"Oh Jake," Brett said, "We could have had such a damned good time together."
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly, pressing Brett against me.
Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?"
― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
She has a clear memory of a sleepover from when she was fifteen.
It was a Friday night and Maya and Riley had spent most of the school day composing a list of movies to watch. It was an understanding between the two girls that every movie had to be justified by the kind of male lead who was undeniable eye candy.
The fact that, when it came down to it, Maya could be a typical teenage girl was a closely guarded secret, though Riley was sure their tight-knit group of friends already had an idea, if her reaction to Riley's uncle was anything to go by.
"I've brought contraband," Maya announced, holding up an armful of glossy magazines as she made her way through The Bay Window, a backpack slung across her shoulders.
"My mother would never allow her progressive and feminist daughter to be corrupted by the stereotypical gender roles that are portrayed across those pages," Riley shielded her eyes with one hand while, reaching out the other to claim one that promised to find your ideal lipstick shade and reveal which European prince was your lost soulmate, all through the answering of ten simple questions.
"A National Geographic might have found its way somewhere into this pile, but you'll have to dig to see," Maya countered, dropping her bag to the floor and collapsing beside Riley onto the bed, "Does Lucas know that you're shopping for a replacement?"
"Maya!" Riley tossed a piece of popcorn at her, as she circled another answer on the European Royalty Soulmate quiz.
"I'm just saying, he's not exactly the most horrible thing to look at. I'd be most intrigued to see what trading up looks like," Maya snorted, tossing the thrown piece of popcorn into her mouth.
"Vocab word?" Riley questioned, crossing her feet at the ankles, as she tallied up her results.
"I should get extra credit for using it outside of school," Maya confirmed, rolling over onto her stomach, so that she could see the magazine, "But, be honest, you'd take the ugliest guy on here if it meant getting a title and tiara."
"How little you think of me," Riley's fake accent had the two of them doubling over in laughter, before they returned their attention to the magazine, "But James is hardly the ugliest prince on here."
"Look at those abs," Maya pointed out the picture of the prince covered in beads of water, just getting out of some blue body of water. He was running a towel through his hair and looking slightly annoyed at whatever camera was taking the picture.
"He's hardly my type, though," Riley admitted, flipping the page, "I'll bet you there's some scantily clad girl not too far away and wasn't there a picture making the rounds of him snorting cocaine at some crazy party just last month."
"Like you haven't already reformed one Bad Boy," Maya absently twirled a strand of blonde hair around her pointer finger.
"Lucas was hardly doing hard core drugs and womanizing before he came to New York," Riley countered.
"That you know about," Maya placed a hand on the page to keep Riley from flipping away from a list of the cutest fall boots to hit the market, "You sure there's not some cute cowgirl who's waiting in Texas for him to return to her?"
"I think he would have mentioned it," Riley returned drily.
"Probably," Maya conceded.
"And James doesn't have anything on Lucas's abs, anyway."
Maya's eyebrows nearly got lost in her hairline.
"Do tell more," Maya managed to keep her voice from cracking, "Better, yet, perhaps you could produce some photographic evidence."
"Maya!"
"I wasn't the one who was desperate for a baby, Riley. I was happy with what we had, you were always enough for me," Lucas spat, his hands fisting at his sides, "I watched you destroy yourself with all of the shots and the medications and the failed attempts and it killed me, not because you couldn't get pregnant, but because our marriage without a baby was never enough for you."
"Well, I'm glad we got that out of the way," Riley offered, leaving a wide berth of space between them as she headed for the door, her heels feeling far too loud as they clicked against the tile.
"Do you love him?" his voice held none of the anger from his previous statement, though, she knew, from ten years of marriage that Lucas was the most dangerous when his voice went cold.
"I'm marrying him, aren't I?" she returned, refusing to face him.
He'd know the evasion instantly. It's not the first time she'd used the tactic, it's a favorite of hers. But, when the immediate attack doesn't come, she finds herself slowly turning around to gage his reaction.
His face is blank, his eyes watching her with a level of intensity she hadn't managed to attract in close to a decade. You stop watching someone so closely when you have them, when they're a surety, instead of a possibility. It's easy to become complacent with a sure thing
"I still think about that morning in Switzerland, I dream about it," Lucas started, as though they were in the middle of an entirely different conversation, "We should have stayed. It was all so simple, then."
It didn't surprise her that they shared the same dreams; they shared so many of the same memories that were built out of more years spent together, then apart. For so much of her life she'd believed in soulmates, believed that her and Lucas were meant to be together.
