I know it took me, like, a decade and a half to write this chapter, but I really wanted to get it right. And there are so many moments in Sweet Sixteen- I wanted to write all of them, but some of them (the Lucas Smackle scene, particularly) didn't work in the context of now we're patriots. Which is really unfortunate. I wrote a whole scene depicting Riley's reaction to Lucas seemingly hitting on Smackle and then had to delete it.
I hope you like this, though. I do.
Also, a shoutout to insanity_keeps_things_fun, who allowed me to consult with her.
Love,
TheHarleyQueen
"Hey baby," Lucas said when they saw each other after school started up again, "I missed you."
He kissed her softly, pulling back far too soon (in her opinion). She chased after his lips, pulling him back in for another kiss. She could feel him smiling against her mouth, and she smiled back. When she pulled away, she pressed her forehead against his.
"I missed you too," she whispered. This was the part of her relationship with Lucas that she loved. She loved when it was them, together, and they were happy. She loved not thinking about their problems.
"I have something for you," Lucas was smiling as he brought out a small jewellery box and presented it to her. It had one of the store-bought bows hastily placed on top.
"I'm sorry I wasn't here for Christmas," he said, rubbing the back of his neck guiltily.
"I already forgave you," she reminded him, nudging his shoulder with her own, even as she pulled off the lid. It was cute, a long chain with a dragonfly at the end. When she put it on, the dragonfly lay solidly against her breastbone, and she put her hand on it, running her fingers over the quartz, "It's beautiful, Lucas."
There was a moment of comfortable silence, "Oh!" she exclaimed, rummaging in her bag, "I have something for you too!" She pulled a thin envelope from her bag. Lucas raised his eyebrows, but she just told him to open it.
Inside was an oak leaf, trapped in a thin layer of resin.
"It's us," she told him, smiling, "Remember? From the ski lodge?" Lucas nodded at her, smiling, and he pulled her in for another kiss.
"Alright, break it up, lovebirds," Maya's voice echoed down the hall, and everyone turned to stare at them. Riley blushed bright pink but stayed where she was, laying her head on Lucas's chest.
Maya ran down the hall towards them, skidding to a halt inches from where they stood.
"So how was Christmas in your home on the plains, Huckleberry?" she asked, trying to achieve a Texan drawl but just sounding like a cartoon character.
"Not bad, Pancake," he shot back, handing her another box. Maya opened it- to reveal a blue quartz crystal on a chain. Riley's smile froze in place, for a second. But you're being ridiculous, Riley. Jewellery is a normal gift for girls. This means nothing.
Lucas and Maya are in the past, you and Lucas are in the present. And it's not going to be the future for a long time. Focus on the present.
"In every life, there are landmarks," her dad started the lesson, "What are the historical markers of our lives? Most important first."
"Arbor Day," Maya chimed from behind her.
"Cookie day" Zay called from the back of the class.
"No!" Her dad shouted, grin on his face anyway- "Farkle?"
"Birth."
"We'll go with that- because it's not what you said," he jabbed at Maya, who beamed at him anyway.
"So, if birth is the most important landmark in our lives, what does that mean? What comes after birth?"
"I win the Nobel Prize," Smackle interjects, and Riley loves this, this comfortable familiarity that comes with knowing exactly where everyone stands, what everyone is meant to be.
"Smackle, we just got born," her dad chastens, laughing.
"I'll wait," she shrugs.
"Our first birthday," that was Lucas, and she smiled at him fondly.
"So, then, we celebrate our birth every year. What's next?"
"First steps, first words," Zay listed off in quick succession, "The first day of school."
"The day I met Riley and Maya and Smackle and Lucas and Zay," Farkle said, and she beamed from her seat. Farkle had always loved school, loved learning, but he loved them more.
"So, we get born, we learn to walk and talk. We meet our friends. And then what?" her dad asks, and Riley doesn't like where this is going anymore.
"Then we grow up and we're not so little anymore," Lucas says, smiling at her. And Riley understands- being not-so-little is what brought them together
"Then we have our various coming-of-age ceremonies," Farkle says, always the one to know the answer.
"Right. And after that?"
"College," Riley half-whispers, "And we all go away."
"Riley seems to have an instinct to accelerate the clock. After all, there's still a couple of years before that. Why is that, do you think?"
"Because I agree with Zay- we are all growing up very fast," Riley's hand goes to cover the back of her neck. She doesn't like thinking about this, and she wants to stop, but she can't, and now it's all she can think about.
"Okay, so there it is, freshmen. You're all going to be sixteen and seventeen next year. You're going to thinking about where to go to college-"
"Boston University," Smackle chimes, and Riley doesn't miss the way Farkle's eyes widen in surprise, and then fear, and then something else, and how he flips around to stare at his girlfriend.
"Okay, so Smackle has her life worked out," her dad jokes, and then his face becomes more serious, "What about the rest of you? Are you better off letting life surprise you?"
