring even, but they didn’t kiss.  They didn’t immediately sneak off into a corner so they could greet one another without a hundred people surrounding them.  She wanted to stay with all of her friends.  She wanted to dance with him.  She wanted to let the pulsating music of the club take her far away from where she was.

The problem with that was that he had flown two thousand miles to be where she was.

So, he drank.  He promised himself repeatedly that he wasn’t there to fight with her.  He wasn’t going to do that to her on her birthday.  He loved her too much to do that to her.  He was hurt that she didn’t want to spend even a second alone with him.  He was frustrated that he couldn’t immediately give her his present, but this was her night.  He was merely a guest amongst a hundred of her closest friends at NYU.

Zay kept the alcohol coming as Lucas tried to push away the recurring doubts in his mind.  He was finally in the city.  There was finally a light at the end of the tunnel.  She didn’t know it yet.  That’s all it was.  

They danced til the club closed.  For a second, he thought that their group would simply migrate to Maya and Riley’s apartment, but much to his chagrin, they merely relocated to one of the frat houses where they continued the party—at 3 AM.

There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to keep Lucas from getting more and more frustrated as time ticked on by.  He busted his ass to get through his exams so he could be here and he couldn’t help but to wonder if she was avoiding being alone with him.  What was she so afraid of?  He had never seen her drink a drop of alcohol before, but tonight he had seen her drink more than half the people he knew.  

He tried to be easygoing about the whole situation, but as dawn quickly approached, the remnants of his patience disappeared with the stars.

Finally, around 7 AM, he managed to corral Maya and Zay before he finally pulled Riley away from the still partying co-eds.

He knew that she would be mad, but he didn’t care.  She stayed out all night.  She never stopped drinking.  It felt as if she had been avoiding him all night.  He couldn’t take it anymore.

She said nothing as they walked the few short blocks to Maya and Riley’s apartment.  Zay quickly crashed on the couch and Maya made it to her room as Riley and Lucas made a beeline toward her bedroom.  The moment the door clicked behind Lucas, Riley spun around.  He could tell by the look on her face that he would have to break the one promise he made to himself about this entire trip.

They were about to have their biggest fight yet.

//Devil’s on your shoulder Strangers in your head//

“Lucas, you have no right to pull me away from my own birthday party!”

“Riley, it’s 7 in the morning!  You need to sleep it off.  Are you trying to get alcohol poisoning or something?”

“I’m not going to get alcohol poisoning, ok?  And newsflash, you can’t tell me what to do.”

He sighed.  “Riley, I don’t want to fight with you, especially on your birthday.”

“We fought last year on my birthday.  You don’t remember that?  What’s so different this time?”

“I told you repeatedly that I was sorry about that.  It’s just…”

“It’s just what?”

“It’s hard being away from you, ok?  It feels like you’ve been slipping away from me for the last year and there’s nothing I can do about it.  I came here tonight because I thought that maybe…maybe being here would help.  Maybe you could see how much I’m trying, how much I love you, how much I want to make this work.”

She looked at him for a moment.  Her head was spinning and she wasn’t sure how much of it was from the alcohol and how much of it was from the fact that everything she had feared would happen was happening.  As she stared at him, she remembered every single thing that made her fall in love with him.  He was one of the kindest, sweetest guys she had ever met.  They could make this work, right?  They could face this.  They just had to work a little harder, try more to be there for one another.  She couldn’t give up on them.  Not now.  Not ever.  He was Lucas and she was Riley and they were meant to be forever.

Her eyes welled with tears as months of tension and arguing bubbled over in her intoxicated mind.

The moment he saw the tears in her eyes, his anger dissolved.  He could never handle seeing her cry.  Not when they were in middle school and not now.  Slowly, he closed the space between them before he wrapped his arms around her.

//As if you don’t remember As if you can forget//

Riley cried into his chest for a while as the weight of their distance pressed down on her.  She knew that they were slipping away from one another, but she had never felt so powerless to stop it.

Lucas rubbed her back as he listened to her cry.  He wasn’t sure why, but he thought back to a conversation he had with Maya eight months ago.  She was worried about Riley.  She told him that Riley had started going to more parties and that she was drinking more and more.  Lucas dismissed it.  They were in college.  There were supposed to cut loose a little and have some fun.  While Maya agreed, she insisted that she thought Riley was using alcohol as an escape mechanism.  

As Lucas continued to hold his weeping girlfriend, he slowly realized why he felt the need to move closer to home.  Even though he refused to believe that Riley was spiraling into some depression, it wasn’t long after that conversation that he began to seriously think about transferring schools.  He told himself it was because he wanted to be closer to her, and while that was true, seeing her tonight put everything into perspective.

She was miserable.  The Riley he knew would never get this drunk.  He couldn’t fathom his Riley going out every night and getting completely hammered, but as he thought back to that conversation with Maya, it was apparent that was exactly what she was doing.  She knew everyone at the club and the fraternity house.  If this was a one-night event, she would be throwing up in the bathroom right now, but she wasn’t.  She was here.  She only seemed moderately drunk after an entire night of drinking.

As he scanned her small bedroom, he finally noticed it: a half empty liter of vodka perched on her desk.

God.

How long had this been going on?

//It’s only been a moment It’s only been a lifetime//

When her cries began to subside, the permanent pit in Lucas’s stomach expanded.  He never wanted to hurt her.  He never wanted to them to end up like this.  He never wanted to see her fall like this.  He had been so preoccupied with trying to keep things perfect that he didn’t understand that his girlfriend was buckling under the pressure—the pressure that he put her under.  He tried to replay every conversation they had over the last few years as he searched for any sign of this, of her obvious downfall into depression.

His throat ran dry when he thought of a number of conversations where she emphasized how much she missed him.  He remembered her asking him if he thought he was missing out on anything because his girlfriend was across the country.  He cringed when he remembered that conversation eventually turned into an argument because of course he didn’t feel that way, but her hesitation in her answer when he asked the same question hurt him.  It hurt the perfect vision he had had for their relationship.

Him. Him. Him.

As Lucas continued to silently console his girlfriend, he realized that the last three years had been all about him.  His need to go to school in Texas.  His need to make sure things between them were always perfect.  His need to make sure she was still his girlfriend, because he knew they were meant to be.

Somewhere lost in dreaming about their future, he failed to see what was going on in the present.  He failed to see what their relationship was doing to her.

He had failed her and in doing so, he had failed in their relationship.

“Dance with me,” he whispered to her.

Riley sniffed as she lifted her head.  “But there’s no music.”

He gave her a small smile.  “Has that ever stopped us before?”

//But tonight you’re a stranger Some silhouette//

While Riley seemed confused by the gesture, Lucas held her left hand in his right as he kept his left arm around her waist.  She leaned her head against his shoulder as they swayed to the beat of a song only they knew the lyrics to.

Lucas had to remind himself how to breathe as they swayed together.  With every passing second, his racing thoughts headed toward a conclusion that he had never even considered before.

The girl in his arms.  The girl who used to be so vivacious, whose laugher could make even the most miserable person smile, had become the saddest person he had known.  She was using alcohol to escape from the depression she was obviously in.  While Lucas had channeled his loneliness into his schoolwork, Riley was only able to deal with it by trying to forget it.  He hated that he focused more on her going out every night instead of trying to figure out why she was doing it in the first place.  He hated that he fought with her about it instead of really listening to her when she tried to explain it to him.

When they became a couple, Lucas just knew that they would be together forever.  There was no other option, but with every sway, he knew that in order to save her from herself, he would have to let her go.

//Just hold me//

Even if he went to Cornell, even if he was only four hours away, they would face a similar problem.  He knew it would be impossible to see one another every weekend, and what about the weekdays?  She seemed so far gone now that he wasn’t sure if the real Riley would ever come back.  He wouldn’t be able to stand it if her spiral downward worsened.  Deep down Lucas knew that closing the distance between them wouldn’t magically solve the problems that had taken root between them.

They were both changing.  They were growing up and in spending three years away from one another; it was obvious now that they were growing apart.

//Just hold me//

She would never admit that he was the reason why she was going out so much.  She’d never confess that he was the reason why she had a half empty liter of vodka on her desk.  She’d never tell him that he was slowly destroying her.

Moving closer to her wasn’t going to fix her.  He needed to create more distance from her.  He needed to allow her room to grow in the right way, away from drinking so much, away from the constant arguing.  He needed her to not worry about the state of their relationship all the time.

But he knew her.  He knew that she would fight him over this decision, that she wouldn’t believe him if he told her that he didn’t want to be with her.  He had showed up for her birthday for crying out loud.

Oh God.

Tears slowly filled his eyes.  That was it.  He wouldn’t be able to enjoy a few more days with her.  He would have to do it now.  If she got mad at him, if she believed that he was a complete asshole, then she would let him go.

//Just hold me//

God, he didn’t want to go.  He wanted to stay.  He wanted to fight for them.  He wanted to get her back.  He wanted to pull her out of the darkness she had slipped into, but he knew that he was the cause of her problem, not the solution.

He slowly inhaled as he tried to push away the wave of tears that pricked the back of his eyes.  He had to be cold.  He had to act like this wasn’t destroying every single atom of his body.  He had to act like he wasn’t about to change his entire life to be close to her.  He had to act like he didn’t care.

He closed his eyes as he prayed for the strength to do what he had to.

“Riley?”  His voice seemed so steady for a guy whose heart had just imploded.

“Yeah?”  Her response came out in a breathy sigh of pure contentment.

Her tone made it ten times harder than before.  Lucas could feel his heart race as he took a deep breath.  “I think we should break up.”

//Just hold me//

Riley opened her eyes.  She was still buzzed.  Maybe she misheard him.  She had to have.  There was no way he said what she thought she heard.  She looked up at him.  “What?”

Lucas clenched his jaw.  She didn’t deserve this.  Not here.  Not now, but all he had was now.  He had to make it seem like he was the biggest asshole on the face of the planet.  She wouldn’t give up on him any other way.  He slowly untangled himself from her.  “This,” he gestured between them, “it isn’t working out for me anymore.”

Riley heard him that time, but for some reason, perhaps the alcohol, made it difficult for her to comprehend what he had said.  Was she dreaming?  “What?”

“You know, we tried to make it work, but it’s not working out for me anymore.  All of my friends at school are dating around and having fun and I…I want that too.”  His words came out in a rush.  He couldn’t slow down his speech even if he wanted to.  God.  Everything hurt.  His soul ached.  He wanted to take it back.  He wanted to lay down with her and hold her all night.  He wanted to worship at her feet, but as he looked back at the bottle of vodka on her desk, his resolve strengthened.  He couldn’t be selfish with her anymore.  If he was, she would eventually fade into nothingness.

//Devil’s on your shoulder Strangers in your head//

“You don’t mean that,” she responded as she took a step away from him.  This had to be some horrible prank, right?  She knew that he was mad that they had stayed out so late, but it was her birthday.  Surely that wasn’t grounds for breaking up with her right?  “Come on Lucas.  Let’s just get some sleep and then we can talk—“

“No, it’s one reason why I came,” he swallowed harshly.  “I wanted to do the right thing and do it in person.”

She stared at him for a long moment as she desperately searched for any sign that he was lying.  Finally, tears welled in her eyes.  “Th-The right thing,” she sputtered.  “It’s my birthday!”

“I know the timing is bad.”  His response was hollow, but he couldn’t answer in any other way.  His soul and heart had completely detached themselves from his body.  All that remained was his physical form and his stubborn mind.  He could trick his mind into believing that he was ok.  After all, it was his mind that told him that he needed to do this.  His heart and soul would fight him tooth and nail over it.  So, it was an easy decision to shut them out and completely shut down emotionally.  

“The timing is bad,” she echoed.  The sound in his voice seemed so foreign to her.  It was ice cold.  It was unlike anything she had ever heard from him before.  “It’s my birthday, Lucas.  Are you kidding me?”

The strain in her voice immediately brought tears to his eyes.  God, he couldn’t do this.  It hurt too much.  Maybe they could fix it together?  He shook his head as he bit his bottom lip in order to hold back the wave of emotion that rippled through him.  That was the problem.  He would be pressuring her again.  He would be trying to project his perfect reality on her.  He would be setting her up to fail.  “No,” he finally answered as his voice shook.

//As if you don’t remember As if you can forget//

The room started spinning—slowly at first, but with every millisecond that passed in silence, it began to spin faster and faster.  Riley backed away from him further as she placed her hand to her forehead.  She could almost see her entire future crumbling in front of her.  “I don’t believe you,” her shattered voice nearly cried out.  It wasn’t true.  It couldn’t possibly be true. He had always held out hope for them.  He was the one who carried them through the last three years.  It was his optimism that had held them together.  Everyone always thought she always saw the world through rose-colored glasses, but when it came down to it, she was the one who had doubts about their future, not him.  Never him.  Oh God.  This couldn’t possibly be real.  

“I’m sorry,” was his hollow reply.  He watched as the reality of his words began to physically affect her.  Up until that moment, he had never considered jumping off a building, but he’d gladly take the fall if it meant that he didn’t have to see this.  Her face slowly contorted as a string of pleas for him to reconsider came from her lips.  She promised to be better, to be happier, to be whoever he wanted her to be.  She swore she would act like the girl he fell in love with.  Though the emotion behind her words sliced through his entire being, what she was actually telling him only reaffirmed that he was making the right decision.  He had pressured her so much to maintain their sense of normalcy that now she was promising to be the girl she used to be.

That wasn’t what he wanted.  He only wanted her to be happy.  He wanted her to be happy in her own skin.  He wanted her to live the life she deserved and not be forced into pretending to be someone else to hold onto a relationship that was unraveling every single day.  Lucas realized that in her quest to be the Riley she once was, she had completely lost herself.  As he watched a wave of tears fill her once bright eyes, he knew that she drank in order to escape reality—the reality that she wasn’t the same person she was in high school.  She had changed just as he had, and as much as he loved her, as much as he wanted to fight to keep them together, he knew that wasn’t what she needed.

She needed to be free.

//It’s only been a moment It’s only been a lifetime//

It was driving her insane that he wasn’t saying anything.  He was just standing there while everything she had ever known fell apart right in front of her.  He was breaking up with her because she wasn’t good enough.  She had failed him.  He needed her to be who she was, but she wasn’t sure who she was anymore.  She was caught in between the past and future and she wasn’t sure if the person she was becoming would be someone that he would want to be with.  She had been worried about this moment for the last three years.  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew this day would come.  She knew that he would wake up and regret ever being with her.  Caught in that constant fear, she found different ways to escape, to temporarily relieve the self-inflicted pressure she put on herself.

She wasn’t good enough.  She’d never be good enough.  She had never lived up to the expectations she had set for herself.  She was never the girlfriend she wanted to be.  She tried to make it work.  She tried to hold onto him, but it was in holding onto him that she lost him.  

Who could possibly ever want to be with her?  She was a complete disaster—a living shadow of the girl used to be.  Why would he ever want to be with her?  She was two thousand miles away.  She had no idea if she was in the right major.  She had no idea what she was doing in most of her classes.  Her grades had been declining since her first semester at NYU and it had finally gotten to the point where she didn’t even care anymore.  She found it increasingly difficult to care about much of anything anymore.

Except him.

She never stopped caring about him.  She loved him more than she ever thought she could love anyone.

But here they were.

He was breaking her heart.

And he didn’t even seem to care.

