Riley glanced at the ecstatic young couple walking her way and buried her head inside her locker. It was the perfect love story, the righteous,bad turned good, handsome young man falls for the gorgeous, troublesome, artistic blonde. Two polar opposites meeting together just like magnets.
"It wasn't meant to happen, it just did" Riley remembered Maya and her conversation on the famous bay window.
"If you want me to end it I'll end it right now, just tell me and I'll end it because nothing matters more to me than our friendship."
Her whole being wanted to scream 'End it!' and wail herself to death, but she knew that Lucas made her best friend happy and considering the life Maya had, she could sacrifice a crush to keep the smile on her best friend's face.
"No, I'm fine….I see Lucas as-as a brother." she spit out, immediately regretting the sentence. The words Lucas and brother tasted sour in her mouth.
"I know but...do you really mean it?" Maya asked, peeking out from her blonde locks.
Riley hesitated before nodding her head and welcoming her best friend in a warm embrace. Lucas was just a crush, she reminded herself, I can sacrifice a crush for Maya.
"Hey Riles, diggin for gold in there?" Maya asked, knocking on the locker next to Riley's, catching her attention. Riley hesitantly peeked out of the blue tinted lockers and spun around to meet Lucas and Maya face to face.
"Heyyy" she greeted awkwardly.
Hiya." Maya replied "now, did you understand the math homework gave us yesterday because I am so completely lost like why do have to-"
Riley pulled out the assignment her teacher had given them and handed it to maya.
This is why I love you." Maya spoke, giving Riley a thankful look before escaping to find a seat to copy the homework, leaving Riley to face Lucas.
"Hey." He spoke, his voice raspy. He coughed to clear it up and spoke again "Hey."
Riley's heart leaped out of her chest, she had yearned to hear his voice directed towards her once again. As of lately their only interactions had been nods and glances. Things had changed.
"Hi." Riley uttered as quickly as she could. She didn't want to continue this conversation. As much as she loved hearing him speak to her, there was nothing much she could say because every time she would try to speak, the only thing that would come to her mind was "Why not me?"
"Riles-uh Riley, I know we haven't discussed this but-"
"You like Maya. You don't like me. There's nothing to discuss, Lucas."
"But it wasn't-"
"You don't owe me any explanations, we weren't dating. It was all unofficial. Maybe it's a good thing that we werent ready at the time, maybe God was trying to tell us something."
"Like what?"
"That something better was around the corner, for you...that turned out to be Maya."
Riley held her breath. Maya was always the better one, the bad girl, the funny girl, the artistic girl, the creative girl, the interesting girl...The blonde beauty. Riley was just the pretty, happy, helpful, brunette with insecurities that she never talked about. Lucas deserved someone as interesting as him. She stared at him, wishing he could interject and speak up. She wanted him to tell her that she was just as good as Maya, that maybe-just maybe he was wrong and the girl for him was not Maya but in fact Riley. Instead, he looked down at the floor, unspoken words at the tip of his tongue. He looked like he wanted to say something but stopped himself.
"I- uh...I need to go to class, Matthews needed to speak to me.
Lucas escaped her view and left her pondering why her father would want to talk to Lucas before class.