Fate and destiny and free will had become all tangled up in her mind, until she wasn't sure what she really believed, anymore.
But, inevitability, that she knew.
"It wasn't one thing that ruined our marriage, Lucas. It wasn't just the infertility, or just the hours you were spending at work, or just the way I was crumbling under all of the expectations there were for us and the future. It wasn't just that I was unhappy and that I didn't see any future that included any kind of happiness. I woke up from the accident and I, finally, realized how far I'd gone from the person that you married, and I realized that there was no chance of getting that person back. And I felt like this imposter in a life that wasn't meant for me."
"I would have walked away from everything if you'd asked me to," the fact that he still would is left hanging in the air between them and the diamond of her engagement ring bites painfully into the skin of her palm, as she rolls her hand into a fist.
"Why were you the last person that Maya called?"
Her breath came in staccato pants, as she rounded the corner, music blaring in the earbuds she had perched in her ears. She had just made it through mile two and was considering another when she saw the car parked at the edge of the road.
The car, itself, was unremarkable. The man leaning against it, sunglasses perched on the top of his head, looking like he might be filming the commercial for said vehicle was.
"If I didn't know better, I would think you were stalking me," Riley commented, slowing her jog to a walk as she approached where he was standing.
He was wearing a navy colored Armani suit that made his eyes look darker in the early afternoon light. Though, the same lighting made his hair appear washed out, far blonder then what she had initially believed it to be. He wore a white dress-shirt with the first three rows of buttons strategically undone, exposing the light skin of his neck and the silver of a chain that was carefully tucked beneath the material.
Above him, the leaves were red, yellow, and orange; looking like they were already starting to contemplate a fall.
"What can I say? I'm a sucker for a political brunette with a direct line to Lucas Friar," James offered, a smile spreading across his face, "I thought I would hear something by now."
"Unfortunately, I just don't think you're my husbands' type," Riley offered, coming to a stop in front of him.
"What about his Chief of Staff? Is she his type?" James questioned and Riley couldn't quite mask her reactive flinch, "Sorry, I just meant she seems like a pretty solid wall between him and anyone that wants to see him."
"Isadora Smackle's entire life is her work and, lucky me, my husband is the dock she chose to tie her boat to," Riley shrugged it off, reaching down to pull the zipper of her jacket up her chest.
"I just wondered if you had heard anything?" James continued, his voice softening, "I'm still getting stone-walled at his office and I just wanted to know that something is being done."
"I passed the file onto Lucas directly and he promised me that he would dig deeper, but he hasn't said anything since then."
"I appreciate your help," James sighed, digging his car keys out of the front of his pocket and unlocking the car.
The first time she had met James, he had reminded her of an earlier version of her husband; one before the politics, before Washington, when Lucas had still been willing to look at her and actually see her.
Her heart was still pounding in her chest, despite the fact that she'd had plenty of time to recover from her jog.
"I used to be a journalist," Riley informed him, and he paused as he rounded the car to look back at her.
"I know, I read a really great article on bacteria and fake nails when I was looking into you."
"Some of my promising early work," Riley joked, resting her hands on her hips, "I'm not my husband, but I'll see what I can dig up, if you want?"
She met his gaze, as the intensity of their encounter radiated throughout the entire room. There were too many years, too many memories to try and contain within the space and she felt like she was drowning in the history of what they had once been.
"You know, Farkle asked me the exact same question?" Lucas's eyes never left hers.
"And, now, I'm asking you."
"She was my friend, too," Lucas reminded her, an earnestness in his voice that left no room for doubt.
"Just your friend?" she clarified, feeling her breath catch in her throat, as she couldn't quite contain the insecurities that had been running through her head.
It shouldn't matter, whatever Maya and Lucas had been to each other in the end. And if it did, it should have felt like a betrayal on Maya's part; her best friend having any kind of relationship with her ex-husband.
But it isn't Maya's feelings that she cares about in that moment.
"She was the only connection that I still had to you," he breathed, and she felt something stir in her chest and the burning of tears start to gather in her eyes.
"Lucas," she sighed, a lifetime of feelings somehow pouring into her voice.
"Riley, it's about to start," Savannah froze in the doorway, her gaze darting between where Lucas was at the sink and where Riley stood halfway to the door, "I'm sorry, I was just worried that you were sick."
"No, let's go sit down," Riley wrapped an arm around Savannah as she led her out of the room, "We're done."
