Here's chapter 2! It tells the story of what happened during Riley's yearbook day at the end of her junior year in high school. Even though this one is short, I still hope you'll like it! :)
Chapter 2: Call Me Maybe . . . Not!
Riley could feel everyone's eyes on them. She and her high school friend, Sarah, had been arguing in the middle of the school's main lobby, going back and forth about how Riley should "grow a pair" and ask Lucas Friar to sign her yearbook.
"Come on, Riley," Sarah prodded once again. "It's not that hard."
"Of course, it's not hard for you," Riley argued. "You don't have years' worth of feelings for the guy. You can easily walk up to him and not feel awkward or intimidated at all."
Sarah sighed, running her fingers through her brown hair.
"You know what? Let's just go home. I got everybody I wanted anyway," Riley said as she began to make her way toward the exit doors.
Sarah grabbed Riley's arm, snatching Riley's yearbook in the process. "We are not going to leave the school until you get everybody you wanted," Sarah insisted. Then, she softened, her voice lowering as she took Riley off to the side, away from everyone's questioning glances. "Look, Riley, I'm sorry if I sound too pushy, but . . . you've liked this guy for the longest time. Don't you think it's time that you start having conversations with him?"
Riley pursed her lips together. "I've been liking him from afar for three years now and nothing bad has happened since. I really appreciate you for trying, Sarah, but I think I'll stick with my original plan to stay silent." She went for her yearbook again, but Sarah was too fast for Riley.
"I'll only give you your yearbook back when you decide that you're going to ask Lucas to sign your yearbook—no going backs," Sarah challenged with a raise of her brow.
Sarah and Riley had been friends since ninth grade, around the same time Riley began harboring feelings for Lucas, and not once did Sarah ever see her friend look at anyone else. Sophomore year came around and Sarah saw no indication that Riley was going to change her mind anytime soon. Before they knew it, they were juniors in high school and Riley's affections still belonged to one person. Now that their junior year was over and senior year was just a summer vacation away, Sarah believed that it was time for Riley to make her move. Her friend was way past overdue, and Sarah couldn't bear the thought of Riley holding back her feelings for yet another year. She had to convince Riley to act fast if she wanted to end up with the guy she had her eyes on for the longest time.
"He's right there, Riley," Sarah said, nudging her head in the direction of the auditorium where Lucas and his friends sat on the stairs by the entrance doors. "All you have to do is to walk up to him and ask."
Riley exhaled loudly, eyes gazing longingly at a certain blond. His head tilted back as he laughed at something that one of his best friends, Zay, must've said. She knew that there was nothing that could make him laugh like that other than his best friend.
"He's surrounded by his bodyguards," Riley pointed out, almost whining. "Sarah, I can't walk up there and ask him to sign my yearbook. His friends would all be watching us—watching me."
Sarah shook her head. "No, they won't. I promise. I mean, I don't know all of them personally, but they all seem like a bunch of nice people."
"Can you at least come with me?" Riley pleaded. She could feel herself starting to cave in, piece by piece; she just needed to hear a few more words of encouragement from her friend.
Just as Sarah was about to voice out her response, another one of their friends called their names. Bridget's yearbook was clutched to her chest and she was smiling wide as she made her way over to her two friends.
"Hey, guys," Bridget greeted. "I just talked to some of our friends and we all thought that it'd be fun to grab lunch together after this. Are you guys free or do you both have something else planned?"
Sarah stole a quick glance at Riley before she turned back to Bridget. "As far as I know, Riley and I are free, but we might be coming to lunch a little late today," she stated. "Riley still has something to do before we could leave."
Bridget turned to Riley. "Oh, what is it?" she questioned.
Riley chuckled, waving her hand dismissively. "It's . . . I have a friend that I still need to ask to sign my yearbook and I can't find her anywhere."
"Correction," Sarah declared, "Riley's 'friend' is a he and she knows exactly where he is."
Bridget's eyes widened and her smile broadened. "Is it Lucas Friar?" she interrogated, then gasped. "Are you finally going to talk to him?"
Despite the question being directed to Riley, Sarah was the one who answered. "Yes, she is," she said, turning her head to face her friend. "Right, Riley?"