//But tonight you’re a stranger Some silhouette//

Was this hell?  It sure felt like it.  He couldn’t think of a worse fate than this: being forced to stand in front of the only woman he had ever loved and being completely unable to console her because he was the one to break her.  He watched as she covered her face with both hands before she slowly lowered herself to the ground.  Lucas slowly inhaled as he looked up at the ceiling.  Tears filled his tired eyes, but he knew he couldn’t release them.  If she saw him crying, she would know that he didn’t mean it.  She couldn’t know that.  She couldn’t know that he was dying inside.  He couldn’t let on that every tear that slipped from her eyes was seared onto his rapidly hardening heart.

It wasn’t fair.

None of this was fair, but God, he needed her to find her way back to herself.  He needed her to enjoy life again.  And he knew that meant that he had to step away, but God, he wasn’t sure if he could force himself to leave.  He knew that when he left, it would be over.  He wouldn’t be guaranteed a chance to see her again.  He wouldn’t be guaranteed another chance to fight for her, to make it work.  He wouldn’t be guaranteed anything.

His body physically trembled at the thought of never seeing Riley Matthews again.  It didn’t seem possible that there was any life to be lived without her.  It was hard for him to remember a time in his life without her in it.  Now, he was the one who was forcing himself back into that world, but this time, it would be as someone who had been in heaven for the last nine years, who knew what the world was like with her in it.

God.  Why did he go to Texas?  Why didn’t he stay in the city with everyone else?

//Only been a moment It’s only been a lifetime//

Riley curled herself up into a ball as she hid her face from him while she sobbed.  She didn’t want him to see her like this, but she couldn’t help it.  Everything hurt.  Her head hurt.  Her heart hurt.  She wasn’t even sure if she had a soul anymore.  Everything felt so broken.  She halfway hoped that he would at least console her.  That he would hug her one last time as he told her that everything they were to one another was real, that the breakup wasn’t her fault.

But it never came.

He never moved from where he stood.  He didn’t say a word.  

Once Riley was able to catch her breath, once she realized that the guy in her room wasn’t the same guy who left the city three years ago, her mind went into self-preservation mode.  Her Lucas wouldn’t just stand there.  Her Lucas would have at least said something.  It was obvious to her that he didn’t care.  If he didn’t care, then why should she?  Why should she be the only broken heart in her room?

She couldn’t help the bitter chuckle that passed through her lips as she finally lifted her head and wiped her eyes.

Lucas’s frown deepened at the sound.  He blinked away the tears in his eyes.  Was she laughing?

Riley shook her head before she slowly looked back at him.  “Get out,” she demanded darkly.  

//But tonight you’re a stranger//

Her tone took him completely off guard.  He didn’t move an inch, even after she scrambled to stand up.  Her eyes appeared as hollow as he felt at that moment.  This was it.  She was about to throw him out of her room and out of her life forever.  His heart quickened its pace.  Oh God, he couldn’t do this.

“You heard me,” she went on to calmly state as she slowly walked toward him.  “You come here on my birthday…what I thought was a nice surprise…just to break up with me?  Why…because it’s not working out for you anymore?  I mean…we’ve been arguing for a long time now.  I don’t think this is anything that couldn’t wait until a better time…like say Christmas?  So, what is it really, Lucas?  Is it someone else?”  Her steady tone completely contradicted the hurricane that raged inside of her small form.  Her sorrow melted as a fury she had never quite experienced before ravaged her body.  Her heart hardened with every word she uttered.

Lucas swallowed as she inched closer and closer to him.  She didn’t stop until her face was mere inches away from his.  A surge of weakness overcame him.  He lifted his hands to reach out for her until he stopped himself.  He couldn’t do it.  He was only one word away from setting her free.  He had to.  “Yes,” his voice cracked.

//Some silhouette//

Riley immediately laughed at his answer.  It was unlike any type of laughter she had ever had.  It was purely hysterical as she doubled over.  The absurdity of this entire situation had finally hit her and she couldn’t believe that any of this was real.  At the same time, she had dreaded this exact day for three years now.  She knew it would come.  She knew they would end, but she never knew that it would be because he had found someone else.  At the same time, of course he would find someone else.  He was a catch.  During her hysterics, she briefly wondered if he had cheated on her.  Although Riley had allowed her anger to take the reigns over this entire situation, she knew she could never actually ask him that question.  She was too afraid of the answer.  He wasn’t her Lucas anymore.  He was someone else entirely.  She wasn’t sure who this guy was.  He was obviously someone who was willing to break his girlfriend’s heart on her birthday.  Who knows what else he was capable of?

Her laughter slowly faded as she looked back up at him.  “Get the fuck out,” she said matter-of-factly.

//But tonight you’re a stranger//

That was his undoing.  Lucas took a step toward her as he tried to find the words to explain everything that had just transpired between them to her.

Only Riley didn’t want to hear it.  She lifted her hand up to stop him.  He had all the time in the world to say something to her.  Now, she didn’t want to hear any of it.  There was someone else in his life now.  She didn’t want to know the details.  He had told her everything she needed to know.  He had met someone else.  They were over.  End of story.

“Don’t,” she commanded when he opened his mouth to speak.  She cut her eyes to the door.  “Get out before I make you.”

He inched closer towards her.  “Riley, I—“

“No!!”  Her eyes widened as she rushed toward the door.  

He was behind her in an instant.  When she tried to open the door, he pushed it close.  He had to explain to her what he was doing.  He had to tell her that he loved her, that he would wait for her.  He had to tell her that they could find some sort of way to work through this together.  He couldn’t leave now.  He couldn’t risk never being able to see her again, to never having the chance to fix this.  “Riley, please just listen I—“

“Get out,” she screamed as she pulled against the door with every ounce of strength she had left in her.  She didn’t want to hear any more.  He had given up on them.  He had found someone else.  He had smashed her heart to smithereens on her birthday.  He had all the time in the world to explain it to her, but he didn’t.  He just wanted her fall apart.  Well, he wasn’t going to get the chance to twist the knife in her heart.  They were done.  It was done.  “Get out,” she said more calmly as tears filled her eyes once more.  “Please,” she quietly begged as she closed her eyes.  “Just go.”

Lucas could hear her ragged breath as she pleaded for him to leave.  His heart completely shattered in his chest.  He knew that he had to go.  He knew that if she were to have any chance to pull herself out of the darkness, he would have to leave her apartment and not turn back.  Distance wasn’t going to fix her.  Setting her free would give her room to grow, to figure out who she wanted to be.  He couldn’t be selfish with her anymore.  Being selfish with her was killing her.  

He looked down as his previously unshed tears reappeared in his eyes.  He held his breath as he quickly walked around her and out of her room.  He never stopped, even as Zay asked them what was wrong, even as Maya opened her bedroom door at the sound of Riley’s screams.  He didn’t feel anything as he forced himself to leave her apartment, her floor, and finally, her building.

It wasn’t until he rounded the final turn toward his parents’ apartment building that he felt the acceptance letter to Cornell burning in his pocket.

For a week, she subconsciously did what Jessica asked her to.  She watched him.  She watched every single emotion that graced his face.  And now, here she was—sitting alone on their hill while everyone else peacefully slept at the house.

The party had lasted all night, just as Lucas predicted.  Everyone finally crashed around dawn, around the time Pappy Joe was just getting up for the day.

Riley tried to sleep.  She knew that maybe if she slept, she wouldn’t feel quite as off kilter as she felt all night.  Two hours later, she was up and wandering around the property.  Sleep didn’t help her at all.  She couldn’t turn her brain off from everything Jessica had told her.  It was as if Lucas’s ex-girlfriend had pulled back this veil Riley had thrown over her entire relationship with him.  Had she been wandering around in a dream world for the last two years?  Was that her way of trying to protect their relationship from the world around them?  They had finally found one another again—after Charlie, after the issue with her father, after the fight with Farkle—after all of that, they had chosen one to be with one another.  They loved one another.  They were right for one another.  They made each other better.  With him, she never felt more like herself.  She had learned how to forgive and move on because of him.  She learned how to trust again because of him.  She wasn’t weighed down by the past anymore.  He gave all of that to her.

But now, she realized, overcoming the past didn’t automatically mean that their future together was set in stone.

She felt the color drain from her face as she watched the water ripple across the lake.  She knew she needed to have this conversation with herself before she had it with him.  She had to face this reality before she could attempt to put all of it into words.

She took a deep breath as she closed her eyes.  The first image she saw was the smile on his face when he talked about those piglets.  As much as she loved him, and as much as she loved that smile, she knew what that smile meant.  It meant that this was his happy place.  This was his home.  This was where he felt free.  This place, this beautiful farm, his incredible family—all of it—helped to make him who he was now.  She had never seen him as happy as he appeared to be this week.  

She slowly laid down before she opened her eyes.  He had helped her find her salvation—her way out of the darkness that had strangled her for months.  He had always been there for her, even after she pushed him away.  

He loved her.

She loved him.

She knew that he would deny the fact that they had a problem.  She knew that he would insist that he would be more than happy to follow her to the ends of the earth if she wanted him to.

But, that was just it.

She didn’t want him to.

She wanted him to be happy.  She wanted him to always feel as happy and as free as he seemed to be this summer.  She wanted him to continue to rebuild his relationship with his father.  She wanted him to be able to be near his family in case Pappy Joe needed him.  She wanted him to be able to take care of the farm if Pappy Joe was ever unable to.  She didn’t want him to compromise any of his dreams for her.

She knew that Lucas would never ask her to give up her dreams to move here.  As Riley looked up at the crystal clear blue sky above her, she knew that she would never ask him to do the same.  In fact, she would do everything in her power to ensure that he ended up exactly where he was meant to be.  

Even if Charlie was being paroled at that very minute, even if the thought of him wandering around as a free man scared her, it was nothing compared to the fear that washed over her at the thought of Lucas being pulled back into that world.  After all, it wasn’t a matter of if Charlie was going to be released; it was only a matter of when.  Some day, maybe today, he would be released, and according to Lucas, he would happily seek him out in a misguided attempt at revenge.

Had Lucas changed in the last four years?  Absolutely.  But, it wasn’t as if he was magically cured from all the anger that he once held.  Yes, he had let go of a lot of his rage, but Riley knew that part of who he used to be would always be contained within him.  Had he learned how to control it?  Absolutely, but when Maya brought up Charlie, Riley could see that unresolved anger flash in his eyes.  She could practically feel it roll off of him.  He had let go of a lot of things over the last four years, but Charlie was still an unsettled issue for him—one in which Riley knew wouldn’t be resolved in the same way as it was done with Lucas’s father.  

Charlie wasn’t worth it.  Riley knew it, but Lucas was still completely unreasonable with it came to the subject of Riley’s ex-boyfriend.  If she couldn’t convince him to let go of his hatred, then the least she could do is protect him from it.  He had always protected her and she had always protected him—even if it meant protecting him from himself.

The thought of Lucas going from blissfully happy to murderously angry made her skin crawl.  She couldn’t do that to him.  Charlie was never his problem.  

So, no matter when it happened, whether it was today or whether it was seven years from now, she knew that she would do everything in her power to shield Lucas from diving back into the world they managed to walk away from.

As she wandered back toward the main house, she was nowhere closer to figuring anything out.  All she knew was that her future was in New York.  Her family was there.  Her friends were there.  Her, hopeful, career was there.  His future was here.  His family lived here.  Most of his friends lived here.  He was happy here.

What were they supposed to do?  For as long as she could remember, she was taught that love could help overcome anything, but this—she wasn’t sure how it could overcome something like this.  What kind of life would they be able to have if one of them gave up their dreams for the sake of the other?  Jessica was right.  They would grow to resent one another. Something like this, she couldn’t hide from him.  It hurt too much to think about.  She had happily remained in denial land for years now, but after last night—after the last week—she owed it to herself and to him to talk about it.  They hadn’t discussed their future at all, but now, it was all she could think about.  She didn’t even think about Charlie as much as she thought she would because even that seemed to pale in comparison to this.

They had no future together.

She spent the entire week trying not to think about it and the entire night last night coming up with a hundred different possible scenarios about their future, but not one of them ended in a ‘happily ever after’.  They all involved one of them making some kind of sacrifice for the other.

She knew that she needed to talk to him about it.  She knew that this was something too important to discuss over the phone when she got back.  If she waited until he returned to the city, she knew that it would completely consume her.  She was already barely speaking to him because of Charlie.  This was something she wasn’t even sure she could keep to herself.  At the same time, how could she even begin to bring this up?  She knew what it would lead to.  She knew what opening her mouth would do to them, but wasn’t the whole point of bringing it up now was so they could somehow figure out what their next step was—if there was even a next step they could take?

God, there had to be something.  There had to be some kind of way for each of them to get what they wanted out of life without having to sacrifice each other.  Surely they didn’t go through everything they did in high school just to fall apart due to forces beyond their control?  They were stronger than that, weren’t they?  Couldn’t the love they shared for one another overcome any obstacle—even their own conflicting dreams for the future?

She felt nauseous.  She felt like she was going to pass out.  As she walked by the stables, she briefly wondered if this was it—if this was the last time she would see this farm, these stables.  Would tonight be her last time on the hill with him?  

It couldn’t be.  No, that wasn’t a possibility.  They had survived so much.  It couldn’t just end.  Could it?

It was already mid-afternoon before the others woke up.  By the time Riley had arrived back from her hours long walk around the property, everyone else had just gotten ready for the day—what was left of it anyway.

The moment she entered the house, Lucas could tell that something was wrong.  Truthfully, he noticed that she seemed preoccupied the previous night, but had managed to convince himself that she must have just been tired.  They had a really long day yesterday and staying up all night probably didn’t help anything.  He realized that his own exhaustion from the previous night must have clouded his judgment, because after being able to sleep for about eight hours, he immediately sensed the heaviness that surrounded his normally cheerful girlfriend.  This was different than how she had been for the last month.  She seemed more out of sync, more contemplative, depressed even. He had never seen her look like that before—even when she went through the ordeal with Charlie, even when she saw him at his absolute worst when he got into that fight with Farkle.  This was something completely different, and it scared the shit out of him.

One look at her boyfriend, and she knew she was going to fall apart.  She felt the tears immediately sting the back of her eyes as they looked at one another.  She knew her face had already given herself away.  Charlie she could hide from him, but this?  This was something else entirely.

He wanted to go to her.  He needed to find out what had happened, but he was petrified to say anything.  His legs felt like lead as he stood in the middle of his grandfather’s living room.

Someone had to say something.  Someone had to ask the obvious.  Someone had to make some kind of move.

“So, Chubbie’s for our last night here, right,” Maya asked as she breezed into the living room.

“I’m down for that,” Zay responded as he entered the living room from the boys’ room.

Riley was the first to break eye contact as she forced herself to glance at her best friend.  “Y-Yeah,” she stammered before she cleared her throat.  “It’s…tradition…for the last night.”

“Did someone say ‘Chubbie’s’,” Farkle asked as he entered the living room.

Maya laughed.  “Anxious to dive into another plate of ribs?”

“Well, you know, it’ll be the last time I can get them for awhile, so I might as well, right?”  He glanced at Lucas.  “What time do they open?”

“Around 4,” he absentmindedly answered as he continued to stare at his girlfriend.  That one look from her had completely changed his entire mood.  Something was very, very wrong, and while he knew he needed to know what it was, he dreaded hearing the answer.

“It’s nearly 3:30 already,” Maya noted.  “Geez, time flies when you sleep all day.”

“Yeah, I hate that we slept most of the day,” Zay began as he sat down on the couch, “but last night was worth it, wasn’t it?”

Maya laughed as she sat down next to him.  “I have to admit that it was probably the best 4th of July celebration I’ve ever been to…and it wasn’t even the 4th.”