Besides a series of press releases from publications for both countries and a couple of online blogs from Froacian citizens criticizing American overreach into Europe, there's nothing about the environmental impact of building a naval base along the Froacian coast.
She paused at a picture of the royal family, where James looked significantly younger; closer to the boy that she and Maya had giggled about when they were teenagers. It was a wedding photo for his older brother, who looked incredibly handsome in a military uniform.
The wedding hadn't received the same kind of attention that England's royal family managed to garner, though they were one of the last royal families that still contained a certain amount of political power among their own government.
King Sebastian's bride was a vision in a one-of-a-kind, silk, off-the-shoulder gown with a cathedral train and an even longer lace veil. The Queen Dowager wore a dress of dark black, still in mourning for a husband who had died over a decade beforehand. And, looking like a younger version of her mother, was Princess Andromeda with the same head of golden, blonde-hair and piercing blue eyes that seemed to be a staple of the entire family.
James was the only one who had an air of casualness about him, the cuffs of his shirt undone, along with the top button of his dress shirt. He wore a Burberry suit, instead of a military uniform. Although, he had served the same required two-years before becoming somewhat directionless.
And, then, he'd turned up in her country, with a newfound patriotism and desperation to prove himself.
She could hear the sound of the garage go up from the floor beneath her and she closed the laptop, setting it on the bedside table. He was coming home far outside of business hours, though that was on par for their current routine.
In her mind's eye she could already see Lucas making his way inside and stopping to read the note she had stuck to the door, letting him know that she'd left a plate of dinner for him in the microwave.
She hadn't been much of a cook in the last year, which meant he would know that she wanted something or was calling a ceasefire.
She could hear the soft pad of his feet on the stairs and she waited with anxiety heavy choking its way up her throat.
"You're still awake," he greeted her, already shrugging out of his suit jacket.
"There's dinner downstairs."
"I put it in the fridge. We ordered in food at the office," Lucas set his folded jacket on the dresser and turned to face her, "I didn't miss an anniversary?"
"No," Riley leaned back, pulling the sheet up to her chest.
"It kills me when you do this," Lucas sighed, keeping his back to her.
"Fine, I'll stop cooking," Riley felt the sting of his words and struggled not to react.
"I'm not talking about the food. You think I don't know your patterns by, now. This is the exact same strategy you've employed for the last three rounds of IVF. I tell you that I can't do this anymore and, then, you become icy and you pull away from me. You make me feel like marriage to me isn't enough and you wait, until I am so starved for any kind of civility from you that, when you start to soften, I'm willing to do anything just to feel even a little bit close to you, again. And, when I, finally, give in it's great for a couple of weeks, maybe, a month, and, then, you're so hyped up on hormones, injections, and medication that I don't know if you're coming or going. You almost died the last time and I won't do it again. I meant what I said at the hospital, we have to find normal again; we have to find us again."
"And we're going to do that when you're getting home at eleven at night?" Riley questioned, staring at the grooves in the ceiling.
"I thought you wanted space," she picked out Lucas slowly turning around in the periphery of her vision.
"I don't know what I want," Riley admitted, and Lucas crossed the room to sink down on the edge of the bed beside her.
"Maybe, when the session is over, we could go away for, awhile," Lucas suggested, his hand brushing against her side.
"Go where?" Riley turning onto her side, so that she could see him better.
"Anywhere you want," Lucas promised, leaning over to press a kiss to her lips, "I'm going to take a shower and get changed."
Riley waited until he was digging around in the dresser for a shirt and pants to wear to bed, "Did you get the chance to look into the file that I gave you?"
"About the naval base?" Lucas questioned, pulling out a short sleeve t-shirt and turning to look at her, "Alexis Wollstonecraft chaired the committee and I looked over the reports myself. It was all above board."
"So, you didn't look at the file?"
"I'm sorry, Riles, but I just didn't have the time," Lucas admitted, grabbing his bundle of clothes and heading towards the bathroom, "There's always going to be opposition trying to poison the water."
Riley stretched her neck, trying to ignore the feeling of Lucas's eyes on her back. She'd forgotten that his gaze could hold a physical weight that had her back straightening, as she struggled with the emotions that their encounter had stirred up.
The room felt like it was boiling, and she could feel the sweat starting to collect along her hairline.
Katy's words were barely intelligible as she sobbed up at the front and Riley could feel the beginning of a tension headache starting.