Riley opened her mouth to respond, but she had to close it when Bridget began speaking. "Oh, you know what?" Bridget stated as she opened her yearbook to the very last page. It was already cluttered with farewell messages from all of Bridget's friends. "I actually asked Lucas to sign my yearbook and he included his phone number with his message. Don't worry, I'm not going to try anything with him—he's not even my type. I just thought this might encourage you to finally do it."
Sarah nudged Riley's arm, her eyes glinting with excitement. "See, Riley? You could even get his phone number. You could be texting each other all summer long!"
Riley bit her lip, her eyes easily finding its way to where Lucas was still sat on the stairs that led to the school's auditorium. He was hunched over as he signed one of his schoolmates' yearbook. After, he handed back the yearbook to its owner with a smile and followed his friends who were making their way inside the auditorium.
"He went inside the auditorium," Riley informed Sarah. "I can't ask him now."
"All right. Don't fret. Here's what we're going to do," Sarah began while Bridget nodded her head, as though she'd been planning with Sarah what Riley's strategy would be all this time. "We're going to walk around the school like we always did during lunchtime, and if Lucas isn't out of the auditorium by the time we return to this exact same spot, then we're calling it quits. But if Lucas is out of the auditorium, then we're going to do it. No going backs allowed, okay?"
Riley took in a deep breath, eyes closing as she exhaled. Nodding her head in agreement, she opened her eyes again and declared, "Let's do it."
Wide grins broke out on both Sarah and Bridget's faces.
"That's my girl!" Sarah cheered.
"It's about time, Riley," Bridget ventured. "Anyway, as much as I want to stick around to see all of this playing out, I still have more people to see."
After wishing Riley good luck, Bridget took off with a noticeable bounce in her steps. She was already laughing and chatting with a new group of people in a matter of seconds. It was Bridget's most striking quality: how she managed to get along with everyone effortlessly. Often times, Riley wished she had Bridget's easygoing personality. Maybe then she'd feel confident enough to befriend Lucas. Perhaps if she was like Bridget, she wouldn't be in her current situation, anxious about asking the guy she liked to sign her yearbook. She'd most likely be in a fast food place, already having lunch with her great friends, and Lucas's name and phone number would be inscribed somewhere within the pages of her yearbook.
"Our dear Bridget, ever the social butterfly. I don't know how we manage to keep her coming back to our garden when she's got all these pretty flowers littered all around her," Sarah commented with a smile and a terse shake of her head. She averted her attention back to Riley and looped an arm around hers, bringing Riley out of her daze. "Let's take a walk in the park, shall we?"
"Sarah, he's outside," Riley whispered. She stopped in her tracks, and Sarah did too.
"Okay," Sarah breathed out. She broke away from Riley and turned her entire body to face her. She clutched Riley's yearbook to her chest and said, "I'm going to give you your yearbook back and the second you have it in your hands again, there's no going back. You're going to have to do it. Do you promise me?"
Riley nodded her head. "I promise."
"All right, let's do it." Sarah handed Riley her yearbook back before she ushered her toward the auditorium. Beyond everything, the least that Sarah could do to ease her friend into such a nerve-wracking task that she encouraged her to do was to give Riley her full and unrelenting support.
Sarah didn't want to think lowly of her friend, but she partly expected that Riley would back out of their arrangement. However, by the time Riley neared Lucas, who's back was turned to them, Sarah detected no signs of her friend withdrawing. A smile broke out on her face upon realizing that, after all these years, Riley was ultimately going to go for it.
Positioning herself a few steps behind Lucas, Riley bit her lip as she sought out one last unspoken encouragement from Sarah. But her eyes quickly reverted back to Lucas when she noticed that he was beginning to walk away to follow his friends into the auditorium once again.
In one swift motion, Riley lifted her arm and gently tapped Lucas on his shoulder.
Lucas swiveled around to find the petite brunette standing in front of him. He recognized her from somewhere; he was sure he'd seen her around the choir room innumerable times before and was certain she used to be part of the Women's Choir. Riley, that was her name—if he wasn't mistaken.
"Can you sign my yearbook?" Riley bashfully asked, presenting her yearbook to Lucas.
"S-sure," Lucas stammered, though he didn't understand why he did. "Here's mine."
The two of them were silent as they exchanged yearbooks and scribbled their own messages for one another.
Sarah, who was quiet the entire time, attached herself to Riley's side and instructed repeatedly in her ear, "Write your number down. Write your number down."
