Chapter 16: Futures Not Yet Lived and Pasts Forgotten
Lucas
When I was eight, I decided that I knew how I wanted my life to turn out. I had a picture perfect idea of who I wanted to be, what I wanted to do, and where I wanted to go. But it never felt like the kind of life that I was going to have; not one that was in the cards for someone like me. The idea just never fit with the kind of people my parents were, or the lifestyle that I had grown up with my entire childhood. Yet it was always in the back of my mind - the hope for something different, the chance to be truly happy. I thought about this as I leaned against my bed frame, flipping through my copy of the Great Gatsby. I lost count of how many times I had read it, but something always drew me back to page 66 and that quote that Riley claimed reminded her of my life.
"You see I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad thing that happened to me."
Was that the reason I had felt drawn to Riley? Was that the reason I needed to be around her, instead of surrounded by the people and lifestyle I had grown up with? Riley was different. She was everything I wished I could be. And before she was my tutor, she was a stranger. She helped me forget about Holden, and my parents, and that night with Jessica Evans. I could drift in and out of her life, but still go back to who I was before I met her. And for some reason, I needed that at the time. But Riley had become so much more to me than that. Riley was no longer a stranger. She was everything to me.
"Honey?" My mom peeked her head into my room, her hair damp and face clean of any makeup. She had finally left the hospital to come home and shower, and was doing anything she possibly could to stay busy.
"Hey, mom," I greeted her, sitting up in my bed and scooting over to make room for her. "How's Holden?"
"He's much better," she assured me. My mom looked up at me, her eyes an odd mixture of concern and sadness. "You know, he really wants to see you. He misses his big brother."
"Mom, I told you, I'll go when I'm ready," I sighed, already tired of having to explain myself to her.
"I know, I know," she patted my leg and smiled slyly at me. "You know, Holden told me that your friend came to see him the other day."
"Zay? Yeah, he's been worried about him," I explained, not meeting her eyes.
"No, the girl that came with you to the hospital the night of the accident. Riley, I think her name was?"
My head shot up, my heart pounding hard in my chest at the sound of her name.
"Riley came to see Holden? Why would she do that, she doesn't even know him," I sputtered out quickly, trying my best to sound as nonchalant as I possibly could.
"That sounds like something you'd have to ask her, Lucas," she told me. "But I do know that she must really care about you for her to visit your injured brother in the hospital."
She looked like she wanted to say more. Like she wanted me to divulge everything about Riley and Merritt and my life at school and lacrosse. But I didn't want to talk because I knew that whatever I said, it wouldn't change the fact that I could never have that picture perfect idea of a life that I wanted so desperately. At least, not until I cleared everything up with Jensen and figured out what he was hiding from me about the night of the lacrosse championships.
"I have a lot of homework," I held up my book to prove my point to her and she sighed, as she had already anticipated that I wasn't going to give her anymore insight on the subject.
"Okay, I can take a hint," she stood up from the bed and took a few steps towards the doorway. "I'm going back to the hospital in the morning. I'll be there all day if you want to stop by."
"Goodnight, mom," I waved my book at her and she shook her head.
"Goodnight, sweetie," she walked out of my bedroom, but then quickly popped her head back in. "Just, one last thing. I can tell that you're unhappy, Lucas. And I think it's because you feel like you have to do the same things that you're not passionate about over and over again. Don't be afraid to change what's not making you happy, okay? Don't become your father and me."
With that, she turned on her heel to head back to her bedroom. I knew that she was right. If I didn't like lacrosse, I could quit. If I was unhappy with Merritt, I could breakup with her. If I wanted to be with Riley, I could fight for her. But all of that was going to have to wait until I solved the 'Jensen problem.' And I needed to solve it before he unleashed anymore secrets or lies, otherwise someone could end up paying the consequences. And I refused to let that person be Riley.
The next morning, I waited for Riley in front of her apartment, shivering slightly at nip in the air - the first sign of winter. It was early November, and the leaves were stacked in piles all along the sidewalk. The little girl across the street waiting for her bus to take her off to school, eyed the pile closest to her, restraining herself from jumping into it and ruining her nice clean clothes. I smiled at the double-take she did from the leaves to the street, and then back again. She saw me smiling and waved. Just as I lifted my hand to wave back, the door opened behind me and Riley stepped through the threshold and onto the front steps. I turned around as she took a few steps forward, not looking up from her iPod until I met her at the bottom of the steps.
"Lucas, what are you doing here?" Riley tugged the earphones out of her ears, and quickly shoved her iPod into her backpack. I wasn't in the mood for small talk or to explain myself, so I decided to jump straight to the issue at hand.
"Why did you go see my brother?" I blurted out.
"What?" Riley's eyes went wide, her nerves evident in the way she was twisting her hands together in front of her.
"I didn't ask you to do that, okay?" I spat, not even caring about keeping my anger in check at the moment. "I didn't ask you to talk to him for me."
"I know that, Lucas," she sighed, taking a few steps forward. I filed in next to her and we headed towards the subway.