Savannah had a death-grip on her hand, as she sat with a blank look on her face and her back ramrod straight.
"You know the best story of this day may be that your ex-husband, who is consequently, also, the Vice President of the United States followed you into the girl's bathroom," Josh offered, keeping his voice low as he glanced behind them.
"Where's Zay when you need him?" Riley questioned, doing a quick glance around the room, careful to avoid where Lucas was sitting. The glance confirmed that Zay still hadn't bothered to turn up.
Although, her mother was sitting two rows back on the opposite end of the bench to where Riley was sitting, her gaze equally as penetrating, although far more effective in inducing guilt.
"Makes you feel about eight years old again, doesn't it?" Josh commented, as he followed her line of sight.
"It would be far too much to ask for this day to be anything but a parade of awkward encounters with people who are upset with me."
The alcohol burned its way down Riley's throat, as she took the shot, gesturing for the bartender to pour her another.
"You're starting early," James commented, sitting down on the barstool next to her. He was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt in what was easily the most casual outfit she had ever seen him in.
"There's no possible way you thought you could find Lucas here at noon," Riley pointed out, playing with the straw in her water glass, "Which means it's me you're watching."
"You don't think it's coincidence? Two acquaintances wander into the same bar because fate wants to have a laugh?" he suggested.
"You come here, often, then?" Riley returned, cocking her head to one side in a gesture that was pure Maya.
"I'll just have a bottled water," he told the bartender, already counting out a stack of bills that he pulled from his pocket.
"I guess that answers that question," Riley downed the remaining shot, relieved when she started to feel the alcohol induced buzz.
"I saw you leave your husband's office and you seemed upset, didn't even hear me calling your name. So, I figured I would make sure that you got home safely, except you came here, instead."
"According to my husband's Chief of Staff, they are very concerned about my drinking and if I drink at home he'll see the bottles and it will be like I'm proving them right," Riley explained, taking a sip of her water, as she tried to quiet the anger that was still molten in her chest, "I'm his wife and I can't even get in to see him at his office, what does that say about my relevance?"
"It says that a jealous member of your husband's staff is threatened by you," James countered, an edge to his voice that hadn't been there before.
"We were supposed to go away together, anywhere in the world that I wanted to go," Riley picked at her napkin, refusing to look at him, "And, then, I get ambushed by this senator that my husband works with. She wants to run for president, and she wants Lucas by her side. And, he wants this so badly; wants it more then he wants to have kids, or move back to Texas, or spend this summer together. I haven't seen him this excited over anything, since we found out that he'd won the election and, so how do I tell him that his dream is my nightmare?"
"For what it's worth, I think he'd listen; I think he'd care about how this is making you feel," James offered, unscrewing the cap on his bottle, "I've seen the way that he looks at you."
"But, then neither of us get the thing that we want most and that isn't what marriage should be. He's put up with a lot from me in the last eight years, maybe, in our entire marriage and it should be his turn to pursue what he wants without me holding him back."
"I don't know a thing about marriage," he admitted, peeling at the label on his bottle, "I've never loved anyone enough to want to spend an entire lifetime with them, but it doesn't seem like there should be any rule that says only one of you can be happy at a time."
"Everyone should have a love like that, at least once," Riley ignored the second half of his words, getting caught up in over two decades of memories. It was hard, sometimes, to hold on to the realization that it hadn't always been like this. There hadn't always been a distance between them, hadn't always been their separate desires weighed against each other. There had been a time when everything they wanted in life had been completely aligned.
"Even if it drives you to drink at noon in the middle of the week?" James snorted, his shoulder brushing against hers, as he leaned forward to grab a napkin.
"Before this year, I hadn't so much as looked at alcohol in almost six years," Riley admitted.
"One year," James removed a chip from his pocket, dropping it into Riley's hand, "Not the hardest year of my life, but it's the clearest year of my life. It made me rethink my priorities, who I was going to choose to be."
"I was trying to get pregnant. I changed my diet, tried acupuncture, did two years of Clomid, before they tried a couple of rounds of artificial insemination, and when that didn't work, we finally did five rounds of IVF. All that time and all those procedures and they still can't tell me exactly why I can't have a baby. This last round, had complications, Lucas was out of town and I ended up having to be hospitalized. He came back and told me that we were done."
"I'm sorry," James's voice was filled with sincerity, though she couldn't bring herself to look at him.
"Me too," she finished off the rest of her water.
"Where were you going to go?" he questioned, when the silence between them started to become too heavy.