“Yeah,” Zay nodded, “It’s a pretty awesome tradition.  I’m glad you guys were able to experience that—at least once anyway.”

Maya glanced at Riley.  “Are you about ready to go get something to eat?”

“Sure,” she answered with a small smile.  “Are you guys?”

“Absolutely,” Farkle answered.

Riley barely touched her food.  She merely spent thirty minutes pushing it around on her plate so the others would think that she had eaten something.  

Lucas wasn’t fooled.  His gaze never wandered very far away from Riley ever since she came back from her walk.  With every passing second, he became more and more concerned. He had tried to be patient and wait for her to come to him, but his patience was non-existent now.  There was no way she was going to get on that plane tomorrow without telling him what was going on.  It wasn’t fair to him.  It wasn’t fair that he had to watch her pretend that nothing was wrong when in reality, it looked like the entire world had ended.

He didn’t eat.  He couldn’t even pretend to eat.  Every single thought he had revolved around her.  He knew that she wouldn’t say a word about it around the others and not while they were out in public.  He also knew that they were going to sit around a campfire later on, and if he had a chance of talking to her alone, that would be time to try to get her alone.  They had only spent one night stargazing since she had arrived.  He didn’t really question it until now, but as he stared at her, he knew that it was more than just fatigue that kept her away.

She was pushing him away.

He had to know why.

He deserved to know why.

“It’s a million degrees out here,” Maya whined as she watched Lucas and Zay stoke the fire in front of them.  “Is the fire really necessary?”

“It’s starting to cool off a little,” Riley told her.  “Besides, we wouldn’t have been able to make smores without it.”

“And you didn’t even eat one of them,” Lucas muttered before he stood up.  Riley loved smores.  They were one of her favorite things about campfires.  It was one reason why campfires became a last night in Texas tradition for them.  She could devour a whole bag of marshmallows on her own.  Like with dinner, Lucas had watched her slide marshmallow after marshmallow on her stick.  She went through the motions of placing it on the graham cracker with a piece of chocolate on top, but whenever it came to actually consuming the treat, she would look at it for a long moment before tossing it into the trash bag.  He knew that none of the others had noticed--all too absorbed in their conversation about the past week—but he had noticed.

Riley furrowed her eyebrows as she watched him walked a few feet away from them.  He had his back turned to the group as he crossed his arms over his chest.  She was certain that the others hadn’t heard him, but she had.  He knew something was wrong and she knew that there was no way she would be able to avoid the conversation she had spent the last hour trying to talk herself out of having with him.

“They’re messy, but they sure are delicious.” Zay pulled out the nearly empty bag of marshmallows from behind Maya.  He turned to Farkle.  “Want another one?”

Farkle’s stomach lurched.  “No, I’m ok.  I think I ate enough tonight to last me for the next month.”

“Are you feeling ok,” Maya asked him when she noticed how pale he seemed.

“No, I—“ his stomach rumbled.  “I…better go.  I don’t feel so good.”  He clutched his stomach as he stood up.  “I’m…sorry.”  He didn’t wait for anyone to respond to him before he made a beeline back to the house.  He swore to himself at that very moment that no matter how delicious they seemed, he was never going to consume another rib for as long as he lived.

“Good night,” Zay called out as he watched Farkle sprint toward the house.  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him run that fast.”

“Poor Farkle.” Maya took a bite of her marshmallow.  “Some people just can’t handle three racks of ribs.”

“I’m not sure where he puts it,” Zay chuckled.

“I’m not so sure he was able to put it anywhere,” she pointed out.  “I think that’s why he’s halfway back to the house now.”

While Zay and Maya resumed their discussion about the best part of their week, Riley’s gaze shifted back to her boyfriend.  Through the light the campfire emitted, she could see the tension between his shoulders as his arms remained folded across his chest.  His head was slightly bowed, which meant his gaze was fixated on the ground rather than anything off in the distance.

She wasn’t how long he stood there before he suddenly spun around to face the group once more.

He took a deep breath as his eyes locked onto his girlfriend’s.  “Do you want to go on a walk with me?”

Riley glanced at Maya and Zay for a moment before she turned back to Lucas. “Uh…yeah.”  She swallowed before she stood up.  A wave of panic slowly rolled through her as she walked toward him.

Maya and Zay silently watched the couple leave.  

“Is something wrong with Riley,” Zay asked.  He wasn’t the most perceptive person in their group of friends, so he knew that if he had sensed the obvious tension between the couple, then there must be something to it.  “She’s seemed…off this week.”

Maya laid her stick down next to her as she tried to think of some excuse to give Zay that wouldn’t exactly be a lie.  “She’s just…stressed right now.  She doesn’t want it to ruin the trip, so she’s trying not to think about it.”  There.  Let Zay come to his own conclusion about what it was.  She knew that he would probably assume that it was the apartment search, after all, they all knew how stressed the brunette had been about it.

Zay sat his stick down next to Maya’s.  “Well, hopefully this week helped clear her head a little bit.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, content enough to watch the flames flicker in front of them.  Maya bit her bottom lip as she looked at Zay out of the corner of her eye.  She knew that this would be a completely off the wall question, but she wanted his honest opinion and perhaps the best way to get it would be to take him by surprise.  “Can I ask you something?”

He turned toward her.  “Sure.”

She took a deep breath.  Was she actually about to bring up something that happened in high school?  Before she could second-guess herself, she continued.  “It’s something I’ve been wondering about lately. I know it’s ridiculous, but I can ask you anything, right?”

What on earth could it possibly be that she had to preface it like that?  “Yeah.  Of course.”

“Ok…so…um…when we were in high school…when Lucas first came…he…he said that you used to refer to me as ‘the blonde beauty’.”  She cleared her throat.  “Um…what did that mean exactly?”

Zay chuckled nervously.  “Still remember that, huh?”  He had hoped that time would have been on his side and she would have completely forgotten about it by now, but of course she didn’t.  He wasn’t that lucky.  

“Well, it’s a little hard to forget.”  She clasped her hands together as she felt a wave of anxiety flow through her.  “Did that mean that it was all I had going for me?”

Zay’s smile faltered.  “No.  No.  Maya, I never meant for you to take it like that.”  It was quite the opposite actually.  Lucas had only told the group one thing he said about Maya.  Lucas, thankfully, never told the group everything Zay had confessed about the blonde who currently sat next to him.

“I’m not so sure how else to take it, Zay.”

“Maya, you’re beautiful…yes…but you’re so much more than that.  I told Lucas that when I first met you guys.  Ever since then I’ve…” he sighed as he felt his heart begin to race.  “You’re one of the smartest people I know.  You can turn a blank canvas into a masterpiece.  You would do anything for your friends…you even proved that when everything happened between Lucas and Riley in high school.  You have more talent in one finger than anyone else has in their entire body.  God, I feel like I could listen to you talk about paint drying and be completely enraptured…” he let his words hang in the air as he watched Maya lift her eyebrows in surprised.  Oh God.  What had he just done?  “I…might have said too much.”

Maya bit her bottom lip to keep herself from smiling.  “Was it…true?”  Did he really see her like that?  Was she really more than just a face to him?  Did he really think that she was smart and talented?

He nodded.  “Of course it’s true.  It was true then…and it’s still true now, but…”

“But?”

He took a deep breath.  He wasn’t at all prepared to have this conversation with her.  “I’ve always…had a crush on you,” he confessed.  “Even when you were dating one of my best friends.  I hated myself for it, but it never…went away.”

“Really?”  She couldn’t believe it.  He had a crush on her?  And it never went away?  Did that mean that he, maybe, still had a crush on her now?

“Yeah.  Why do you ask?”  He hoped that this wouldn’t make things awkward between them.  He had gotten pretty good at hiding his feelings for her—especially after she started to date Farkle.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged.  “I feel like…like maybe we’ve gotten closer over the last few years.”  She wasn’t sure what it was, or how it really happened, but while the entire group recovered from everything that happened in high school, she found herself spending more time with Zay.  He had turned into her art museum buddy and in return, she went with him to various dance performances in the city.  They had really bonded over their mutual love of the arts.  She found herself looking forward to spending time with him, and if she was being perfectly honest with herself, she knew that she was going to miss him a lot over the next month.

“Yeah.  Me too.”  She wasn’t completely freaked out by his confession?  Was he dreaming?

“Do you…still like me?”

He looked into her eyes for a long moment.  “Yeah.  I think that’s the only thing that hasn’t—“

He was unable to finish the rest of his sentence as Maya pressed her lips against his.  He ran his hand through her blonde curls as he softly caressed her cheek.  He must have dreamt of kissing Maya Hart off and on for the last seven years.  Now, here he was, kissing the girl of his dreams.

Only, there was still the very real issue of Farkle Minkus that immediately came to his mind.  He slowly pulled away from her.  He knew he couldn’t do this.

“What,” she asked as she slowly opened her eyes.  She was completely confused.  That was easily one of the best first kisses she had ever had.  Did he not feel the same way?  “Was it…not…”

“No,” he shook his head.  “That was…incredible.  I just…what about Farkle?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s throwing up in the bathroom and swearing that he’ll never eat ribs again.  Why?”

“You and he dated for a really long time.”

“We dated in high school, Zay.”

“Yeah, and do you remember what happened when you guys broke up?”  It was two and a half years ago, but Zay knew he’d never forget the aftermath of that breakup.  He was the one who was there for Farkle after the fight with Lucas.  He was the one who listened as Farkle went over every detail of his relationship with Maya as he tried to make sense of where he went wrong.  As much as he liked Maya, Zay knew that he had to take Farkle’s feelings into consideration.

Maya sighed.  “He doesn’t…he isn’t…he doesn’t like me like that anymore.”

“I’m not so sure that’s true, Maya.  I see the way he looks at you.”

She frowned.  “So, because my ex-boyfriend looks at me…it means that I can’t…we can’t…maybe go out on a date or something?”

Zay shook his head.  “We’re finally all ok after what happened senior year.  I can’t risk that.”

Maya looked down as she watched the fire slowly die down in front of them.  He had a point.  She wouldn’t want to risk her friendship with Farkle, but at the same time, she felt something when she kissed Zay.  “Yeah.  Maybe you’re right.”  She slowly looked back up at him.  “But…you know how they say ‘what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas?’”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t you think that it could work for any destination…like say…Austin, Texas…by a romantic campfire under thousands of stars?”

He swallowed.  “You’re not making this easy.”

“All I’m saying is that…I felt something.  In a five second kiss, I felt something and I’m not sure what it is, but we’re both adults.  Who knows?  It could just be a physical attraction.”

“What do you propose?”

“It’s my last night here.  Riley and Lucas are off on a walk…probably at the hill.  Farkle is…back at the house.  All I know right now is that I want to spend my last night here with you.  You’re going to be here for the next month.  Maybe we can get this out of our system now…and not wonder ‘what if’…and by the time you come back to the city, we can just continue being friends.”  She placed her hand on his knee.  She had never proposed anything like this before, but there was something about all of this that felt right.  Was it just the setting?  She wasn’t sure, but she knew that she needed to find out.  “Zay, come on.  We’ve all dated around.  What’s so different about this?”

Yes, they had dated around, but this was different.  He knew that if he went down this path, Maya Penelope Hart would take up a permanent residence in his heart.  They were by a romantic campfire, under a million stars, and he knew the moment his brown eyes met her blue ones that he wouldn’t be able to deny her anything she asked of him.

“I feel bad just leaving them back there,” Riley began as she sat down at the very spot she spent most of the day at, “but I definitely wanted to get a little more of this view before I leave tomorrow.”  Small talk.  Small talk was good.  Small talk could cut down on the tension that had been building between them over the last few hours.

“You really love this place, don’t you?” He released a breath he didn’t realize he was holding as he sat down behind her and wrapped his arms around her.  Maybe he had been wrong?  Maybe she was just stressed about everything going on back in New York.  He knew that she didn’t eat much when she was stressed.  Maybe he had overreacted?  

“So do you,” she answered solemnly as she looked up at the same sky that always seemed to give her strength.  It seemed fitting that the clouds above them had prevented her from seeing the countless stars that normally hung overhead.  She closed her eyes when she felt his lips brush against her shoulder.  He wasn’t making this easy, but she knew that she had to say something.  They had to talk about this before she left because not knowing what to do was slowly destroying her.  “Do you…do you think you could see yourself here in a few years…once you graduate?”

He smiled against her shoulder before he placed another kiss against it. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly as he lifted his head to rest his chin on her shoulder.  “I haven’t really thought about it.”  He looked at the scenery around them.  It would be easy to picture them sitting in this very spot in fifty years.  “I love Texas, but I want to be wherever you are.”

“That’s just it, Lucas.”  She craned her neck to look at him.  This was it.  Everything she had been thinking, feeling, and denying was about to come out.  “What if where I want to be and where you want to be places us on opposite sides of the country?”

Lucas frowned.  Where was any of this coming from?  They had just finished their sophomore year in college.  They had plenty of time to figure out where they were going to live.  Was this what had been on her mind?  He nearly sighed in relief as he buried his head in her neck.  He waited a brief moment before he placed a gently kiss at the base of it.  “Riley, I want to be with you.”  He lifted his head as he tightened his grip on her in a non-verbal attempt to reassure her.  “I don’t care if I have to live in a cardboard box in a dark and damp alley for the rest of my life…as long as I can be with you, ok?”  He kissed the top of her head.  “All of this means nothing to me unless you’re here too.”

Riley slowly inhaled before she pulled away from him.  She turned her head back so she could look him in the eyes.  Everything he had said so far was exactly what she knew he would say.  It only strengthened her resolve to continue this discussion.  “What about your career?  Lucas, I can’t let you give all that up for me.”

“Who says I’m giving it up?  There are veterinarians in the city.”  He narrowed his eyes.  “Riley, where is this coming from?”  The moment she pulled away from him, Lucas knew that this wasn’t some moment of panic about where they would end up in two years.  This was something that she had spent considerable time questioning.  

As she watched the seriousness of their conversation slowly dawn on him, she knew that she had to get this out while she still had any kind of strength to.  “It’s coming from the place inside of me that knows that we want to share our lives together, but at the same time, when you really think about it…one of us is going to have to sacrifice what we want in order to do it.”  She swallowed.  She wasn’t sure if she was making any kind of sense, but she knew she had to keep going.  “I love acting.  Tisch has offered me the chance of a lifetime to get my foot in the door so I can really pursue this.  I can’t…I don’t know.”  She sounded completely selfish, and maybe she was.  Maybe she was scared that this whole time he assumed she would move to Texas because she was ‘just an actress’ and that career path wasn’t nearly as significant as being a veterinarian.

“You can’t give up all of that hard work just to come live here.  Riley, I’m not asking you to.”  He knew that they had all the time in the world to figure this out, but as he watched the tears slowly form in her eyes, he knew that she had already spent a considerable amount of time doing just that.  Judging by the look on her face and the growing pit in his stomach, he knew that she had already made up her mind about it.

She slowly looked up into his eyes as the first few tears slid down her cheeks.  “I’m not asking you to stay in the city.”

“You don’t have to ask.”  His voice felt raw as he tried to decipher everything she wasn’t telling him just yet.  The look of defeat in her eyes was more than enough to shatter the protective wall they had built over the last two years to keep the world—and all of its attempts to pull them apart—away from them.

She had to press on.  She had to make him see that they had a problem—a very real one—that couldn’t be resolved in a five-minute conversation.  She had already tried to figure it out on her own, and she couldn’t find a single alternative that didn’t end in at least one of them hating the other.  “What about school?  You can’t study veterinarian medicine in the city.”

