4.


If you ask me how I'm doing
I would say I'm doing just fine
I would lie and say that you're not on my mind


It takes a while for their friends to realize what happened. He knows that it's because they've been so distant that there's almost no difference.

But no one really expected this. No one expected Riley and Lucas to come to an end. Not after this long.

But it did. It hurt him everyday knowing that it did.

He can't bring himself to face her after what he almost did. He promised that he had changed, that she had changed him, that he would never hurt her. Evidently, he was wrong.

And god, he hates himself for it. He spends every miserable minute wishing he could take it back. He knows that if he goes to find her, she will forgive him, because that's who she is. But he will never forgive himself. And she deserves better than him.

Maya confronts him over the phone about two weeks after it happens, after she fully realizes what is happening.

"What happened?"

There is no angry hissing in her voice, no accusatory tone. Just confusion, and genuine concern.

He is silent, before sighing wearily. "I don't know."

She doesn't respond, and he knows that she knows what he did. He wonders how much Riley told her. He wonders what she knows about how Riley is doing.

"That wasn't you, Huckleberry." Her use of that old nickname in such a devastating situation was almost laughable. What was also laughable was what she was saying.

"Of course it was, Maya," he says bitterly. "It's who I've always been."

"Not anymore," she argues firmly. "I don't believe that. I don't believe that you can have Riley Matthews in your life, and not become someone different. Someone good, someone better! I don't believe that because I know, Lucas. I know what having her can do. I know that she means too much to give up. And I know that you mean too much to her to lose."

He is silent. He doesn't know what to say to that.

"It wasn't you, Lucas. You're so much better, so much more than that. You can't lose her."

For a moment, he considers her words. He considers running all the way to Riley and apologizing for everything he has ever done to hurt her, and promising that he will always be there for from now on, or maybe just kissing her because he misses her. He aches for her.

But he feels it all falling away. And something inside him chooses to believe that Maya is wrong.

"I don't deserve her."

He listens to the hum of silence on the other end. He gets the sense that Maya has so much more to say, but he feels her relenting. She sighs quietly, and then she speaks with a resigned tone.

"None of us do."

Those are the words that refuse to leave his mind long after Maya has hung up, while he's lying in bed thinking about her and how they got into this mess.

Was it even possible? To love someone as undeserving as he was? If Riley Matthews was too good for the world, but loved everyone in it anyway, did that make him count?

His demons win him over, and he spends the next year convincing himself that he doesn't deserve her and that someone out there can love her so much more than he can.

He convinces himself that he will be fine without her, that he can move on and that he can stay away from her, even though deep inside of him, there's a reflection of a girl with long brown hair and kind loving eyes telling him that he can't.