"My favorite animal is a giraffe," Riley admitted, "They're these tall, majestic creatures that never seem to care that they don't look like anyone else. I've always wanted to see one in the wild; living exactly the way that they were meant to."
"I know a place," James smiled, his face lighting up as he told her about it.
Even the sound of organ music was sending pricks of pain through her scalp as the service finished and she rose with the rest of the congregation. Katy was already forming a reception line in front of the casket, with Shawn directly beside her, a hand wrapped around her waist.
The picture that they had chosen to represent Maya appeared to have come from a family holiday, the Christmas tree cropped out, though you could still make out pine needles in the background of the photo. Maya wasn't looking at the camera, instead looking passed it, at what Riley had no doubt was her daughter. Savannah was the only thing that had ever managed to make her eyes glow like that.
"I'll stay with Savvy, you can go and talk to your mother," Josh suggested, sliding passed where Riley was sitting and placing a hand on Savannah's back, as he guided her towards the front of the room.
Katy was already entertaining a procession of mourners and the idea of listening to any more people try and explain their connection to Maya had Riley feeling exhausted.
"The resemblance between you and my only daughter is remarkable," Topanga's voice came from behind her, just low enough not to attract any unnecessary attention, "But, I know that if my daughter was back on the continent she would have given her aging parents a call, or, at least, answered any of our calls."
"I'm sorry, Mom. It's been busy with the funeral and Savannah and trying to process everything," Riley threw out a string of excuses, turning to face her.
"I'm sorry," Topanga wrapped her arms around Riley and Riley breathed in the familiar scent of her mother's hair.
It was the closest to home she'd felt since she'd packed her bags and moved to Texas all those years ago and she held on a second longer then strictly necessary just to prolong the moment.
She'd never thought that she would miss her childhood. Growing up had felt like an, almost, endless race to adulthood, where she'd been desperate to never fall behind. But there's something about realizing just how old all of them had gotten that has her wishing she had appreciated those years, instead of wishing them away.
"It's good to see you," Riley admitted, as she reluctantly pulled back enough to take her mother in.
Her mother's only signs of aging were the slightest hint of laugh lines around her mouth and the grey streaks that were beginning to weave their way into her caramel colored hair. Topanga had kept it long, though it was currently wound into bun at the nape of her neck.
She wore a dark gray business suit that was accented with a black, silk blouse and a matching pair of shoes. And, Riley had no doubt that she was still capable of intimidating anyone who dared to get in her way, though, since she had become partner Riley had heard that she had drastically cut back on her hours at the office.
"At risk of sounding like the grandmother that I definitely am not, you are skin and bones," Topanga commented, scanning her over, "And I doubt you managed to drop all this weight in the past week."
"I've been under a lot of stress," Riley defended herself, taking a step back.
"You going to have time to stop by the house before you jet back to Europe? Your father would love to see you," Topanga suggested.
"Where is dad?"
"He wanted to come, but he's currently being hospitalized for a small bowel obstruction. It's nothing serious, but he definitely wasn't going to tolerate the drive here," Topanga explained, doing a quick scan of the room, "It felt wrong to not have, at least, one of us here."
"Yeah," Riley agreed, thinking of how many of her childhood memories involved her parents, Auggie, and Maya. There had been a time when her entire world was no bigger then the people that made up her immediate family.
"I'm going to go and talk to Katy and, then, I'll be driving back tonight. Try and answer your phone, okay?" Topanga sighed, reaching over to squeeze her daughter's shoulder.
"I'll be better, Mom."
"The study was done by what were presented as independent third-party contractors," Riley leaned forward as James scanned over the papers, she had given him, "But they had worked with the United States on a number of projects and the results always came out in the United States favor. If we could get ahold of bank records, I think that we could prove that they were taking massive government kickbacks."
"And how exactly do we get ahold of the bank records?" James questioned, his hand tracing over the highlighted portions of the documents that she had pulled together that listed every government project the company had taken on and what the findings had been.
"If I can convince them to hold a formal enquiry, they can have the statements subpoenaed," Riley suggested.
"Except you don't know who all is involved in this," James pointed out, closing the file, "You go to the wrong people and we tip our entire hand."
"Then you take it to your government, and you have them ask for the records, show them what we have and ask them to get another opinion," Riley pressed, "Maybe, this isn't enough for legal action, but it should be enough to raise questions."
"I appreciate what you've done for me," James covered her hand with his own and Riley glanced up in surprise.