He knew that.  He had done the research.  He knew that he would have to go away for that part of his education, but he always thought she understood that.  He thought that she would be ok with having to pursue a long distance relationship for a while.  After everything they had been through, surely distance would be the last thing to ruin them.  “Riley,” his voice slightly quivered, “do you want to break up?”

Riley shook her head despite the fact that tears were freely flowing down her cheeks.  That was why she wanted to talk to him about it.  She didn’t want to break up.  She didn’t want to give this up.  She needed his help to figure all of it out.  “No!  I just…maybe this is why I haven’t…why we haven’t talked about our future.  The next two years seem perfect, but after that, no matter what scenario I try to consider, we end up in different cities, and I’m not sure how we’ll ever live in the same city.”  Verbalizing it, admitting that their future seemed cloudy at best made it all seem real—too real.  

He looked at her in complete and utter disbelief.  The hopelessness in her tone only drove home the fact that she had already given up on them.  “Are you saying that we have an expiration date?”

Her bottom lip trembled at the mere suggestion that someday, everything with him would end.  “I’m saying that…that…maybe I was wrong.  Maybe we don’t need to talk about this now.”  She wiped her eyes as her eyes fell to the ground next to her.  “All I want to do is lay here with you and look at this sky and memorize every single second of it because…because this is what’s going to carry me through until you come back next month.”  She shouldn’t have said anything to him.  She should have kept it bottled in until she had some sort of plan figured out.  

This whole conversation had taken him completely by surprise.  How long had she thought about all of this?  Why hadn’t she talked to him about it before now?  Why did this feel more like an ending rather than some small bump that they would figure out together?  He slowly stood up.  He had to move around.  He couldn’t sit still any longer.  All he wanted to do at that moment was run away—from the hill, from her, from a future that apparently didn’t include her.  “You’re saying we have an expiration date.”

Riley watched as he paced in front of her.  She wanted to lie to him and tell him that it wasn’t what she meant at all, but now that it was out there, she couldn’t take it back.  “Lucas, I don’t know.”

It felt like someone had punched him in the stomach.  He stopped pacing as he tried to absorb what the woman he loved was trying to tell him.  She didn’t know if they were going to last?  After everything they had been through, after everything he had told her, after every touch, every kiss, she didn’t know if they were worth fighting for?  “Is this why you’ve been distant from me this summer?”

Her eyes fell to the ground.  She couldn’t tell him about Charlie—not now.  Not when she didn’t know what had happened at his hearing earlier in the day and not while they were still trying to figure this out.  “I’ve been in New York and you’ve been here.  I think it stands to reason that we’ve been distant.”

Lucas scoffed as he placed his hands on his hips.  He looked up to the sky for a long moment before he glanced down at her once more.  “Don’t,” his voice was deep, pained.  He noticed her flinch at the heaviness of it. “Don’t play it off.  We both know that you’ve been pulling away from me.  I knew you were hiding something.”  He shook his head.  He wasn’t prepared to accept the reality of their conversation.  “I just didn’t think it was something like this.”

“Lucas, all I’m saying is that maybe…maybe we’ve been avoiding talking about it because it’s…it’s a big decision that we have to make.  I think that maybe…now that it’s out there…that it’s something we need to start thinking about.”

He fell to his knees as he found himself a few shallow breaths away from begging for her to reconsider everything she had just told him.  He cupped her face in his hands as he looked into her bloodshot eyes.  He wiped away a few of her tears as he silently begged her to tell him that everything was going to be ok—that this was all some test, just another little bump in the road to their happily ever after.  “What is there to think about,” he asked softly as he continued to brush her tears away.  “I want to be with you.  Anywhere.  Always.”  What else mattered?  They needed to fight for this.  They needed to figure it out—together.  God, he’d literally go to hell if it meant they would be able to be with one another.  How could she not understand that they could get through anything as long as they were together?  

She closed her eyes when she saw the desperation in his eyes.  She knew that was exactly how she must have looked last night after her conversation with Jessica.  As much as she wanted to reassure him that everything was going to be ok, she wasn’t convinced that it would be.  It wasn’t an easy fix.  It wasn’t something that could be resolved in one conversation.  It was going to take time and a lot of soul searching to figure it all out.  When she opened her eyes, she noticed that his eyes had filled with his own tears.  “I want to be with you, too,” she began as she desperately tried to bite back a sob, “but Lucas, this is…I don’t know what to do.”

He leaned forward as he pressed his lips to her forehead.  “Please stay,” he softly pleaded as he rested his forehead against hers.  “We can figure this out.  Please stay.  Please.  One month.  Riley, please.”  

“I can’t,” she bit out.  “Lucas, please.  Please don’t make this any harder than it already is.”

He leaned back from her.  “What can I do?  Riley, please tell me what I need to do.”

She wiped her eyes before she ran her fingers through her hair.  “I think…I think that we both just need to…to take some time and think about this.” Her voice shook as she looked up at the sky.  “I think that maybe we…we take the next month and…think about it…apart from one a-another.”

“W-What?”  His heart dropped at her words.  What did that even mean ‘think about it apart from one another’?  Two thousand miles apart wasn’t enough?  She wanted more space?

“I don’t know,” she finally cried out before she forced herself to stand up.  “I thought that maybe since you’re here and I’m there that it would be a…a good time…to just…take the next month and…and maybe not talk to one another.  M-Maybe we can figure out…what we really want…and maybe figure out a way to get it.”

“A break?”  He stood up before he closed the space between them.  “You want a break from us?”

“We need to figure out what we want.”

“But I know what I want.”  He cupped her face in his hands once more.  “I want you, Riley.  Nothing else matters if I don’t have you.”  He lowered his head as he brushed his lips against hers.  The moment he felt her kiss him back, his opened his mouth as he quickly deepened their kiss.  He was more than desperate for her to know just how much he needed her.  They didn’t need a break.  They only needed each other.

It would be easy to give in.  God, how she wanted to forget it all and give into this.  They could spend the next two years avoiding this entire conversation, but she knew it would be pointless.  “Lucas,” she gasped as she pulled back from him.  She gently nudged him back from her.  They had to talk about this.  They couldn’t just ignore it.

His desperation and despair slowly turned into anger.  How could she dismiss their relationship when he had given everything to her?  He was prepared to give it all up—everything he had dreamt for himself—just to be with her and she wanted a break from him?  “Fine,” he said as he turned away from her.

She could feel the anger rolling off of him, but he had to understand.  “Lucas, I just want us to figure out what we want apart from one another.  Maybe then we can figure out—“

“Nah, I get it,” he crossed his arms over his chest as he turned back around to face her.  “But what’s the point in waiting?”

Riley frowned.  Waiting?  This wasn’t waiting.  This was a break so they could figure out what they wanted outside of their relationship.  “What do you mean?”

“I don’t understand the point in waiting for a month.”  His voice shook, but he only saw one resolution.  “You’re right.  It would be easier to do this now…while I’m here and while you’re in New York.  I’ll be gone for four more weeks, and…I think you’ve already made up your mind.  I don’t think a month is going to change anything.  You’ve clearly been thinking about this for a while now…what’s a month of not speaking to one another really going to do other than to delay the inevitable?”  He swallowed.  “We’re already having this conversation, so why not finish it now?  Why wait?”  What the hell was he even saying?  Did he just tell her that he wanted to break up with her?  He didn’t want to break up with her.  He didn’t want a break from her at all!  Less than 24 hours ago, he was begging her to stay and spend the rest of the summer with him.  God, he couldn’t imagine a few weeks without her, let alone forever.

Riley felt the air around her completely evaporate as her mouth fell open in shock.  “Are you…are you breaking up with me?”

“Haven’t you already broken up with me,” he challenged as he finally allowed his anger to control his emotions.  It was easier this way.  It was easier to hide behind the fact that she had made this decision for them.  Waiting a month would only delay the inevitable.  He knew that.  She knew that.  “I feel like you’ve been thinking about this for awhile,” he added as he ran a hand through his hair.  “What’s one month of not communicating going to do?  We’ll be right back here…having this same conversation again.  Why not rip the Band-Aid off now?”

Her throat ran dry. This wasn’t what she wanted!  “I thought…I thought I could tell you anything and that you would…that it would…that we would…”

“That we would what? You’re right, Riley.  We don’t know what’s going to happen after we graduate, so it’s better to just…save ourselves the trouble of wasting two more years on something that’s…that’s always been doomed.”  God, it hurt.  Everything hurt.  His head hurt.  His chest hurt.  His whole body ached, but none of it compared to how badly everything felt on the inside.  It was all crumbling around him.  Everything he had worked for.  Everything they had survived.  It was all in vain.  All of it was for nothing.  He loved her.  He loved her more than he would ever love anything.  That’s why the thought of being in limbo for a month—of being scared every single day that his worst nightmare would become a reality—would be too much for him.  He couldn’t live like that for another month.  He had already been living like that for most of the summer.  He loved her.  He’d do anything in the world for her—even if that meant letting her go.  He had done it once, he could do it again, although this time it was ten times harder—because he was at least ten times more in love with her than he was back then.  “I’m giving you want you want,” he paused as he stared at the patch of grass next to her feet.  “What you really want, but are too nice to actually say.  You…don’t have to worry about it anymore.”  He cleared his throat.  “You can go back to New York and just focus on getting your apartment with Maya.  You don’t have to worry about this anymore.”

Tears cascaded down the brunette’s cheeks as she stared at the ground.  “Good thing I’m leaving tomorrow then, huh?”  Was this actually happening?  Some part of her knew that this would be inevitable, but did the inevitable have to happen now?  Everything around her felt like a dream—a complete and utter nightmare.  Would she wake up soon?  God, she hoped so.  She couldn’t stand the thought of having to exist in a world where they weren’t together.  

He knew that if he looked up at her, whatever fragments of his heart that remained would completely shatter.  Always a glutton for punishment, he forced himself to slowly look up at the only woman he knew he would ever love.  Seeing the tears in her eyes and hearing the quiver in her voice made him want to take back every single word, but he knew he couldn’t.  Was this what she had been thinking about for the last month?  Was this what she had kept from him?  It sounded like she had made her decision long before she even asked him about it.  What was the point in waiting?  What was the point in torturing himself for the next month—the next two years—about it?  God, this was it.  This was what she had been hiding from him all along.

She wasn’t sure how long they stared at one another in complete silence.  All she knew was that everything around her seemed thick—so thick that she had a hard time even breathing.  She could hear her heart beat throb in her ears.  This used to be her safe place.  It was where she first told Lucas everything that happened to her that night at the ski lodge.  It was where they decided to be together.  It was where he took her almost every night she was in Austin over the last few summers.  It was their place.  It was their oasis.

But not anymore.  The fairytale had ended.  The magical spell of the hill had been broken, because while it’s nice to think that there such a thing as a safe place in the world, the truth is that there isn’t.  At any given moment, your entire world could crumble and all you’re left holding are the fragments of a world you used to know.  Her eyes fell to the grass once more.  “I knew something bad was going to happen,” she murmured.

“What?”  He heard her, but he wasn’t the one who did this.  She was the one who had decided their entire future, or lack of one, without him.  That hurt more than anything.  She had decided that there was nothing to be done.  She had chosen this.  He was just the one who had the guts to pull the trigger.  She wanted them to think about this for the next month, but as he stared at her, he knew—he knew that wouldn’t have changed anything.

“Nothing.  I…um…better go…pack.  It’s going to be morning…soon…and I don’t want to…to…umm…bye.”  She wasn’t even sure if she had made any sense as the rush of words that poured from her.  She took approximately five steps away from him before she paused.  She took a deep breath before she turned back to look at him.  She wanted to stop everything—rewind time and ignore everything she had been feeling—but she couldn’t.  She slowly turned back around before she quickly left him behind as she began to navigate the path back to the main house.  If this had happened two years ago, she knew she would’ve gotten lost in the darkness, but the path from the house to the hill was one Riley now knew by heart.  ‘This might be the last time I’m here,’ she thought as tears continued to stream down her cheeks.  

She didn’t want this.  She didn’t want to break up.  She wasn’t sure what she wanted, but it certainly wasn’t this.  This was why she didn’t want to talk about their future at all.  She wasn’t sure where it would lead, if anywhere.  Apparently, he didn’t even want to try to work through it.  Maybe he knew all along that they were simply a dead end.

Lucas slowly sat down as he replayed their conversation.  It was over.  Just like that, the last four years were gone.  He knew he had made the right decision by ending it now instead of waiting until he got back to the city.  He knew that the distance would help him adjust to this new world he was now forced to live in.  He knew he couldn’t wait another month just to go back and have the same conversation with the same resolution.  She was right to force him to face their reality instead of getting swept up in their feelings for one another.  Even if they had tabled the entire conversation, what would happen in two years?  He was prepared to follow her anywhere she wanted to go, no matter where that was, but she didn’t want him to do that.  She wanted to live her life and she want him to live his life, and for some reason, their professional dreams seemed to be on completely different paths, at least according to her.  

Was there another reason why she brought all of this up now?  

Was there someone else?

Maya shrugged.  “Thought about using the front door, so I slid in behind Ms. Rhodes…you know how much she loves me.  She asked if I was coming up to see you and thought that it would save you a trip to the lobby to get it.”  She handed Riley the small stack of mail.

Riley chuckled.  “Well, thank you for getting it for me.  You know, I was going to use it as an excuse to step away from the computer for awhile.”  Riley stood up from her bed as she began to thumb through the mail.  She wasn’t expecting anything, but wanted to make sure that the school hadn’t sent her anything before she handed off the bills and junk mail to her parents.

Maya flopped on Riley’s bed as she reached for the laptop.  “I’m sure it’s not that bad, is it?”  She began to scroll through a few of the listings. “250 square feet,” she nearly shrieked.  “For how much?!”

“I told you,” Riley answered wryly before she lowered her eyes back to the mail.  She furrowed her eyebrows when she noticed that there was something for her.  She scanned the return address as she slowly sat the rest of the mail down at the foot of her bed.  It definitely wasn’t from the school.  Her palms began to sweat and she could feel all of the color drain from her face as she read the return address a second time.  Images she hadn’t thought about in months—years even—came back to her as she desperately tried to wake herself up from what had to be a nightmare.  Whatever news this envelope held wouldn’t be good.  She knew it even without having to open it.  The feeling of dread, the feeling that something was about to change charged back her.  Was this it?  Was this why she didn’t want him to leave?  Was this why she wanted time to stop the night before he left?

“This is ridicul…” Maya trailed off as she looked up at Riley.  “Riles?  What is it?”  She frowned as she looked down at the envelope in the brunette’s hands.

Riley cleared her throat as Maya’s voice brought her back from her not-so-wonderful trip down memory lane.  She flipped the envelope over as her trembling fingers opened the letter.  She bit the inside of her cheek as she scanned the contents of the letter once—twice—three times before she finally remembered how to take a breath.  

Maya scrambled to get off the bed the second she noticed the tears that had formed in her best friend’s eyes.  “Riley, what’s going on?  You’re scaring me.”

Riley didn’t even realize tears had pooled in her eyes until she felt them slide down her pale cheeks.  Wordlessly, she handed Maya the letter.  When Maya began to read it, Riley turned away as she walked toward the bay window.  As she slowly sat down, she realized that her only hope was that she had misread something or that this was another one of her ridiculously vivid dreams.  This couldn’t be happening, not now.  This wasn’t supposed to happen this soon.  She wasn’t ready.  She couldn’t handle this.  Five minutes ago, she could have sworn that she could handle anything life threw at her, but now, she felt the first crack form in the strength she thought she possessed.  This had to be a nightmare.  ‘Wake up, wake up, wake up,’ she mentally screamed at herself.