"Then why did you go?" I demanded. We passed the little girl as she stepped onto her bus, the pile of leaves a sudden afterthought as she met her friends at their seats in the back of the bus. We stopped at the crosswalk and Riley turned to look at me, her eyes serious.
"I went to see your brother because I knew you couldn't," Riley tucked her hair behind her ear and averted her eyes to glance at the sidewalk. Before I even realized what I was doing, I was lifting her chin slightly to meet my eyes, my hand lingering for just a second longer than it should have. I quickly let my hand drop to my side and she shifted nervously.
"Why would you do that for me?"
"Look, Lucas, after talking to your brother I found out a few things that you really need to know," she informed me, swiftly avoiding my question. "Merritt isn't who you think she is. And neither is Holden."
"I know, Riley. I'm the one who told you that in the first place," I reminded her. We crossed the street, but then she immediately pulled me off to the side, letting the crowd of people behind us pass.
"No, Lucas, she's not that version of your girlfriend that you've created in your head over these past few months." Her words were urgent, desperate for me to hear what she was saying. "You and I are both guilty of this - but I think that we have this tendency to create false perceptions of the people in our lives. We have this list in our heads, Lucas - the list of people we may know, but I don't think we truly know any of them..."
Riley smiled sadly at me, and I knew in that moment, how right she was. How I had been doing exactly what she was saying my entire life. And I had done it with her, as well, without even realizing it.
"And we won't. Not until we take a second to have an actual conversation with them and listen to their full story. It doesn't matter if we've known them five days or five years - you never truly know someone until you drop the perception of them based on what you've seen or heard in the past and get to know who they are in the present. So go talk to Merritt. And your brother. Listen to the real story. And really hear them. Okay?" Her eyes were pleading with me to understand, so I nodded. She turned to continue down the sidewalk to the subway station, but I gently grabbed her arm and pulled her closer to me.
"Riley," I breathed, unsure of what to say next. "You and Jensen... I just don't want you to get hurt."
"I know, Lucas," she took my hand in hers and squeezed it, but then gently let go. "But I can take care of myself, okay?"
Riley took a few more steps away from me, but I called out to her before she got too far away.
"I know that what you said about me just now was true. But I want one thing to be very clear," I was shouting now, not caring about my volume or who was around to hear this. "I know you, Riley Matthews. And it's not just an idea, or a perception. I know who you are. And because I know you, I feel like I can say this - he's not good enough for you."
"Lucas," she started to say, but I didn't let her finish.
"I'm going to prove it to you," I promised. "I'm going to tell you everything. I'm going to make all of this right. You just need to give me a little more time."
"I believe you," she smiled, slowly walking backwards down the street. "Have fun at the homecoming dance, Lucas. You'll make a great homecoming king."
With that, she disappeared around the corner and I turned to head in the opposite direction. As I started walking, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed a familiar number. It rang a few times before she answered.
"Hey, Merritt," I said in almost a whisper. "Listen, I think that we need to talk. Meet me at the hospital after school today. I'm ready to listen to what you have to say. What you both have to say."
Before she could answer, I hung up the phone and headed back to my apartment to get ready for school. I didn't know if having this conversation with Merritt and my brother was going to make things better or worse, but I had a feeling that it would push me one step closer into the version of the life I had always wanted - one way or the other.
Merritt and I were never really good at talking to each other. She meant well, but our conversations just never seemed to go anywhere, except back to herself. It wasn't really her fault. I just never knew what to say to her. And she didn't know that I hated everything she thought I loved. As I sat in the lobby of the hospital - a place that had become so familiar to me these days - I thought about what I was going to say to her now. Did I have the right to get angry at her? Should I let her explain? Did I forgive her for lying to me all these months? All of these thoughts ran through my mind as she entered the hospital with her hair pulled into a high ponytail and her dance bag in her hand.
"Hey, thanks for waiting until after practice was over," she threw her bag over her shoulder and straightened out her tank top. The dance team had been practicing for the homecoming game the next day, so I had agreed to push our "meeting" an hour later.
"It's fine," I muttered, not meeting her eyes. We stood there staring at each other for a few minutes, unsure of what to do next. I finally took a deep breath and turned to head out of the lobby. "Well, let's go see Holden."
"Okay," she breathed, her voice shaky and unsure - so unlike the Merritt I've known for so long.
I let her lead me down the hallway to Holden's hospital room. There was a light that had gone out in front of his doorway, making it seem that much more frightening to enter his room. She placed her hand on the doorknob and I took a deep breath as we entered.
"Hey, Holden," Merritt greeted him. Holden was sitting up in his bed - his forehead had a giant gash on the right side, and his leg was in a cast. I tried not to let my breath catch at the sight of my little brother looking so broken.
Holden turned to look at us, his eyes avoiding Merritt's, and moving straight to meet mine.
"Luke," he smiled, relief evident in his features. "I'm really glad you came."
"I - I'm s-sorry I didn't come sooner," I croaked, unable to steady my voice. "I've been really busy."