"Happy Sweet Sixteen, everybody. Your assignment is to tell me what's going to happen next."
So, naturally, just when she'd decided to focus on the now, her dad handed out a worksheet titled- no joke- Focus on the Future. Riley's life ran on irony and hot chocolate.
The assignment was hard, and not because it had no parameters (Riley was used to that). The problem was Riley. She didn't know what she wanted to study (only where- New York). Even though they were only freshmen, all of her friends seemed to be on the right track to carve out real lives for themselves. Lucas was going to be a veterinarian, and Maya wanted to go to art school. Farkle's path was headed towards Princeton, like his father before him, to a double major in engineering and business. Smackle was going to Boston to study neuroscience.
And Zay- well, Riley wasn't entirely sure about Zay. He had a lot of plans. Sometimes, he'd say he wanted to go back to Texas after graduation, to run the family ranch. Other times, he claimed he'd study business, or law ("a solid career" he'd say when teachers were in earshot). He'd also talk about Julliard, or Tisch sometimes, talk about ballet, but then he'd back down again, saying that those were dreams, not viable career goals.
Riley, well, she had liked many things but had no plans for any of them. She loved space, loved Pluto and Mars and Opportunity and Curiosity and Spirit. At the same time, she loved taking pictures, showing other people what she saw. And she loved clothes (her liberty dress had been her favourite art project of all time).
She and her friends were all set to go in different directions, far too soon, and this project made Riley want to curl into a ball and cry.
She didn't.
She didn't have time to cry, didn't have time to worry about what the future held, because she barely had time to hold herself together now.
She sat with Zay at lunch. Everyone else was talking enthusiastically about the assignment, but they were quiet. They didn't have plans, they were the odd ones out.
So she leaned against his shoulder, and held Lucas's hand, and didn't think about not seeing Maya every day, didn't think about how school friendships splintered and cracked when people didn't see each other every day.
And at Topanga's that evening, when everyone was sitting around with coffee and exam pads, pens at the ready and nothing to write, Riley tried to puzzle through the assignment out loud.
"Okay, let's pretend that we've finished our sophomore year, and we're juniors now. What's changed?" She looked around at her circle of friends, the people she loved so much, and she was scared. She can't picture a future where they're not all sitting in Topanga's together. She can't picture a future beyond high school.
"I don't understand what can be calculated by projecting the future," Farkle said, and Riley agrees, not because it's unscientific, but because she can't understand how she's supposed to create a future yet.
"Are you and Maya still best friends?" Lucas asked, and Riley knew the answer to that, without question. It's Maya. Without Maya, she's not interesting, she's only half a person. Maya is everything to her.
"Absolutely." "Of course."
That Maya was as confident in them as she was gave Riley hope, and made her feel a little less like she was on the edge because even if she couldn't picture anyone else around her, in the future she always had Maya at her side.
"Are you and I still together?" He asked, and Riley hesitated for a second, this morning and Texas and the SAGA committee incident running through her head.
"...I hope so."
Farkle and Smackle's unanimous reaction scared her, especially when Smackle started talking about her relationship because she could see from Farkle's face that somethingwas about to go wrong.
"Riley's confidence in her relationship with Maya is far stronger than her confidence in her relationship with Lucas-"
"What can we take from this?" Farkle broke in, trying to save her, and she loved him for it, but- "I end up with Lucas."
Riley was the only person who saw how Farkle's face crumpled, eyes wide and mournful; the way he snapped "Isadora!" (it's not a joke, it's not cute, Farkle's hurt, and Riley doesn't know how to comfort him without drawing attention to it).
"Oh, like yelling at me is going to stop the course of destiny," Riley doesn't think Smackle means it, knows she actually likes Farkle very much, but Riley wonders how no one else is seeing how sad he is.
"Are you not confident in us?" Lucas asks her, and she's on the spot, and she can't think, and so she says exactly what she means, without rewording or rephrasing.
"No."
She sees the muscles in Lucas's throat working as he swallows, and her hand goes to the necklace he gave her. She's left with her mouth open, and she can't breathe, doesn't know what to say, and there's tears welling up behind her eyes and she can't breathe - she knows what's happening, and she can see that Farkle knows what's happening, but neither of them know how to stop it.
"Then why are we together?" Lucas snapped at her.
Riley crossed her arms in front of her body and she felt her shoulders hunch over.
"Because I like you, Lucas. And you like me. We're fifteen, I thought that was good enough."
"Yeah, for now. But if we don't have hope for more, then what does it matter. You're saying you expect us to break up, Riley. So why should we bother with dating until then?"
Lucas's cheeks were flushed and he looked like he was going to say something more, but Riley couldn't let him.
"Lucas, let's take this outside," she hissed, gesturing with her head to the coffee shop patrons that were staring at them curiously ( my teenage drama isn't for your amusement ). The tears she couldn't were choking her, pressure against her throat as she led her boyfriend out to the courtyard.