Maya felt her throat run dry as she read the letter.  How was this even possible?  “Riley?”

The slight tremble in Maya’s voice told Riley that she hadn’t misread anything and this wasn’t some nightmare that she could just wake up from.  This was real.  Riley slowly looked up at Maya.

Maya was taken aback by the sight of her best friend perched in the bay window.  The girl who, not even five minutes ago, seemed to be ready to take on the world suddenly looked like a lost little girl.  It had been years since she had seen Riley look like that.  She had hoped—and honestly had grown to expect—to never have to see that look of pure terror on her best friend’s face again.  “They wouldn’t actually…let him out though…not after what he…this is just some formality, right?”

Riley took a deep breath. Then, she slowly took another.  “I thought that this wasn’t even going to be a possibility.  I thought it was ten years.  I don’t even think they mentioned it when they sentenced him…especially after only serving three years.”  She felt her stomach churn.  She knew that eventually she would have to face a world in which he was back out there somewhere, but she wasn’t prepared for it to happen this soon.

Maya scanned the letter once more.  “July 7th.”

Riley stared down at her hands for a long moment before she finally shook her head.  “I’m not going.”

Maya slowly sat the letter down on Riley’s bed.  “Riley, I think that you should go.  I know it’s going to be hard for you, but I mean, if there’s a chance that they could release him, you need to be there to remind them what he did to you that night.  I’ll go with you if you want me to.”

She glanced at Maya.  “I can write a victim’s statement and give it to them.  I don’t have to…I don’t want to be there.”  Her eyes fell to the ground.  “I want to go to Texas.”

Maya furrowed her eyebrows.  “Riley, we have all summer to go to—“

“Maya, I don’t want to go, ok?”  She wrapped her arms around herself.  “I don’t want to see him again. I don’t want to have to relive that…it’s in the past.  It happened three and a half years ago, and I’m…all I want to do is move on.  I have moved on.”  She saw him once after the trial, and even then, it was because she felt like she had no other choice at the time.  She wanted her life back, and she thought that by confronting him, she would be able to put him exactly where he belonged—in the past.  She didn’t want to relive that chapter of her life again.  She didn’t want to ever have to see him again.  She knew that even though she had finally found a sense of normalcy, she was still petrified of the idea of seeing her ex-boyfriend again.

“You’re falling apart at the idea of him getting out, Riley.  That’s a perfectly normal feeling.  You’re the strongest person I know.  You’ve not only survived what happened, but you’ve found happiness.  You’ve learned to live again.  While that’s incredible, I think you need to know that what happened has affected who you are today, and as much as it sucks, this is something you can’t completely move on from…no matter how much you want to.”  She sat down next to the brunette.  “I know that if it were me, I wouldn’t be able to.”

“Well, I have,” she answered adamantly.  “He’s…He’s the reason I have so many awful memories of high school.  He’s not going to take anything else away from me.  He’s not going to get out.”  She looked at the letter on her bed.  “This is just some stupid formality.  I’m not going to let it ruin my summer.”

“Riley, I know you miss Lucas, but—“

Riley’s head snapped up as she glared at Maya.  “It has nothing to do with Lucas.”

“You know he’s going to tell you the same thing.  He’s not going to let you fly across the country to see him when you could be here, ensuring that Charlie stays locked up.”

Riley was quiet for a long moment.  Maya was right.  The moment Lucas found out about Charlie’s parole hearing, he would insist that she stay in the city.  He might even fly back to go to the hearing with her.  Riley’s stomach lurched at the thought.  “Yeah, I know that,” she answered evenly.  “It’s one reason why he doesn’t need to know about it.”

“Riley, he has to know.”  Had she completely lost her mind?  Of course Lucas had to know about this.  He was there that night.  Maybe if he knew, he could fly back and they could all go to the hearing to support her?  Texas would still be there in a few weeks.  This was more important.  Why couldn’t she see that?

“Know what exactly? That Charlie has a parole hearing?  It’s only going to make him worry or even get angry and it’s not…Charlie’s not worth it.”  She waited a beat.  “He’s in Texas to help Pappy Joe and to get closer to his dad.  He doesn’t need to know about something that probably won’t even become anything.”

Maya sighed.  This was insanity.  Riley had to know that she wasn’t making any sense right now.  “What if it does become a thing?  What then?”

Riley shrugged.  “I can’t…I can’t think like that right now.”  She slowly stood back up as she walked toward the laptop.  Charlie Gardner wasn’t about to disrupt the life she had built for the last two years.  Giving him even five minutes of her time was more than he deserved.  Riley took a deep breath as she began to scroll through more apartment listings.

“Riley, I don’t want you to close yourself off from everyone.  Let me help.”

Riley took a deep breath.  “Then help me find an apartment for us to move into before classes start again in August.”

“It’s not fair,” Riley softly laughed as she looked at her computer screen.  “You’re already super tan and I think I’m getting paler by the minute.”

Lucas leaned his back against the headboard as he looked at his girlfriend.  God, he missed her.  He had managed to survive a month without being able to see her whenever he wanted.  He thought he’d be used to it by now.  He thought that after three summers, he would know how much he would miss her and remember what it felt like when she wasn’t around.  He knew now that either he misremembered everything, or that being away from her was getting more and more difficult.  He found himself living for their nightly skype conversations.  Sometimes they couldn’t talk for long for one reason or another, but just being able to see her was enough for him to survive until the next day.  He smirked when he noticed that she was staring at her reflection in the camera.  “Well, when I get skin cancer and die by the time I’m 40, you can have the last laugh at my funeral.”

Riley frowned as she looked back at him.  “Please don’t say that.”

“Say what?  I was only kidding.”  He waited a beat as he studied the pensive expression on her face.  Something was wrong.  He had picked up on it a few weeks earlier.  She seemed more solemn, contemplative.  At first, he thought it was because the apartment search turned out to be more work than she thought it would be, but as the days wore on, she seemed more agitated, anxious even.  He knew that if she wanted to talk to him about it that she would, but two weeks later, and she still hadn’t said a word about it to him.  He wanted to respect her space, but truthfully, he was beginning to worry about her.  “Trust me.  You don’t want to be here working on the farm in this heat.  It’s been a pretty brutal summer so far.”

“Tell me about it,” she mumbled as she picked at her comforter.

Lucas frowned.  He couldn’t ignore her melancholy any longer.  “What’s going on?  You’ve seemed…quiet the last week or so.” ‘Try sixteen days,’ he mentally corrected himself.

Riley shrugged.  She knew that he would eventually pick up on her mood, but try as she could, she couldn’t shake the cloud that had hung over her head ever since she got that stupid letter.  He had enough on his mind.  She didn’t need to pile on, and besides, there was nothing to worry about.  She just couldn’t wait until this whole thing was over with so everything could go back to normal again.  Until then, she knew she had to handle it on her own.  “I don’t know.  Maybe I just…maybe I just miss you is all.”

“Are you sure that’s all it is,” he asked before he lifted his laptop in order to stretch his legs out in front of him.  “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

“Yeah,” she said as she mustered up enough energy to give him a small smile.  “I think I’m just frustrated with apartment searching and doing the same thing day in and day out.  I should’ve taken another class during the second session…just to give me something to do.  The days feel so long, and that’s even with going to campus every morning.”

His frown slowly faded as a smirk formed in its place.  “I love how bored you get without me there.”

She smiled playfully at him as she shook her head.  “I can feel your ego inflating.”  She sat up as she adjusted the screen.  “I just feel like I’m going stir crazy right now, you know?  I live in one of the biggest cities in the world and I feel like I’ve run out of things to keep me busy and keep my mind off of…” she trailed off when she realized that she was about to tell him the one thing she couldn’t.

“Two weeks,” he gently reminded her.  “Only two weeks to go and then you’ll be here.  And after you get back, we’ll only have a month until I’m back in the city.”

She crossed her legs as she ran her fingers through her hair.  She didn’t want to talk about the distance or what was going on with her.  She wanted an escape from all of that.  “Tell me something.”

“What do you want to know?”

She shrugged as she pulled her hair up into a bun.  “Anything.  Everything.  Tell me something that you’ve never told anyone before.”

“Hmm,” he thought about it for a long moment.  He wasn’t sure if he should tell her the first thing that came to his mind because it was something they hadn’t talked about before, but he couldn’t immediately think of anything else.  Besides, he was curious about what her opinion would be on the idea.  “I had a dream about you the other night.”

Riley raised her eyebrows.  “Oh really?  Good dream or bad dream?”

Lucas pursed his lips together.  “Well, it depends...”

She frowned.  “On what?”

“On how you feel about it.”

She narrowed her eyes.  “I’m not sure I understand.”

He took a deep breath.  He didn’t expect to get into this conversation with her tonight, but she was the one who asked him to tell her something.  “Well, it was a few years from now.  We were still together.”

“Well, that’s a good start,” she chuckled.

He looked down.  “We were more than just together,” he slowly admitted before he looked back up at the screen in front of him.  “We were…we had gotten married.”

Riley bit the inside of her cheek as she waited for him to elaborate a little more on what his dream was.  When he didn’t, she looked down at her bed.  “W-What happened?”

Lucas frowned.  He couldn’t be sure, but he could have sworn that Riley seemed uncomfortable with his admission.  What was so wrong about it?  They had talked about their relationship countless times—enough to know how they felt about one another, so what seemed so off-putting about a dream he had about them?  He cleared his throat.  “Nothing,” he tried to downplay.  “That was it, basically.”  No, not basically.  They were married.  They were happy.  They had a family.  It was everything he wanted it to be and so much more, and he wanted to tell her all about it, but the anxiousness he saw in her eyes was enough for him to refrain from revealing all the details.  They hadn’t talked about their future in any specific terms yet.  It was always understood that they wanted to be together and that they were happy with one another.  They hadn’t talked about the possibility of marriage one day.

Now that he thought about it, she seemed fairly adamant on their anniversary date that she wasn’t ready for marriage.  Yes, they were young, but what exactly did she mean by that?  Did she mean that she wasn’t ready now or that she would never be ready or that she was ready, but wasn’t sure that she saw that kind of future with him?  He swallowed as he waited her to say something, anything to lighten the mood or put him at ease.  The room felt thick, something that he hadn’t felt with her since they were in high school.  His heart dropped when she seemed to be distracted by something off screen.

“Hey Lucas, I have to go.  Maya’s here and we really need to try to figure out this whole apartment thing.”

His frown deepened.  It had to be nearly midnight in New York.  Why would Maya show up at midnight to talk about their living situation?  “Oh.  Ok.”

She gave him a small smile.  “I love you.  Can’t wait to see you soon.”

“Yeah, me too,” he returned her half smile with a slightly forced one of his own.  “I love you too.”

“Goodnight,” she said before she ended the skype call.  She looked up at the empty space between her bed and window.  Why did she lie to him?  She never lied to him, especially about something as ridiculous as Maya coming over.  She glanced at the alarm clock on her nightstand. ‘Yeah.  Maya came over at midnight to talk about the apartment.’  She groaned.  There was no way he bought that.

Riley fell back on her bed.  What was the big deal?  She must have had that dream about her, Lucas, and their children on the hill a dozen times since they got back together.  What was so catastrophic about him dreaming about something similar?

Riley reached over to her nightstand to grab the letter.  She wasn’t sure why she even opened it anymore; she already knew every word by heart.  He could get out.  He could very well be released from prison.  What then?  Was she going to sleep with one eye open for the rest of her life?  Was she going to live in constant fear that he would find her and finish the job he started three years ago?  She closed her eyes as she gripped the letter.  He had nearly ruined everything she tried to build with Lucas the first time.  He had taken up so much of her thoughts.  He was her biggest fear and she knew that he knew it.  He was the source of everything that went wrong the last year and a half of her high school career.  He wasn’t going ruin everything she had spent the last two years building.

She sat up as she reached for her laptop once more.  She had to finish writing that statement.  They had to know the fear she felt every single second she was in the cabin that awful night.  They had to know what releasing Charlie would do to her sanity, not to mention what it could do to “Lucas,” she breathed as she hesitated for a moment.  

Maya crossed her arms over her chest.  “Because I know that you haven’t been acting like yourself in the last few days.  Is it because cowboy is flying out in the morning?”

Riley sighed.  “It’s the fourth summer.  I’m…used to it now.”  If only it could be as simple as missing her boyfriend.  She wasn’t about to let Maya in on the dream she had last week.  It was nothing, and she knew it was nothing, but for some reason, she couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was about to change.  Maybe it was because it was the end of the school year and they were all going to live off campus in the fall.  Maybe it was perfectly normal to feel like this, and she would move past it once she moved back to her parents’ apartment.

“Well, you didn’t do so hot the during the first one.”

Riley frowned as she folded up the box.  “I’m not the same person I was back then.”

“That’s true.”  Maya watched Riley slide the box toward the other side of the room.  “What about last summer then?  You pouted the entire time.”

Riley lightly chuckled before she turned to Maya.  “Am I really that bad?”

Maya wrinkled her nose.  “Do you want the truth?”

After a moment of silence, Riley shook her head.  “No, I don’t.”  She bit the inside of her cheek as she opened her closet to survey her wardrobe.  “I promise I’ll be better this time.  I’m…getting used to the situation.  I can’t promise I’m always going to be happy, but I’m not going to mope around all summer.  I don’t have the time to.”

“I’m only joking.  Look Riles, I get it…well, sort of.  I understand the concept, anyway.  You wanna be with him and you can’t.  It sucks.  You’re allowed to be sad and to miss him.”

“I know.  And I know I’m going to miss him, but we have so much to do this summer, and I think going to Texas in July this year is going to be a good way to split the summer up.”

Maya groaned as she sat down on her bed.  “It’s going to be sweltering down there, isn’t it?”

“If you think New York is bad in July, you haven’t seen anything yet,” Zay informed her as he, Lucas, and Farkle walked into their room.  Zay’s eyes widened when he noticed how much stuff they had.  “Did a clothing store blow up in here?”

“Very funny,” Maya wryly responded.  “You should’ve seen it an hour ago.”

“What do you need us to do,” Lucas asked the girls as he slid his hands into the front pockets of his jeans.  He wasn’t exactly excited about the idea of moving two rooms in one day, but he knew that the girls would need help.

“Well,” Riley began as she emerged from her closet, “All of that stuff in the corner is ready to go.  We just have to finish up with these clothes.  It’s…not as bad as it looks.”

“If you say so,” Farkle chuckled.

The five of them, who at one point seemed hopelessly fractured, were now stronger than ever.  After they graduated from high school, they all agreed that the past should remain in the past, and that they all needed to learn how to move forward in order to keep one another in their lives.

It took some time, but eventually, Maya and Farkle were able to navigate their way back toward a friendship.  It was different than how they were before, but they both knew that they could never completely go back to how it used to be.  They both agreed that their friendship was something worth fighting for, so they did.  It was awkward at first, both unsure of what to say, how to act, how to even breathe around the other, but slowly, they engaged in casual conversations when the entire group hung out.  Eventually, they began to have conversations with one another outside of the group.  In the beginning, it was mostly academically related.  Maya would need help with some of her general education courses, and Farkle needed help in his Art History class.  Now, two and a half years after their horrible breakup, they had reached a new, but stronger, level of friendship.