"I understand," Holden nodded. I took a few steps closer, but held back from coming too close his bed. "So, I heard that you wanted to talk?"
I cleared my throat and took a seat in the chair off to left side of his bed.
"Uh, yeah," I muttered, unsure of where I wanted to begin. "I know that you guys have been sneaking around since the beginning of the summer."
"Lucas, we can explain," Merritt started to say, but I cut her off.
"No, let me get this out. Someone told me recently that I have a tendency to create this false idea of the people closest to me based on things that I think I know. I jump to conclusions and I judge, before I even let them explain. So that's part of the reason why I've been acting so strange these past few months. I knew - or I thought I knew - what both of you were up to. But I don't know your side of the story. So now's your chance. Talk to me."
Merritt and Holden exchanged a look, as if considering how much they wanted to tell me. Merritt nodded at him, and Holden took a deep breath.
"Lucas, we didn't mean to lie to you," Holden sounded nervous, but he kept it together enough to continue. "But I need you to know that we weren't cheating. I would never do that do you, and neither would Merritt. However, we did lie to you."
I nodded slowly, signaling for him to continue with my hands.
"I asked for Merritt's help with something. We didn't want to involve you for a lot of reasons, but we know now that we should have told you what was going on from the start," Holden explained. There was an awkward silence in which Holden didn't know what to say next. Merritt twitched next to him and he gave her the nod to finish what he had to say for him.
"Your dad was having an affair with my mom," Merritt blurted out.
"What?" I gasped, unable to wrap my head around her words.
"And when we were 'sneaking around,' I was really helping Holden..." Merritt paused, trying her best to collect her thoughts. "I was helping him ensure that your dad knew that someone else was aware of what he was up to. And then once he knew that, we figured that maybe he would finally be persuaded into freeing your mother from their terrible marriage."
I shook my head in utter disbelief, trying to understand what on earth was happening.
"Let me get this straight," I stood up and started pacing in front of Holden's hospital bed. "You and my girlfriend were blackmailing our father into divorcing our mother... By threatening to release the information that he was having an affair with Mrs. Haynes, if he didn't? It wasn't mom blackmailing dad, it was you two?"
I was so confused. What the hell was happening?
"Yeah, I think that's the gist of it," Holden muttered, unable to meet my gaze. "We knew that he wouldn't risk his reputation like that. Divorce is common - accepted even. But having an affair with one of the most powerful men in the business world's wife? That would be the end of everything he's worked so hard to build."
"That's insane," I snapped, no longer at a loss for words. "You guys realize that you're insane, right?"
"I know how it sounds, Lucas, but mom was so miserable," Holden explained, his eyes starting to fill with tears. "You weren't always around to hear her crying in her room late at night. Dad has always been a selfish, unhappy man, and he was bringing her down with him. I had to do it. I had to save her from him."
Merritt turned to look at me, her expression desperate and a little scared.
"My mother has been cheating on my father for years, Lucas. With so many different men," Merritt's voice dropped to almost a whisper. "I couldn't let her get away with it anymore."
I thought about Riley, and how I just wanted to keep her away from Jensen. I wanted to keep her away from this world for this very reason - it tore people apart in the worst ways. And I couldn't let that happen to her.
"It's okay, I understand," I told them. "I mean not really - there were so many other less insane ways to go about this, but I get it. You were trying to right a wrong. Trying to keep mom safe. Just..." I turned to Merritt. "How many other people know about this? About our dad and your mom?"
"No one, except..." Merritt trailed off. She bit her lip and looked down at her hands.
"Merritt, who else knows?" I pressed.
"The night of the lacrosse championships," she began, doing everything she could to avoid my gaze. "Jensen walked in on the two of them kissing in the school hallway after the game."
"Right before the party," I finished for her, starting to piece it all together.
"Yeah, and someone else was with him," Holden chimed in.
"Who?" I was on the edge of my chair, worried that if I didn't get close enough, I wouldn't be able to hear the answer.
"Jessica Evans," Merritt murmured, her voice extremely low - the grief and sadness from that day still evident in her expression.
"Oh my god," I muttered, running an exhausted hand down my face in complete disbelief.
"He was furious - yelling that he was going to kill your dad and how he ruined our family. And then he... he decided that he was going to ruin yours too," Merritt sputtered out quickly. Her expression suddenly changed, and she was scrambling to explain herself. "But I talked him out of it, okay? He apologized immediately and took everything back."
"He wanted to hurt me, didn't he? He wanted to get back at my dad, so he was going to hurt me," my voice was starting to get louder, and I stood up quickly - the chair making a terrible scraping noise on the tile floor.
"I talked him out of it," Merritt repeated, her voice cracking on the last word.
I finally knew why Jensen was so angry. I knew what happened the night of the party. And I knew, once and for all, that Jensen would do whatever it took to get what he wanted - and that was to keep this secret from ever getting out. I finally remembered everything. Yet, I still had so many questions and a list of things I needed to settle before I officially got Riley involved. It was time to confront Jensen. And a part of me - a part so deep that I didn't think it actually existed - was terrified to do so.