"Lucas, I like you. And I want to be with you next year this time. But I just… I don't know. There's nothing that could tear me and Maya apart, but you and me? What if you decide you like someone else better?"
"What if you do?" He shot back, and Riley took a half-step backwards.
"I wouldn't."
"You might. What about those girls from your group? Or Charlie Gardner. Or- fuck, Riley, what about Farkle?"
Riley was shaking her head now, eyes fixed on a spot above Lucas's head as she swallowed her tears.
"I can't believe you, Lucas." She couldn't hold back the tears anymore, and her body was trembling, and she didn't want to win their fight using tears, she didn't want to win their fight, she didn't want to fight.
" Shit," she heard him swear, and she looked up but couldn't see anything through the tears, and then she could feel her face in the crook of his neck, his body pressed against hers.
" C'mon, Riles, " he was whispering, and she wanted to snap don't call me Riles, but she didn't, she just leaned into him and let him whisper into her hair, instead of telling him to stop touching her and that they were fighting.
Eventually, when she managed to stop crying for long enough to take a full breath, Lucas pressed a kiss to her forehead and then to her lips. He pulled back and wiped the tears from under her eyes, and smiled at her.
"I'm sorry for fighting, baby. I'm sorry. C'mon, let's get you home."
She sees Farkle through the window as Lucas leads her away. His face is in his hands and his fingers are woven through his hair.
She was lying in bed, curled up under the covers with her phone pressed to her ear when Farkle told her what had happened after she and Lucas had left. How they'd sat around exchanging awkward glances in silence, before Smackle had brought up Boston, and he'd responded with his dad's plans for Princeton.
"But she's serious, Riley, and I think we're going to break up. Not, like, before we go off to college, but soon-" he breaks off, and there's rustling through the phone, and Riley thinks she hears him sniff.
Farkle doesn't cry, not in front of them. Riley knows that. She's seen him cry maybe three times, in all the years she's known him. He cried when he was eight, and broke his wrist trying to climb out of a tree. He cried the first time neither of his parents was home for his birthday. And he cried when he was twelve, and being bullied. And he was crying now, even though he was trying to hide it. She could hear his shaky breath through the receiver, and the soft noises of his sobs.
She stood up and walked over to the Bay Window. It was the place where all of her most important decisions were made. Where all the most important moments of her life took place. It was only fair that she allowed the most important moments of his life to take place there as well.
"Oh, Farkle," she sighed, feeling tears clogging up her throat again. She wanted to cry with him, she wanted to cry for him. She pressed her forehead against the cool pane of the window, and let him cry. What else was there to do?
Riley hated this project. She hated what it had done to their friend group. She wanted everything to freeze, while they were all still in New York and safe and friends and maybe more, wanted to go back to when Farkle wasn't hurting and Smackle wasn't setting off to Boston in a year.
"Okay Juniors, how are your lives going, what's next for you? Smarckle."
"Well, I've applied early-decision to princeton, and I'm pretty certain I'm going to get in," Farkle started.
"And I've been accepted to Harvard on the Restrictive Early Action programme." Smackle wanted to be a neurosurgeon, and Harvard had the best neuroscience school in the world.
"Are Farkle and Smackle still together next year this time?" Her dad asked, a soft smile on his face. Riley wanted to shake her head at him, to make him stop , because she knew what the resolution was, the only option that Farkle and Smackle would take, and it wasn't something she wanted to hear.
"We aren't together now," Farkle told her dad, and Riley very carefully did not make eye contact with Smackle, very carefully Did Not think about New Years.
"Oh."
The class was silent for a moment, an awkward tension splitting the air.
"It makes sense," Smackle told her them, "Farkle and I will still be friends. We tried to forge romantic ties and they didn't work. We are still similar people. But we have different ambitions, and those romantic ties weren't strong enough to hold us together in spite of that."
Farkle was nodding next to her, and Riley could see that, even though they were both upset over their breakup, they both believed they were doing the right thing.
They sat down silently, and she and Maya took their place.
"We looked at all of the landmarks of our lives, and we found the all have one thing in common. They put us in a world full of people," Riley began.
"And all we have a choice about is the people we want to keep in our lives," Maya continued, smiling at her. Riley took her hand. She and Maya were forever, and were maybe (probably, hopefully, not) longer than her and Lucas.
"I don't want us to go anywhere. I want us to stay still-" she said, "Especially us, Lucas. I want us to stay still, for now, and maybe one day move forward. And maybe I'm not confident in us, just yet, but I have hope that i will be." She smiled at him, warm and hopeful, and felt something burn in her chest when he smiled back.
"Life loves us," Riley told the class ( told Lucas, told Maya, told Farkle, told herself ).
"Hope isn't for suckers after all."
As soon as she left the class, Lucas spun her around and caught her in a kiss. She melted into it, into him. For once, she felt like all was forgiven, like they were completely good.
"Hey baby," Lucas whispered against the shell of her ear.
She pressed their foreheads together and smiled. Life loved them.