Zay and Lucas continued to mend their previously fractured friendship.  Eventually, the years long chasm of distance and misunderstanding melted as their friendship strengthened.  Like Riley and Maya, Lucas and Zay had been roommates during their sophomore year.  They didn’t live together freshman year because they had heard horror stories about what happened when friends lived together, but after experiencing their own nightmare roommates, they were willing to risk an argument here or there as opposed to another disaster with a perfect stranger.

Opening night of “Much Ado About Nothing” was the first step for Lucas and Farkle to mend their friendship.  Lucas knew that forgiving Farkle was another step on the path to his own self-forgiveness.  He knew that Farkle was upset and angry that night, and Lucas knew that he shouldn’t have reacted the way he did.  It was all one horrible lesson that he wished he didn’t have to learn.  He knew that he was still a work-in-progress, and knew that he would continue to be.  It was a decision he made every morning to let the past stay where it belonged.  It was one reason why he decided to spend his summers in Texas with his father and grandfather.  He wanted to be happy.  He wanted to forgive.  He wanted to be free.  He knew the man he wanted to be, and he knew the path toward becoming that guy wouldn’t be easy, but it would be worth it.  Riley taught him that.  Riley had taught him a lot since the day he first laid his eyes on her.

Riley and Farkle’s friendship took a little more time to rebound.  She appreciated everything he did to bring her and Lucas back together, and it was definitely the first step they needed in order to begin to heal from that horrific night on the rooftop of her apartment building.  She knew that Farkle wasn’t in a good place at the time.  She knew that he was only lashing out, but for a long time, she could only see the pain he caused as a result.  It wasn’t entirely his fault, but he had been the springboard of it all.  As she watched Lucas and Farkle slowly forgive one another, she knew that she needed to do the same.  Farkle had done the most damage to her boyfriend.  If he was able to move past it, then she knew that she needed to as well.

Two years later, and the five of them were closer than ever.  So, the night before Lucas’s annual departure from New York, instead of a having a huge party, they all decided to just spend time together.  They went out to his favorite restaurant in the city, swung by the grocery store a block from the boys’ new apartment to grab a bunch of junk food, and decided to spend the entire night together.

“You guys definitely need to hang out here more,” Zay commented as he floated on a raft on the building’s rooftop pool.  “I’ve been to all of y’all’s places…none of y’all have a pool on your roof…until now, anyway,” he chuckled.

Maya shrugged as she dipped her feet into the water. “Sounds good to me.  I still can’t believe that you guys were able to get an apartment in this building.”  She glanced at Farkle.  “I guess it helps that you’re related to the owners of the building.”

Farkle reached for a bag of chips as he walked around the pool.  “Well, when I told them that Lucas, Zay, and I were thinking about moving into an apartment in the fall, they told me that the Walker’s were planning on moving out and the place was ours if I wanted it.  I wasn’t sure about living in the same building as my parents, but you can’t really turn down a free place to stay…especially in a building like this.”

“What are the odds that something else will open up in your building?” Riley waited a beat as she pulled her hair back into a bun.  “I’m kidding,” she added as she looked down at the water.  “There is no way Maya and I can afford to stay here.”

“If there was something available, I’m sure my parents would be able to work something out with you guys.” He paused as he opened up the bag of chips.  “You’re like family to us.”

“I appreciate that, Farkle, but I think Maya and I can figure it out.”  She glanced at the blonde.  “Right?”

“Right…as long as we can come visit whenever we want.”

“Like you have to ask,” Zay told her as he stretched his arm out for the bag of chips.  “Just imagine if we could see the stars the right now.  That would make this perfect.”

Riley glanced at Lucas who turned to look at her at the same time.  “Yeah,” she smiled as she walked toward the edge of the pool.  “It would be pretty perfect.”

“You’ll get to see them in a few months,” Lucas offered as he sat down at the edge of the pool.

“I can’t wait,” she said as she slowly dipped her toes, then her feet, and then finally her legs into the pool as she sat next to Maya.

“I can’t wait to go back to that restaurant again,” Maya commented as she ran her hands over top of the water.  “What was the name of it again?”

“Chubbie’s,” Zay told her as he tossed the bag back to Farkle.

Lucas smirked.  “Are you ready to eat some more ribs, Farkle?”

Farkle laughed.  “It’s so weird.  I’ve never liked them before, but that place…man they’re so good.”

“That’s because you can’t get real southern cooking here,” Zay reminded him.  “Am I right, Lucas?”

Lucas nodded.  “New York has a lot to offer.”  He glanced at Riley once more before he continued, “but yeah, Texas can do southern cuisine better than anywhere else.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Maya rolled her eyes.  “But I can’t get takeout from anywhere my heart desires at 4am in Texas.”

“There are a few places,” Lucas told her.

“Not nearly as many as in New York.”

Farkle sat the bag of chips down next to him.  “Lucas, are you excited to go back?”

“It’ll be good to go back…see Pappy Joe and…my dad.”  He shook his head at how weird it sounded.  Had they really come that far?  Were they really at the point in which he was looking forward to spending time with his father?  His answer surprised himself, so he wasn’t surprised to look up and see four sets of curious stares back at him.  “I guess…we’ve come a long way.”

“That’s great, man,” Zay grinned.  He knew the history between Lucas and his father better than anyone else.  He knew that it was a big step for him to admit that he was excited to see his father.  “That’s the point of all this, right?”

“One reason,” he nodded.  “In the beginning, I only went to help out Pappy Joe.”

“How is Pappy Joe,” Maya asked as she watched Riley lower herself into the water.

“He’s good,” Lucas began as he watched Riley pull the hair tie out of her hair.  He couldn’t explain it, but he had noticed that her entire mood seemed to shift the moment they began to talk about Texas.  “He’s just getting older and while he’s got some help around there, no one else really knows the land like he does.  Since I’ve spent most of my life there, I knew that I could help out a lot more than some random person who doesn’t even know where the property lines are.”

“What time does your flight leave tomorrow,” Farkle asked him.

Lucas didn’t answer him immediately as he watched Riley sink below the surface of the water.  He could tell that she didn’t want to talk about his impending departure.  He couldn’t blame her.  The last thing he wanted to do was to be reminded of the fact that he was about to spend the better part of three months without being able to see her.  “Early,” he finally answered as he watched her swim to the other side of the pool.  “It leaves at 7am.”

Lucas continued to watch her as she reached the other end of the pool.  Her head slowly rose above the surface as she stared up at the starless sky above them.  He knew her well enough to know where her mind was.  He glanced at the others who had already changed the conversation to the types of snacks they bought at the store.  He took the opportunity to stand up and walk to the other side of the pool.

As he sat down at the edge of the pool, he wasn’t sure if she knew he was now in front of her.  She seemed so enraptured by the darkness above her.  “Are you ok?”

“Yeah,” she answered distantly before she lowered her head to look at him.  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I’m not ok,” he admitted before he pushed down on either side of the ledge as he lowered himself into the water.  He reached for her hands underneath the water and gave her a small smile when she immediately interlaced her fingers with his.  “I’m really going to miss you.”

“I’m going to miss you too,” she said softly as she looked down at the water.  She knew that if anyone would pick up on her despondency, it would be him.

He watched several different emotions cross her features as she continued to stare at the water beneath them.  He quickly realized that this wasn’t just about him leaving.  Something else was bothering her.  “What is it?”

She took a deep breath.  “I just…I have a bad feeling.”

He furrowed his eyebrows.  “A bad feeling?  About what?”

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.  “The last few days have…unnerved me, I guess.  I don’t…I just have a feeling that something bad is going to happen if you leave, and I know it sounds like I’m being a brat about it, but I promise that I’m not.  I want you to spend time with your family.”

“Do you think that I’m…that I’m going to do something in Texas?”

She shook her head as she squeezed his hands.  “No.  I know…it’s not that.  I just have this feeling. I can’t describe it.  I feel like everything is about to change again…only this time, I don’t want it to.”  She swallowed as she finally looked up at him.

“What do you need me to do?  How can I help?”

‘Don’t go,’ her brain screamed at her to say.  She hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something horrible was about to happen to them.  She wasn’t sure what it was or if it was just the fact that he was going to be gone for the next three months.  She had only had one strange dream, and that’s all it was—some stupid dream.  So, why was it spilling over into the majority of her thoughts?  It was this sense of dread that had lingered beneath the surface for several days now—a feeling that had only grown the closer his departure came.  Hearing everyone talk about Texas and how he would leave in a few short hours almost knocked the wind out of her.  She had to get away for a moment, even if it was just to the other side of the pool.  “I don’t know,” she finally answered as she slowly detached her fingers from his.  She covered her face with her hands as a frustrated groan erupted from her.  Was she going insane?  This wasn’t fair to him.  He shouldn’t feel guilty for spending the summer with his family.

“Do you need me to stay a few more days?”

Riley shook her head.  She wasn’t about to be the reason why he delayed his trip.  Whatever this feeling was had to go away, and who knows, maybe it would disappear once he left.  Maybe once she got adjusted to her life without him in it, she’d feel a little more normal again.  “I love you for even offering, but I can’t ask you to do that.  It’ll…it’ll be ok.  Maybe I’m just anxious.”  She chuckled as she tried to chase her dark thoughts away.  “Maybe I’m just going to miss you a lot and I don’t know how to handle it.”

Lucas’s frown slowly morphed into a small smile.  He was going to miss her more than words could ever possibly dictate.  He snaked his arms around her waist as he slowly pulled her to him.  “I’m going to miss you, too…more than last summer…and the one before that…and the one before that.”

“You hated me the one before that,” she pointed out as she wrapped her arms around his neck.  “So it was easy not to miss me then.”

“I was angry that you ran away to see me,” he acknowledged as he looked into her eyes, “But don’t doubt for a minute that I didn’t miss you when you weren’t there.  It killed me to let you go.  And now…three summers later…I’m not sure how I’m going to go one day without you, let alone three months.”

She gave him a small smile.  “Well, we’ll have July 4th week.”

“I’m already counting the days,” he murmured before he softly kissed her.

Maya snickered at him.  “I thought drinking would loosen you up a little,” she sighed, “but you’re still dealing out these little pearls of wisdom that no one asks for.”

He shook his head as he released a soft chuckle.  “And that you’ll never listen to.”

Riley sipped her drink she listened to their banter.  Zay had disappeared behind the bar for a few minutes, which left Riley alone to witness Lucas and Maya’s playful exchange.  She wasn’t jealous, at least that’s what she told herself.  It reminded her of how they used to act around one another in middle school—before they became boyfriend and girlfriend.  Was there something more there?  Were there some unresolved feelings?  As far as Riley knew, Maya had no interest in him romantically, but did he still have feelings for her?  Maya’s observation about the type of girls Lucas seemed to be attracted to rang through Riley’s mind.  ‘This is ridiculous,’ she thought as she drank the rest of her margarita.  She wasn’t sure how much she had, but she knew it wasn’t enough.  She was still on edge around him.  As Lucas and Maya started another game, Riley stood up and quietly left the room.  ‘The whole point of this trip was to not think about this,’ she sighed as she wandered toward the bar.

“You do not look happy,” Zay told her as he poured some tequila into a glass.  “Did Lucas win again?”

“Yeah,” she gave him a half smile as she sat down.  “What are you making?”

“Just a little something for the soon to be birthday girl,” he placed the shot in front of her.

Riley looked at the glass skeptically.  “A tequila shot?”  She wanted to feel numb.  She didn’t want to black out.

He smirked.  “You look a little tired.  Figured you needed a little boost.”

She ran a hand through her hair.  Though she wasn’t technically 21 yet, she was aware of her limits when it came to alcohol.  Watching Lucas and Maya tease one another, no matter how innocent it was, definitely killed whatever buzz she thought she had.  She knew she had no claim on the Texan, and had endured far worse over the years, but seeing them together brought back a barrage of emotions she thought she had buried.  “I don’t know.  Maybe I should just go to bed, you know?  It’s almost 1am as it is and we…we have to get up in five hours.”

“Or…you could refuel a little bit, maybe eat some more of that pizza in the kitchen.”  He paused.  He could tell that there was something on her mind.  He didn’t want to see her go to bed unhappy.  “You know I’m right, Riles.  I was right about that pizza, and I’m right about this too.”

If she went to bed, she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep.  She could hear Lucas and Maya laughing in the next room.  She knew the sound would echo through her mind as she was unwillingly forced to take a stroll down middle school hell memory lane.  The two months her best friend dated Lucas were two of the longest months of her life.  Every single day she had to pretend to be happy for them, while trying to hide her real feelings from them both, and now, here she sat, desperately trying to brace herself for the possibility that it was happening all over again.  The only difference now was that her feelings for Lucas ran so much deeper than they did back then.  Maya knew about her feelings for Lucas, that was also a change from last time, but Riley knew that if something was developing between the two, she wouldn’t be the reason why they didn’t reconcile—if that was what was happening.

It was all too much for 1:00 in the morning.  She was jet lagged and in close proximity to the guy she had been emotionally running away from for seven years.  How was she going to survive the next few days?

Riley reached for the glass before she could second-guess herself.  Zay was right.  She had to drink more.  The pizza had sobered her up too much.  It allowed her the time to absorb everything that was transpiring around her.  She wanted to drown out all of the voices in her head that screamed at her that she would forever be in love with Lucas Friar.  She needed to dive back under the water and try to figure out a way to get through the next few days without completely drowning in her emotions.

She cringed as she sat the glass back down.  “Yeah.  I needed that,” she wheezed before she coughed.  Once she cleared her throat, she nudged the glass towards him.  One wouldn’t be enough.  If she was going to stay up, she needed another.  “I need more.”

“Farkle is going to kill me tomorrow,” Zay chuckled as he poured another shot.

Riley placed her hands on the counter as she watched Zay fill up the glass.  “We’re still young.  We can run off of very little sleep, right?”

“So what now,” Lucas asked the group as they lounged on the couches in the living room.  They had played half a dozen rounds of pool and bowled several games.  He figured they would all want to crash soon, but he wasn’t about to be the first person to leave.  The feeling that something was going to happen still nagged at him.  He wouldn’t feel at peace until he knew she was asleep.

Riley glanced at Zay before she tossed a piece of popcorn at him.  “I think we’re losing Babineaux,” she chuckled.

“Nah, nah,” he said as he yawned.  “I’m just resting my eyes.”

“I’m tapped out,” Maya said as she laid across from Riley.  When Riley offered her the bowl of popcorn, she took it.  As she popped a piece into her mouth, she looked up at the ceiling.  “I can’t think of any other good games we haven’t played yet.”

Riley pursed her lips as she glanced around the living room.  Finally, her eyes fell on an empty beer bottle on the coffee table.  For some strange reason, she reached for it.  As she picked at the label, she smirked as her moderately tipsy brain remembered one other game they could play.  Her eyes lifted to look at Lucas.  What were the odds that it would happen again?

Maya watched the brunette for a moment before an evil gleam crossed her eyes.  She knew exactly what was running through Riley’s mind.  She just needed a friendly push to get it started.  Farkle was asleep and Zay was almost passed out.  No one would be the wiser in case it didn’t work out.  “I’ve got it,” she grinned as she sat up.

Riley and Lucas looked at her.  “What,” Riley asked as she looked back down at the bottle.

Maya gestured to the bottle.  “A time honored classic, but,” she glanced across the suite, “with a twist.”

Riley had no idea what the blonde was getting at until she looked back up at Maya.  She merely grinned as she stared at the object in Riley’s hands.  “Spin the bottle?”  The brunette sat up.  The last thing she wanted to do was play spin the bottle.  There would only be three participants and she wasn’t about to partake in a game that could end up with her best friend kissing the guy she had feelings for.  “Maya, there are only three of us,” she tried to reason.  She glanced at Zay once more.  “Zay is completely out.”