With her mind as foggy as her pair of reading glasses every time she drank tea when she studied, Riley found that she was unable to process Sarah's instructions. Riley had a perfect string of words that she planned to write down on Lucas's yearbook, but the second Lucas turned around to acknowledge her, all those beautiful and colorful words vanished from her memory. All that Riley could write with her shaking hands were the ever-so-generic phrase, "Have a great summer!"
"Here you go," Riley said as she closed Lucas's yearbook and handed it back to him.
"Thanks," Lucas replied, handing Riley's yearbook back.
Riley glanced up and saw that Lucas was ogling at her while their yearbooks switched in the empty space between them. He was gazing at her with that same intense stare that he seemed to have whenever they met eyes. It had always been like that between the two of them. It was never the cliché Girl looks at Boy; Boy looks back; Girl looks away, or vice versa. For them, it was Girl looks at Boy; Boy looks back, and it was only a matter of time until either one of them would look away. On many occasions, Riley would be the first to break eye contact. But there would be times when Riley felt brave, and the only thing that could possibly break their stares was if they already passed by one another in a hallway.
And then, Lucas's thumb got stuck in Riley's yearbook. After he was finished writing, he shut her yearbook closed with his thumb still marking the page where he wrote his message for her. When Riley grasped her yearbook to reclaim it from him, she pressed the front and back hardcovers together, causing Lucas's thumb to get stuck inside.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Riley declared. She released her grip on the covers of her yearbook.
Lucas chuckled tensely. "It's okay," he replied as he pulled his thumb out of her yearbook. "Anyway, I'll see you later."
Then, Lucas was gone. He went back inside the auditorium to rejoin his group of friends.
Without waiting for Sarah, Riley dashed toward the front doors of the high school. She needed to get out of the building. She needed air desperately.
"Riley, wait!" Sarah called after her.
Riley burst out of the doors of the high school and sat on the first empty bench she spotted. The late April sun offered some warmth against the cool breeze. She clutched her yearbook tightly to her chest as she felt Sarah occupy the space next to her.
"Hey, are you okay?" Sarah asked.
Riley nodded. "Yeah, I just . . . needed some air."
A smile played upon Sarah's lips. "I can't blame you. You've liked this guy since—what? Ninth grade? I can't imagine how momentous that interaction must've felt for you. I'm proud of you, Riley. Now—let's check out what Lucas wrote you."
With a deep exhale, Riley placed the yearbook on her lap and cracked it open to the page where Lucas wrote his message. She didn't know she'd been marking the page with her thumb, the same way Lucas did earlier. Given that she and Lucas were barely anything, Riley expected the generic "Have a great summer!" message that she wrote in his yearbook. Her breath caught when she read what he wrote:
Riley! You are my 10th favorite person in the world! – Lucas F.
Riley knew she should feel ecstatic. She knew she should feel elated, with cartoon hearts for eyes. After years and years of secretly admiring Lucas from afar, she finally had the courage to initiate an interaction with him. But all that Riley could feel was disappointment.
Lucas's yearbook message lacked a phone number. Riley didn't know how much she hoped for it until she didn't get it. She figured if she had it, she might be a braver person over text message than in person. She hoped that maybe if she established a good friendship with Lucas over text, she wouldn't feel as terrified to talk to him the next time she sees him.
But Riley didn't get Lucas's number; Bridget did. She couldn't help the slight pang of jealousy that took shelter in her heart.
"Tenth favorite person in the world, huh?" Sarah ventured. "That's something."
"Yeah . . ."
Tenth favorite person in the world, Riley thought with a scoff. If Lucas only had ten favorite people in the world, that meant she was dead last. If Lucas had the last bucket of water in the world and he could only supply ten people, Riley would be the last person to get it. She knew she shouldn't feel ungrateful—she would still get water, after all, whether it'd be just a drop. And she couldn't help but wonder whether Bridget was on the list, too. Did she place higher than Riley? She bet Bridget did if she got Lucas to give her his number.
"Riley?" Sarah nudged her. "Are you sure you're okay?"
Riley closed her yearbook with a sigh. She turned to Sarah and flashed her a smile. It didn't reach her eyes. "I feel fantastic! I made it into Lucas's top ten, right? That should give me enough daydreams for the next ten years."
And there you have it! I didn't write anything else after I wrote the second chapter because college got super busy around that time.
I hope you guys liked this somehow, and thanks for reading!