"It was the right thing to do," Riley pulled her hand away, reaching over to grab her wallet out of her purse.
"And you're not at all worried that your husband was involved in this?" James questioned, as she shrugged her jacket over her shoulders.
"No, I'm not," her voice left no room for argument and she didn't look back as she headed for the door.
"Please drink something," Josh handed her a bottle of water, as Riley leaned back in the car, her eyes closed, "You look like you're either about to throw up or pass out."
"Both sound like such good options," Riley returned, although she twisted off the cap and took a long drink.
Her headache had gotten progressively worse and increased into light sensitivity and a roaring in her ears, which strongly suggested that her little headache had chosen to turn into a migraine. The pounding alone was enough to make her want to hit her head against a wall, though that would mean losing the firm grip she was trying to maintain on her nausea and dizziness.
"If you're not up for the graveside, we can head back to the apartment," Josh suggested.
"If I'm not feeling better, I'll wait in the car," Riley tilted her head in Savannah's direction and Josh gave nod that signaled a somewhat reluctant defeat.
She doubted that anyone was going to have fond memories of the day and there was a part of her that wondered if she would remember much about this day, at all. However, she refused to be the reason that Savannah didn't get a chance to full say goodbye to her mother.
"You want to tell me what Farkle wanted with you this morning?" Josh questioned, undoing several buttons on his collar, as he settled in for what was promising to be an excruciatingly long ride.
She took another sip of water and fanned herself with the program that had been handed out at the chapel.
"He wanted to know what the plan was, for when everything settles down," Riley phrased it carefully, hoping to keep a fight from breaking out.
"You mean with me?" Savannah turned from where she had been intently staring out the window, "I want to return to my school."
"We can talk about it after this is all over," Riley suggested, cradling her head in one hand, as she leaned against the armrest.
"My entire life is here; my friends are here. You can't honestly expect me to pack everything up and move to another country?" Savannah protested, her gaze darting between Josh and Riley.
"I don't think anyone has suggested that," Riley informed her, working to keep her voice calm.
"You're my legal guardian, though, aren't you?"
The view of the ocean is gorgeous from where they're seated at the terrace of the hotel restaurant. The sun is just starting to set and the fairy lights above them have already been turned on for the night, casting everything in golden light.
She can't help wondering how she got here; sitting at a table with a prince she had read about on the cover of magazines when she was a teenager. Maybe, stranger, is that she thinks she's beginning to know him in a way that not many people have ever gotten the chance to.
"Were the giraffes everything that you hoped they would be?" he questioned, cutting his steak into smaller pieces.
He'd wanted to go with her, but she'd refused, feeling that it was something better done by herself. She hadn't counted on how lonely it would be to reach a milestone in her life that she had been dreaming of for years and, then, find it empty for the sole reason that she had no one to share it with.
She'd never really been alone; going from living with her parents, to living with Maya, to living with Lucas. She'd felt lonely plenty of times throughout those years, but she'd never truly faced an endless expanse of future without another person to take on life by her side.
There had been a part of her that was equal parts surprised and relieved to find that he was waiting for her, when she'd finally made her way back to the coast.
"They were beautiful," she smiled, smoothing the napkin that was resting on her lap.
"The first time that I came here, it was with my father," James leaned forward, his eyes looking lost in another time, "I thought it would be the biggest adventure; a continent full of animals that were just waiting to eat me. It was the only trip I ever went on with my father where it was just the two of us and, while it wasn't exactly the adventure that I had anticipated, it was so much better."
"I don't know many people who would be excited by the idea of getting eaten by a wild animal," Riley commented, reaching forward to take a sip of her drink.
"I was never interested in normal," he admitted, his eyes warm as they finally met hers.
"I didn't leave because I fell out of love with my husband," Riley felt the need to say, scared by the look in his eyes. Every time he opened up to her, she felt a little less lonely and that feeling was almost as intoxicating as the alcohol. But she was still married and, more then that, she didn't have anything left to offer. If she did, maybe her marriage wouldn't have fallen apart so completely.
"I don't expect anything from you," he promised, "You're just the first person in a long time whose believed in me, despite my past. And, you're free to go your own way, if you want. I'll stop following you around, but you don't have anywhere to go anymore and neither do I, so I thought it might help to have one person around who isn't a stranger."
She thought of Zay, who she hadn't allowed to come with her and of Lucas, who she'd promised to stand by through every stage of their lives.