Maya looked at him.  If everything fell as she knew it would, they wouldn’t need his help.  She only needed one spin.  Everything else would take care of itself.  It was perfect.  “We can wake him up when it’s his turn…and I’m not talking about spin the bottle.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Seven minutes in heaven…but instead of a closet,” she turned away as she looked at the darkened room at the back of the living room, “we use the hot tub.”  When she spun back around, she was met with disinterested looks from both Riley and Lucas.  She rolled her eyes as she stood up.  All they needed was a nudge.  She was certain that the Texan had feelings for Riley.  It was past time for one of them to finally make a move.  “Come on…we know we don’t have to actually do anything…but we haven’t gotten in the hot tub yet, and I don’t know…it’ll give us a chance to talk one-on-one.”  She raised her eyebrows as she waited for their answer.

Riley sighed.  “I’m not sure that this is such a good—“

Maya raised a hand to stop her.  “I’m sorry, but we are in Las Vegas and we are all adults here.  Logic left the room around 9:30 when the King of Logic went to bed.  I don’t know about you guys, but I think it would be nice to visit our teenage-hood one more time.”  When Riley and Lucas made no move to say anything, Maya frowned.  “If you’re both too scared to do it, then—“

“I’m not scared,” Riley told her as she stood up.  She knew that Maya only said that to bait her, but Riley didn’t care.  She had gotten her buzz back and if she were ever going to play this stupid game, it would be on this trip.

“Good,” Maya smiled before she faced Lucas.  She knew that she would get a much better grasp on his feelings by his willingness to play her game.  “What about you, Huckleberry?  Going to go to bed to leave me, Riley, and Zay to duke it out or are you in?”

“I haven’t backed out of anything yet,” he answered evenly.

“I’ll take that as an enthusiastic ‘yes’, then.”  Maya turned back to Riley.  “It’s your birthday.  You get the first spin.”

“Fine.”  Before she even sat the bottle down, Riley knew exactly where it would land.  She knew because it was Maya’s game and because fate, destiny, or whatever force that seemed anxious to destroy her always wanted to throw what she couldn’t have in her face.  She took a deep breath before she spun it.  Even though she knew what was about to happen, it still felt like an eternity before the bottle stopped its rotation.  When it finally did, she lifted her eyes as the bottle landed on the one person she was the most scared of being alone with.

As Lucas closed the doors behind them, he could have sworn he heard Maya laughing.  If he lived to be a hundred, he would never understand her.  He shook his head as he turned around.  He stopped dead in his tracks as he watched Riley lift her tank top over her head.  He was certain that the last time he saw her in a bathing suit was right after high school graduation.  They all had taken a trip to Texas and had gone swimming at the lake on the edge of his grandfather’s property.  He thought for sure they would reconnect on that trip, but she and Maya were attached at the hip the entire time.  

He took swig of his drink to try to steady his quaking nerves.  ‘This isn’t a big deal,’ he reminded himself as he watched her place her shirt on the bench by the hot tub.  The electric pink bikini she wore contrasted perfectly with her olive complexion.  It was taking every ounce of strength he had not to reach for her in that exact moment.  He rubbed the back of his neck as he sat his drink down on the counter on the far wall.

Riley sat her phone down on top of her shirt.  She seemed to be completely oblivious to the effect she was having on the anxious Texan.  “This shouldn’t be too bad, right?  Seven minutes in a hot tub.”

“Yeah,” he agreed as he turned around to face her once more.  He watched in wonderment as she shimmied out of her gym shorts.  ‘Stop staring.  Stop staring.  Stop being a creep.’  He knew he had to distract himself while she got situated.  

Once she was in the water, he hoped that he would be able calm his suddenly raging hormones and quiet the lustful thoughts that came charging toward him as she undressed.  He cleared his throat as he walked over to the window to pull the curtains back.  He gave himself a minute to compose himself before he spoke.  “I can’t get over this view.”

“It’s pretty incredible, isn’t it,” she responded as she slowly dipped her toes into the water.  She was still completely oblivious to the effect she had on him.  “I still can’t believe we are here and in a suite like this,” she added as she slowly sank underneath the water.  She reached for her drink, which sat at the edge of the tub.  “It all feels like a dream right now, you know?  I feel like I’m going to wake up tomorrow and be forced to walk through the freezing cold in order to get to my bio final.”

“It definitely feels like a dream,” he mumbled as his eyes lingered on the city lights below them.  He reached for the hem of his shirt before he lifted the garment over his head.

Riley tilted her head to the side as she admired the way his muscles rippled across his back as he took his t-shirt off.  It had been nearly two years since the last time she saw him without a shirt on, and her memory did not do him justice.  She knew he had been working out a lot more lately, but she hadn’t been able to notice a difference until now.  Her lips parted slightly as he turned around and tossed his shirt to the corner of the room.  She counted eight abs on his torso as he slowly sunk his toes into the water.  

She blinked several times as she quickly tried to figure out if she was openly drooling by the mere the sight of him.  ‘Great job on making it not awkward, Riley,’ she mentally chastised herself.  She cleared her throat as she sat her drink next to the tub.  She reached for her phone as she set an alarm for seven minutes.  “I thought it would be a lot like the city, you know?  Lights and traffic everywhere.”  She placed her phone on the edge of the tub before she turned to face him.

“Well,” he chuckled as his body slowly sank underneath the hot water, “it is.  Just a lot more neon than we’re used to.”

“Not to mention that the desert is right there too.  It’s crazy that you can see where the city ends and the desert begins from our room.”  She paused as she glanced out the window.  She couldn’t see that definitive line from where she sat.  She could only see the bright lights of America’s Playground.   “I wonder if you can see the stars out there.”

“I’m sure you can,” he answered as he craned his neck to look out the window.  After a moment, he turned back to her.  “I’m sure it’s like Texas.  Once you get away from the lights, you’ll be able to see the entire night sky.”

“Hmm,” she contemplated as she reached for her drink once more.  “I wonder if we can go out there one night…try to see them.  I really miss seeing the stars.”

“It’s your trip.  Whatever the birthday girl wants, the birthday girl gets,” he smiled.

‘I wish,’ she thought to herself as she sat her drink down.  After about ten seconds of excruciatingly painful silence, she pressed the home button on her phone.  This had to be almost over, right?  “Six minutes to go.”

Lucas waved his hands around under the water as he tried to think of something to say to her.  They had already made small talk.  He could ask her about Steve, but he knew he wasn’t prepared to hear the answer to that particular question.  He wasn’t hammered, but he was definitely intoxicated enough to say something he knew he would regret in the morning.  “This whole thing so ridiculous,” he finally said to her.  “The five of us have been friends forever.  I doubt anything could change between us in seven minutes that hasn’t changed in the last seven years.”

She slowly nodded as she felt a pang in her chest.  Of course he would feel that way.  Even in a romantic setting, he wouldn’t ever want anything to happen between them, and maybe he was right.  Nothing had changed between them in seven years, although she could have sworn that they came pretty close a few times.  She knew that the next six minutes would be filled with more awkward small talk and even more uncomfortable silence.  It was excruciating. “Yeah.  We’re friends.”

He reached for his jack and coke.  “Yeah,” he took a long swig as he considered his next words.  “I’m your brother, remember?”  Maybe he shouldn’t have said it, but there were only so many impulses he could control in his intoxicated state.

Riley hated that word, at least when it came to describing her relationship with the guy she sat across from.  ‘Brother’ was the exact opposite of how she felt about him.  She saw all of the others as members of her family, but not him.  It was always different with him.  

Seven years after that stupid comment, and she was forever forced to endure the label she had placed on their relationship.  “Yeah.  It would be too weird to…after so long…” she trailed off before she frowned.  She wasn’t sure if it was the heat from the tub, the alcohol in her system, or the fact that she knew she was at the end of her rope, but something Maya mentioned to her at Zay’s birthday party had been nagging the brunette for months.  Witnessing the playful interactions he had with her best friend earlier still lingered in her mind.  If they were going to talk for the next four minutes, then maybe she could at least gain a little clarity about one aspect of her predicament.  “Lucas, can I ask you something?”

He looked away from her as he sat his drink back down.  “Sure.”

Riley subconsciously licked her bottom lip as she tried to brace herself for his response.  She couldn’t believe she was about to ask him this.  She had never really asked him anything about his love life before.  It was too weird, not to mention the fact that she didn’t want to inflict any more pain than necessary on her beaten heart.  “Maya told me that…that you have a type…that the girls you date look…well, that they look like me.”  When he didn’t flinch, she continued, “I don’t see it, but…when she brought it up…it made me wonder because…because I’ve never really seen you with someone who didn’t have dark eyes and dark hair.”  As his eyes slowly looked up into hers, she took a shaky breath.  “Is there something to that?”

Lucas thought his heart had suddenly stopped beating.  Out of everything she could have possibly asked, she decided to ask about his love life?  He thought for sure that they would talk about the most basic things as they always had: school, weather, childhood memories, or food.  He had no idea where to begin or even what to tell her.  Leave it to Maya to figure out his pattern.  He didn’t even realize his affinity for brown-eyed brunettes until Zay pointed it out a year ago.  Should he confess what he thought was the reasoning behind it?  Should he reach for her, swear that it had always only been her—that he only went out with other girls because that was what she told him to do, that he was trying to respect her wishes?  Should he finally admit the feelings he had been forced to suppress for the last seven years?

Riley was beginning to regret her question as she waited for his answer.  Was Maya right?  Did he have a type?  Was he transfixed on dark haired, dark eyed girls because he was in love with someone else?  She twisted her hair tie around her wrist as she waited for him to answer.  “Is it…is it because you still have feelings for Maya or something?”

The corner of his mouth lifted into a half smile.  If she only knew.  “No,” he answered as he reached for his drink once more.  If their conversation was going to go any deeper, he would need all of the help he could get in order to calm his unstable nerves.

The brunette frowned as his answer only frustrated her more.  If that wasn’t it, then what was it?  She could tell that something was on his mind.  She was a jumble of nerves as she waited for him to elaborate.  When he didn’t, she slid the hair tie off her wrist as she pulled her hair up into a messy bun.  The ends of her hair were already wet, but she didn’t care.  The act only served as a distraction—something to do in order to keep herself from climbing out the tub and running to her room.  “Talk to me.  We’re friends, right?  You know that you can tell me anything…don’t you?”  She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the truth, but it did bother her that he seemed uncomfortable around her.  She knew it was her fault.  She had been pushing him away for a long time now, but in her inebriated state, the thought of him actually pulling away from her was unsettling.

He finished the rest of his drink as he thought about what to say.  He said nothing until he sat the glass back down and turned to face her.  “Riley, we haven’t been that close since I rode Tombstone…since you told me the truth about how you felt about me.”  He glanced around the room.  “I mean…you didn’t even think to invite me to this…and I’m pretty sure you never would have if the guys didn’t mention it.”  Maybe it was harsh, but if she wanted him to be honest with her, then this was the only place to start.

“Yes, I would have,” she frowned as she considered her own words.  Would she have invited him if he hadn’t overheard the guys talking about it?  All she wanted was to get away.  She wanted to not think about anything for a few days, and she knew that if he came, he would invade most of her thoughts.  She sighed.  “It’s just…I…I…”

Hearing her stumble over her words pierced his heart harder than whatever she could possibly be keeping from him.  “What?”

She couldn’t do it.  “I can’t…I can’t tell you.”

“That’s my point.  We can’t talk to each other…and Riley…I hate that we can’t.”  The dam he had been able to maintain for so long finally cracked as he was forced to face the reality that they were practically strangers now.  “For a long time, I thought that we could…be close, but…I feel like the older we get, the more distant we become.  What happens after graduation?  Are we just going to go our separate ways and only see each other at high school reunions?”

Riley shook her head.  She hadn’t thought that far ahead.  “No.  Of course not.  I can’t…I can’t imagine my world without you in it.”  Despite everything, she knew she didn’t want him to disappear from her world.  At the same time, she had to figure out a way to get over him for once and for all.

“You say that, but Riley…I know nothing that’s going on with you.”  ‘Like who you’re dating or the last movie you saw or your favorite song on the radio.’  The distance that separated them was what was killing him.  He figured out years ago that he would rather be in her orbit as a friend—and watch her live her life on the sidelines—than to be completely kicked out of her solar system.  She was the damn sun and he needed whatever warmth she could provide.  He had lived in the darkness for far too long.  He needed her in order to grow, to survive—even if it was just as a friend.

She shrugged.  “What do you want to know?”  It was a dangerous question, but she was tired of hiding.  She knew it was the alcohol talking, but if he was going to ask, then the least she could do was answer.

He looked into her eyes.  “What are you thinking about right now?”

She laughed.  There was no way that he wanted to know what was rolling around in her intoxicated brain at that exact moment.  Even she couldn’t believe the memories she was recalling as they sat in the hot tub.  “The truth?”

He loved the sound of her laughter.  If this could be the first step toward a different kind of friendship between them, then he was more than willing to listen to whatever she had to say.  “Please.”

“I’m…thinking about Darby’s sixteenth birthday party.”  She waited for him to give her a confused look.  When he didn’t, she leaned back in the tub.  Already she was beginning to feel more comfortable around him.  “I’m pretty sure that was the last time we played a game like this.  You and I…ended up in the coat closet.”

“I remember,” he smiled.  “Zay’s ear was propped up against the door the whole time.”

Riley laughed.  “That’s right!  I forgot about that.  The door hit him when you opened it and he fell.”

Lucas chuckled as he glanced at the closed door.  He knew their friends were nosey and if they were awake that they would be right on the other side of the frosted glass.  He couldn’t see any silhouettes or shadows.  Maybe Maya got bored and went to bed.  Lucas was certain that Zay had finally passed out on the couch.  He was pretty much asleep when they left the living room.  “At least he learned not to be so nosey.”  His eyes lowered back to Riley.  “Why are you thinking about that?  Just because we got thrown together again?”

“For the most part.”  She should have said ‘yes’ and left it at that.  She knew that leaving her answer open like that would only invite him to ask her more specifics about why she was thinking about that party.  God, the alcohol must have finally taken control of her of sensibility.  Either that or seven years of repression were the most she could possibly endure.  

He raised a curious eyebrow at her.  “For the most part?”

As their eyes locked, she felt the wall between them come tumbling down.  “Do you ever…I don’t know…wonder…what might have happened if we had…you know…kissed…in that closet?”  ‘Wait,’ her brain suddenly panicked, ‘did I actually say that out loud?  Stupid tequila.  Stupid, stupid tequila.’

It felt like her eyes burned right through him as they stared at one another.  Was he so transparent?  How was she capable of seeing right through him?  He could hear his heart pulsate in his ears.  “I have,” he finally answered.  “You?”

“Yeah…but…you know…I think about your track record and,” she shrugged, “I don’t know.”

“My track record?”  What did his dating record have to do with something that could have happened in a closet when they were sophomores in high school?

“You know that you date around.”

“So do you.”  He still wasn’t sure what their dating lives had to do with it.

“I do,” she agreed.  “But I don’t…I don’t get into all of these two month long relationships.”  She paused.  “Honestly, I feel like this is the first time you’ve been single since that birthday party.”

He looked at her for a long moment.  What was running through her mind right now?  “What are you trying to say?”

