Here is my contribution to RucasFanfictionWeek2016 for the Day 1 angst prompt - I got the first kiss and she'll get the last. Also posted over on Tumblr (frankchurchillsaysrelax). Hope you enjoy.

There are some moments you know you're going to remember forever. He had told her that once and to be honest he had always believed that they would share all of those moments together.

It's been one of those days at work where nothing seems to be happening. There is so much work to do, but no one is getting back to him so he has been forced into this state of perpetual waiting. He decides to kill some time by checking his email and quickly comes to regret it.

From: fminkus

To: maddogfriar

Subject: Just so you know

Lucas,

The notice should be getting to your apartment soon, but I felt that a prior warning would lessen the blow. I hope so anyway. Normally I would have called you but my schedule for the next few days is insane and I wanted to make sure I beat the mail.

Anyway, here it goes. Riley is engaged. She and Gen haven't set a date yet but they've sent out the invitations for an engagement party next month.

I'm sorry Lucas. I'll call you in a few days.

Farkle

Lucas stares at the screen for several moments but he can no longer see the words clearly as everything has started to blur. Engaged. He had known that they were serious, but this made it all seem so final and permanent. He and Riley haven't been together in years but it had never really felt like it was over until now. At least for him it wasn't.

They broke up before the end of their senior year. It was amicable, and Lucas had always thought of it as temporary while they were in college so they wouldn't be putting unnecessary pressure on their relationship when they went to schools on opposite sides of the country. They had dated other people casually while still maintaining their strong friendship. She was still the person he liked to talk to most in this world. She was still the first person he wanted to go to whenever something happened during his day, good or bad.

Then Riley met Genevieve in their sophomore year and quickly fell in love with the outspoken red-headed engineering student. Lucas had met her that summer and he instantly felt the jealousy that he hadn't experienced since the ski lodge and that wannabe-Sherpa Evan. Gen was smart, beautiful, passionate and caring, and she got along well with all of their friends. She treated Riley right and made her happy and Riley looked at her in a way that Lucas wasn't sure she had ever looked at him, having never seen it from an outsider's perspective.

But still, he hadn't felt threatened. He had told himself that it was still temporary. He and Riley were meant to be together. He knew that, everyone knew that (he had assumed that Riley knew it too). And now, a year out of undergrad they were getting married.

Lucas is jolted from his shock at the alert sound of a new email. This one is for work and he opens it quickly hoping to distract himself. It's from the person he's been waiting to hear back from but she says that unfortunately their system is down and she won't be able to get the records sent over until tomorrow.

He leans back in his chair and lets out a frustrated sigh. His eyes close as he starts counting to ten in his head, a technique he's been using since he was thirteen. He goes through this process three times but he still can feel the tenseness of his muscles and the blood pumping fast in his veins. He checks his phone and sees that there is technically an hour left before he can leave for the day, but as long as he wouldn't be getting any work done he sees nothing wrong in taking off a little early.

Lucas quickly packs up his things and walks swiftly to the elevators, thankfully not being stopped by any chatty co-workers. He doesn't have anywhere he has to be that night and his first class in the morning isn't until ten so he stops by the liquor store on the way home to pick up a six pack. There's a small voice in his head that has always sounded suspiciously like Riley, that tells him this isn't the answer and he promptly ignores it.

Three hours and four beers later he is sprawled across his sofa with his dog Jasper, staring pathetically at a framed photo of him and Riley that he usually keeps on his nightstand. It's a black and white photo of the two of them dancing at their senior prom; they were already broken up but had still gone together as friends. Neither of them knew their photo was being taken at the time and the moment the yearbook photographer caught was perfectly candid. Riley's head was thrown back as she laughed at something he doesn't remember saying and the look on his face was that of someone completely in love. It was a moment he never wants to forget, frozen in time and protected by glass.

He wishes he could remember what he had said that night. He remembers the sound of her laugh, can still see the bright glassiness of her eyes as she smiled and twirled around him, but he can't remember what he had said to elicit such a joyous reaction. He had always thought he would have plenty of other opportunities to make her that happy in the future.

He lays there for hours and Lucas finds himself thinking of a thousand different questions he'd like to ask her that he will never actually get the courage to ask. He wonders who asked who, if it was spontaneous or something they had been discussing for a while. He wonders if she had looked as happy as he remembers her looking when he handed her that purple jellybean.

As he starts to drift off for the night, still lying on his sofa wearing the same clothes he'd worn to work, he lets more memories from the past flood their way to the front of his mind. She was his first girlfriend, his first date, his first kiss, his first everything. She was the love of his life. He just never thought he wouldn't be hers.