Leaving to live out a life of self-imposed solitude seemed, if not noble, at least, a fair punishment for all of the sins that were stacked up against her.
But, from the moment James had walked into her life, it had felt like he was pulling her back from an edge that she'd been trying to jump off of for a long time. It felt like a fresh start, even if it could never be called redemption.
"It does help," she admitted, wondering why it felt like far more of a promise then the simple words suggested.
"Don't let me fall," Riley clung to her uncle as they stepped from the car and out onto the green lawn.
The select few that had been chosen to be at the graveside were already gathered around, though Riley couldn't keep her eyes open long enough to take in the individual faces. Katy and Shawn would certainly be there, along with Farkle, Lucas, and his entourage of security. She doubted that Isadora Smackle would have been left behind at the chapel.
"I really think you should just wait in the car," Josh hissed, as Savannah stalked ahead of them, still upset that no firm conclusion had been reached for her future throughout the remainder of the car ride.
"You show weakness and they'll eat you alive," Riley replied, struggling to pull her shoes from the dirt with every step. The ground was moist, and it seemed to want to swallow her heels whole.
"What's wrong?" she would recognize the sound of Lucas's voice anywhere, as Josh urged her into one of the seats that had been set up on a platform and stood with one hand secured on her shoulder.
"She hasn't been sleeping, she hasn't been eating, I'd bet money that she's dehydrated, and she's developed the kind of headache that would have us mere mortals resting in the car." Josh responded, keeping his voice low despite the clear irritation in the words.
"This is supposed to last another hour. Maya would understand if you needed to take a moment and lie down," she opened her eyes to find Lucas kneeling before her, so that they were eye level, his hands twitching in a way that said he was having a hard time resisting the urge to reach out and touch her.
"Maya would have put up with all of this, if it had been me," Riley disagreed, watching in confusion as Lucas pulled a glasses case from the inside pocket of his suit and deposited it into her lap, "I'm pretty sure it was you who told me to always bring a pair of sunglasses."
"The forecast said it was supposed to rain," Riley countered, popping open the case and perching the glasses on her nose, "But thank you."
Lucas sat down in the seat directly next to her and, just for a moment, Riley let down her guard enough to appreciate how it felt to have him this close again after all this time. She'd dreamed about him constantly for the first year that they had been apart, and she still did on occasion, although she hadn't realized just how little the dreams really conveyed the intangible things that still existed between them.
The sun is just beginning to set over the horizon, when Riley finds herself wandering out of the house, they had spent most of the summer tucked away in. The estate was just big enough to escape any curious eyes, who might be wondering if the prince was taking some time off at the estate his family owned along the French Riviera. Though, she knew that it was only a matter of time before the paparazzi caught up to them.
She pulled the ties of her swimsuit cover more tightly around her body, pausing as she witnessed James swimming laps along the length of the pool.
She'd never liked the smell of chlorine, but it had seemed to follow them around all summer; soaking into the house and faintly coming off of James, until she found herself associating it with the peace that she had found in this time away.
It seemed wrong, that she could find any kind of happiness after everything that she had done.
She wandered slowly around the edge of the pool, pausing by a vacant chair to kick off her sandals and set aside her sunglasses, before she wandered over to the edge of the pool and sat down at the edge.
James paused in his strokes, as though he could sense the disturbance in the water, and he smiled as he caught site of her sitting the full length of the pool away.
"Are you sure you're not part fish?" Riley questioned, leaning back and allowing the ties of her swimsuit cover to loosen. Her legs were submerged up to the knees in water and she kicked them carelessly, as she struggled to let go of the dark thoughts that had been eating away at her.
"In my very extensive study of my family's history, dalliances with sea creatures were never mentioned. Although, that isn't the kind of thing you'd want as common knowledge, is it?" he questioned, crossing the water until he was directly in front of her, "I haven't seen much of you today."
"Sometimes I feel guilty," Riley confessed, "I left such a mess behind me and, yet, I can't bring myself to regret leaving."
"You seem less weighed-down then you were in Washington," James commented, his eyes straying to the sunset behind her.
"There are holes in my memory," Riley straightened, resting her weight on the palms of her hands, "I keep thinking that the longer that I'm clean, the more will come back. But, it hasn't."
"There are moments like that for me, too," James admitted, his arms resting on the edge of the pool, as he pulled himself out of the water. She thought of that picture in the magazine and had to look down to avoid him seeing the blush that was threatening to spread across her face.