She shrugged.  “I don’t even know.”  She laughed.  “Maybe the alcohol is getting to me.”  She should leave well enough alone.  They only had a few more minutes left.  She should just be quiet until her alarm went off, but that wasn’t what she wanted.  She wasn’t sure if she would ever get a chance like this again.  She had been drinking.  He had been drinking.  They were technically supposed to be playing ‘seven minutes in heaven’.  Maybe they could—she smirked at the thought.  “This could be the last time, though…you know.”

“Last time?”  He wasn’t sure where their communication had broken down.  They were having a pretty good conversation before Riley brought up Darby’s party.  Now, he wasn’t sure what she was saying.  

“Who knows?  Maybe you’ll meet Miss Right tomorrow.  Maybe we won’t be forced into a hot tub for seven minutes in heaven again.”  She paused as her heart raced.  She knew she had to be drunk.  She had never been this bold in her entire life.  Was she actually suggesting this?  “It’s not a big deal right,” she reasoned.  ‘Wrong,’ the tiny part of her brain that remained sobered screamed at her.  She shrugged.  “Even Maya and I have kissed on a dare before.”  Was she trying to downplay it to convince him that it wasn’t a big deal or was she trying to downplay it to convince herself that it wasn’t a big deal?  “We’re not thirteen years old anymore, Lucas.  A kiss between friends is not life and death.” ‘Or is it?’  

His heart skipped a beat as he listened to her.  He had to make sure that he had heard her correctly.  Was she actually suggesting that they finish what they never started in that coat closet five years ago?  “You want to actually play seven minutes in heaven?”

“I never have before.  Not really, anyway.”  As she waited for his answer, she determined that this didn’t have to be some earth shattering moment.  It would just be a drunken moment between two friends who were in Las Vegas to have a good time—or so she convinced herself.  “I’m about to turn 21.  I’m in Las Vegas.  Why not do something I’ve never done before with someone I trust?”  When he still said nothing, she began to back peddle.  Clearly it was too much—too weird for him.  This was what she was afraid of.  She knew she would do or say something stupid to him.  She only wished that she could have caught herself before she opened up her drunken mouth.  “It’s pretty stupid, right?”

He knew that it was a bad idea.  He knew that they shouldn’t do it.  He knew that he should stay exactly where he was—at the other end of the hot tub.  He knew that he shouldn’t close the space in between them.  He knew that he shouldn’t brush away the tiny wisp of hair that had fallen across her eyes.  He knew that he shouldn’t give into the beginning of a fantasy he had imagined for so long.

But, he had to.  He had to know if this moment was real.  He had to know if everything he was feeling was one sided.  He had to know if she really did see him as a brother.  They didn’t get their chance in Darby’s closet five years ago.  He wasn’t about to make the first move on her back then, especially with the entire sophomore class on the other side of the door.  This felt different.  She was asking him to kiss her.  She was asking him to play this game with her, and even though she said it wasn’t that big of a deal, deep down, he knew that everything between them was about to change.

Good or bad, he knew that something had to give.  He couldn’t remain in purgatory for the rest of his life.

Her eyes slowly lifted to meet his as he closed the space between them.  Neither said a word as he tucked those few loose strands of hair behind her ear.  He swallowed as his fingertips lightly brushed against her cheek.  He wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating or not, but he could have sworn that she leaned into his touch as his fingertips grazed her jaw.  He paused as he wordlessly offered her a way out of this.  When she didn’t make any move to back away from him, his heart pounded even faster.  This was real.  He was mere inches from tasting heaven right on earth.  He knew he had to act before he could talk himself out of it.  As he lowered his head and closed his eyes, he knew that he was about to finally give into the one impulse he had suppressed for seven years.

As Riley’s eyes fluttered closed, she couldn’t help but to feel that it was all happening in slow motion.  The anticipation was almost paralyzing as she waited to feel his lips brush against hers.  She held her breath as his nose lightly grazed her cheek.  This was it.  Her heart thundered even harder as his lips finally met hers.

Eight years after their first kiss, they finally had their second, which was quickly followed by their third and fourth.  Half drunk and more in love than ever, she wrapped her arms around his neck as their lips refused to leave one another.

Lucas gripped the edge of the hot tub with one hand while his other arm wrapped around her waist.  This had to be a dream.  He knew that at any second he would wake up alone in his dorm room—haunted by the knowledge that this moment could only ever exist in his own bittersweet fantasy.  There was no way that, after all this time, God would smile down on him and bless him with a glimpse into paradise.

He braced himself as he waited to be thrown out this beautiful utopia.  He expected to be transported back to New York—back to the loneliness he had felt ever since the horrific moment she told him how she really felt when they were in the 8th grade—but that moment never came.  As soon as she opened her mouth against his, he released a quiet moan.  He felt completely drunk in that moment, but it wasn’t because of the alcohol.  It was because he knew that when you dream about something for so long and you finally get it, everything around you becomes surreal.  Dream or not, he wanted to savor every precious millisecond of this moment.  As her tongue slowly entered his mouth, he pulled her closer while her fingers slowly danced down the length of his arms.  He thought for sure she was about to pull away, to confirm that he was nothing more than a big brother to her, but when her hands finally landed on his hips, she nudged him closer to her.

Encouraged by her gesture, his hesitancy melted away as he deepened their kiss.  Fear disappeared into a sense of passion that he had never felt with anyone else before.  He guided them backward, toward the edge of the hot tub, as his tongue explored the sweet taste of her mouth.  

When the back of her legs hit the seat in the corner of the tub, she sat down at the edge as she wrapped her legs around his torso.  Eight years since that first little taste, that first little jolt between their lips, and now, she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to go back to the life she knew before this moment.  This was unlike every other kiss she had ever experienced.  Even though they were in a hot tub, she could feel goose bumps rise up all over her body.  It was as if the logical part of her mind had detached itself from her body as she allowed herself a few precious moments to give into everything she had wanted for so long.

As soon as she wrapped her legs around him, he knew this had to be some drunken delusion.  Reality had never been this kind to him.  He shuddered when she ran her fingers across his chest.  Whatever was building between them was nothing short of electric.  They were nothing short of perfection.  This moment and everything that surrounded them was beyond perfect.  Her lips were the gateway to a world he had long since desired to reside in.

When he wrapped his other arm around her, completely enveloping her in his arms, Riley knew she had left Earth.  Her soul now dwelled in a place that didn’t have any understanding of the concept of time or reality.  She had dreamt of being in his arms for as long as she had known him, and here she was, perfectly safe from the harsh realities of the world that surrounded them.  They were only kissing, but it felt like so much more.  It felt like a homecoming.  It felt like years of misunderstanding were beginning to melt away.  It felt like the beginning of something new.

Riley’s phone lit up as her alarm echoed throughout the otherwise silent room.  She could feel herself plummeting back to earth as her phone unforgivingly reminded her that sometimes seven minutes could feel like seven seconds.  ‘Seven minutes in heaven.  More like six minutes of talking and one minute in heaven,’ she thought bitterly as she reluctantly pulled away from him.  She took a deep breath as she reached for the shrieking device.

Lucas never heard her phone go off.  He was suspended in a reality where nothing else existed but the woman in his arms.  It was only when she nudged him back that he heard the obnoxious sound of her alarm. “It’s been seven minutes,” he questioned as he watched her turn the alarm off.  He took a deep breath as he quelled the urge to reach for her once more.  He only had a glimpse of this new world, but he knew it was exactly what he had been looking for.  

After she turned the alarm off, she looked up at him.  His face was slightly flushed and his lips were slightly parted as he tried to catch his breath.  She thought for sure that he would pull away as soon as they kissed.  She was certain that he would tell her it was way too weird, but he didn’t.  As her eyes lowered to her phone once more, she knew that it could have easily gone further had her alarm not gone off.  “Since we got in here,” she finally responded as a blush crept up on her cheeks.  ‘How far would it have gone?’  

Lucas still felt slightly disoriented as he processed her words.  That was not seven minutes.  It barely felt longer than a few seconds.  Suddenly, their entire conversation came back to him.  “But technically, most of that was spent talking.”

Riley’s heart fluttered as she looked up at him.  “What are you saying?”

He looked at her for a long minute as he carefully considered his next words.  He wasn’t sure if he was ready to put himself out there.  He wasn’t sure if she would laugh in his face or call him ridiculous, but he also knew that if he let her get out of the hot tub without at least asking, he would regret it.  They were on the verge of something, he could feel it.  She had to have felt it too.  It was too intense to only be one sided.  “You wanted to play seven minutes in heaven,” he began as he forced himself to remain where he stood, “not one minute in heaven.”  All he wanted to do was to reach for her, to feel her pressed against him once more.

She bit her bottom lip as she looked back down at her phone.  As she set a new alarm, she realized that she was definitely feeling the effects of the alcohol that coursed through her system.  She knew it because every cell in her body felt a jolt at his suggestion and she immediately knew she was not strong enough to deny herself another glimpse into a world she had quite often fantasized about.  

She sat the device down and reached for her drink.  She said nothing as she downed the rest of the contents.  She knew that this was a mistake—one that she would pay for a very long time, but she also knew that those extra minutes would be worth every second of torture she was sure to endure once it was over.

After she sat the empty glass down, she closed the space between them as her fingertips skated across the water.  Once she reached him, she wrapped her arms around his neck.  “Ok, Friar,” she smirked.  “Let’s play then.”

He didn’t hesitate.  If he did, for one moment, he would have stopped whatever it was they were doing.  He knew that he had to tell her how he felt.  He knew that they had to work out whatever feelings that may or may not exist between them, but after years of broken dreams and constant longing, his brain no longer ruled his body.  Maybe it was the alcohol, but maybe, just maybe, somewhere deep within him knew that whatever they were doing was real and, in a way, it was the most honest conversation they had ever had.

Their eight minutes in heaven rapidly turned into fifteen minutes in heaven as Lucas fumbled around to hit the snooze button on her phone after the second set of seven.  She made no move to pull away from him as he opened his eyes long enough to silence the device.  Neither said a word when he casually tossed her phone toward the corner of the room because their lips were already speaking volumes.

When her phone shrieked seven minutes later, Riley frowned against his lips.  Had seven minutes passed so quickly?  She was completely oblivious to the fact that a total of fourteen minutes had passed since she first set that alarm.  Her frown melted into a smile when he pulled her closer to him.

She knew she would pay for this for an eternity.  She knew that these precious minutes would haunt her until she was able to force him from her system, but she knew it would be worth it all.  Every caress, every kiss, every touch was the perfect movement at the perfect time.  She had never felt more alive than in those fifteen minutes.  She didn’t want it to end.  She didn’t want to be forced back into reality.  She didn’t want to sober up.  She didn’t want to feel awkward around him when it ended.  She wanted to stay exactly as they were.

As her phone continued its relentless chime, she knew that whatever this was—whatever lapse in judgment they had fallen into—was over.  Even Cinderella had to face the real world after dancing with her prince all night.

Riley slowly pulled away from him when he began to kiss along her jawline.  She wasn’t sure if it was the heat in the tub, the heat between them, or the sudden sense of self-awareness that shot through her as her alarm continued its relentless call back to reality, but she had to create some space between them.  What was happening?  Was any of this real or was it all one drunken mistake?

Once she was able to catch her breath, she turned away from him.  “I’m sure the others are probably wondering what we’re doing,” she told him as she forced herself out of the hot tub.  She reached for a towel on the bench by the tub as she quickly dried off.  She had to go to bed.  She had to get out of that room.  Simply leaving the hot tub wasn’t enough.  The temptation to return to him was too strong.  She turned her back toward him as she ran the towel down the length of her body.  She paused long enough to notice that her hands were shaking.  ‘Really, Riley?’  She tossed the damp towel to the side before she walked to the other side of the room to silence her obnoxious phone.

Lucas was slightly dumbfounded as he watched her fumble around with her phone in order to turn off her alarm.  “Did I do something wrong,” he asked as he climbed out of the tub and closed the space between them.

Riley spun around to answer him, but didn’t expect him to be so close to her.  Her brown eyes were immediately met with his green ones as he stood mere inches from her.  It would be too easy to reach for him, to dive back into the paradise she had discovered between his lips.  Her breath caught in her throat as his lips slowly turned up into a small smile.  “N-No,” she stammered.

It took every bit of self-control he had not to pull her back in his arms.  She looked frightened, but he wasn’t sure why.  Was she worried about everyone else?  “I don’t think the others care what we’re doing,” he offered.  “It is our first night here, and it’s almost 3am…so, 6am in New York.”  His eyes slowly drifted toward the door.  “I’m sure Zay is passed out on the couch where we left him, and Maya probably got bored and went to bed.  If I’m wrong and they’re both on the other side of that door, then,” he sighed as he looked back at the brunette, “I mean we’ve all had a lot to drink tonight, right?  Maybe they’ll be too drunk to remember that our seven minutes in heaven lasted a lot longer.”

‘Too drunk to remember.’  His words echoed through her slightly bewildered mind.  He was absolutely right.  They had all been drinking.  Riley knew that she would have never suggested the game in the first place if she had been sober.  Still, she had no clue how drunk he was.  He didn’t seem to be smashed, but he definitely had more to drink than the rest of them did.  Her eyes ticked over to the hot tub.  She released a bittersweet chuckle as her eyes finally lowered to the ground.  She knew exactly what this was, and she couldn’t be mad about it because it was her idea!  Lucas Friar, serial monogamist stood before her.  He was single (for the moment).  He was in Las Vegas.  They decided to stay in their first night.  This was only ever meant to be a one-time thing.  She knew she had to play it off.  She knew that she had to walk away and pretend that the last twenty-one minutes hadn’t completely spun her world off its axis.  She turned away from him as she reached for her tank top and shorts.  “Yeah…what’s the big deal, right?  We’re both drunk.  The setting was perfect and now…I can scratch something off the bucket list.”

The only thing colder than her words was the icy tone that matched it.  Lucas frowned as he took a step closer to her.  He didn’t mean that he was too drunk.  He was only trying to assure her that the others wouldn’t care what they were doing.  “Riley, that’s not what I—“

Her head snapped up to look at him.  She couldn’t listen to another word.  She was already mortified enough.  “Thanks, Lucas.  You’re a good friend.”  The right corner of her lips lifted into a small smile—one that instantly made her nauseous—before she opened the door and quickly retreated to her room.  She didn’t dare peer into the living room to see if anyone else was still awake.  She only wanted to get away from him and this awkward conversation.

Lucas pinched the bridge of his nose as he quelled the urge to let out a frustrated groan.  What the hell just happened?  Yes, they had been drinking, but it wasn’t like they were completely wasted, right?  He knew he was buzzed, but he was well aware of the decisions he had made in that hot tub.  Riley seemed fairly in control of herself as well.  If he thought for one second that she was completely smashed, he never would have agreed to her request.

He reached for a towel and wrapped it around his waist as he grabbed his shirt.  He wandered into the living room and noticed that Zay was sleeping in the same spot where they left him twenty-one minutes earlier.  Maya was nowhere in sight. ‘Good,’ he thought to himself as he made his way to his room.  ‘There will be fewer questions to have to answer in the morning.’

Riley leaned her head against the door as soon as she closed it behind her.  Even in the darkened room, she could tell that Maya was asleep in the bed on the far side of the room.  Riley closed her eyes as she quietly bumped her head against the door three times.  She couldn’t go back out there.  She was completely humiliated by everything that happened in that stupid hot tub.  Who asks someone to play ‘seven minutes in heaven’ with them just to fulfill some stupid ‘bucket list’ request?  She knew that she felt something when they kissed, and for a while, she thought that maybe he did too, but then again, maybe he didn’t.  Maybe he was right.  They all had been drinking for several hours.  Maybe it was all an illusion—a convenient hookup because they were both lonely.