Water soaked the ground next to her, as he sat down beside her, and she shivered as the water reached her bare thigh.
"That night when I gave you the papers was the last time, we saw each other, wasn't it?" Riley questioned.
"I tried calling you a couple of times, but it always went to voicemail. I thought you were mad at me for accusing Lucas of being involved," he admitted, and she couldn't help noting how he never referred to Lucas as her husband, anymore.
What did it say about her that she did?
"I don't remember. Just moments at the hospital after the accident and my recovery at home," Riley sighed, "But I can't help feeling like there's something important that I've lost."
"Maybe, we'll never know," Riley couldn't help noticing just how close James's hand was to hers, though he never got close enough that they were really touching, "And as difficult as it is, sometimes we just have to learn to live with the not knowing."
Her foot accidentally brushed against his in the water and she turned to look at him, overwhelmed by the sudden rush of heat that went through her.
"Sometimes, all of it feels like another lifetime."
"For me, too," he agreed, his voice deeper then it had been a moment, ago, "I'll let you swim."
He rose from where he was sitting, the water coming off him in droplets, as he grabbed a towel and headed for the house. His skin was bronzed from a summer spent out in the sun and she couldn't help thinking how strange it was to look at the progression of their relationship.
She let her swimsuit cover fall from her shoulders and onto the cement, before she slid off into the water, trying to ignore the way it was becoming increasingly difficult to deny the attraction that was forming between them.
They had agreed to be friends, agreed to help each other stay sober. Anything else was a bad idea.
Riley's not sure how she makes it through the entire hour, although she's pretty sure it might be solely from the stability of Josh's hand on her shoulder throughout the entire service. The time is given to anyone who wants to say something and, though she knows she should be the first person up there, she doesn't trust herself to survive a trek to the front of the group and back.
Lucas offers several words on friendship; sharing memories of when things between all of them had been so much simpler.
She can't help thinking that this is the last time that her little friend group will really all be together, though it doesn't feel complete without Zay. Even angry at him for what he had done, she can't help thinking that he belongs there with the rest of them and all of the unforgiveable sins that sit between them.
Farkle retrieves a rose from the top of the casket and makes his way over to her, gently setting it into her lap, as the tears become impossible to keep from falling down her face.
It hadn't felt true, until this moment, a part of her still believing that Maya was going to appear out of nowhere and tell them that the entire thing had been an elaborate joke.
"Auggie's has offered the use of Topanga's if anyone wants to get something to eat after the service," Shawn announced, signaling the end of the proceedings, "Everyone else should be waiting for us there."
"What do you think about going back to Maya's beach house?" Farkle suggested, keeping the invitation between Riley, Josh, and Lucas.
"The Will is supposed to be read early tomorrow morning," Riley commented; wanting the time with all of them together and needing time to sleep off her headache in equal measure.
"I can pick up some food. We don't have to stay long," Lucas suggested, the hope in his voice impossible to deny.
"I just need a minute with Maya before we go," Riley clutched the rose tightly in her hands, as she forced herself to her feet, swaying as she was hit with a wave of dizziness.
"You're not going anywhere near a six-foot-hole by yourself when you can barely stand upright," Lucas countered, and Riley wasn't surprised that neither Josh nor Farkle bothered to contradict him.
"I'll stay with you so that Savannah and Josh can go on ahead," Farkle suggested and she nodded before she could fully process the request, relieved that it would keep her from another argument in the car with Savannah or being stuck with the hope that was radiating off of Lucas and that felt inevitable that she would eventually crush.
"I need to tell my security team what we're doing," Lucas said, making his way across the lawn to where the men in dark colored glasses were waiting a discreet distance away. Smackle stood with them, looking anxious to leave.
"We'll open the house," Josh squeezed her shoulder, walking across the lawn to stand beside Savannah, where she was staring into the deep hole that her mother had just been lowered into. They stood together for a moment, taking quietly in voices that didn't carry back to where Riley was sitting and, then, they turned to make their way back to where the car was waiting for them at the edge of the road.
"Did you ever think it would end like this?" Farkle questioned, his eyes distant as he stared after them.
"No," Riley took his hand, leaning against him as they approached the dark hole that would be Maya's final resting place.
"The day I met the two of you, I knew my life would never be the same," Farkle's voice cracked and she squeezed his hand, "Having the two of you in my life is the best thing that has ever happened to me."
"I love you, Peaches," she smiled, even as the tears continued to pour down her face.
Thank you for reading and thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter!