**Warning: There is mention of over-consumption of alcohol, violence under the influence of alcohol, and a description of Jessica's death involving drowning (not graphic at all, just thought I would put that in here just in case).**

Chapter 18: Ghosts in the Night

Lucas

One Year Ago - The night of the Lacrosse State Championships

The night air was cool and crisp - conditions that made an outdoor party in the middle of winter almost unbearable. If it wasn't for the space heaters, people would have left ages ago. I found myself sitting in the corner, complaining to Zay about the rapidly increasing numbness that was overtaking my entire body, when Merritt and Jessica Evans stumbled into the party.

"State champions! Woo!" Merritt leaned over the side of the roof, shouting at the people below and taking a sip of her drink.

"Yeah, I guess we don't suck as much as you thought we did, Mer," Jessica joked, coming up behind Merritt and nudging her playfully in the side with her elbow.

"Shut up, Jess!"

"Uh, how many of those have you had, Merritt?" I asked, pointing to her cup, and raising my eyebrows at her disapprovingly.

"Don't kill my buzz, Lucas!" Merritt protested, and Jessica placed a firm hand over Merritt's shoulder.

"Yeah, don't kill her buzz, Lucas," Jessica mimicked, giving me a sly smile and a flirtatious wink.

"Has anyone seen Jensen?" Merritt asked, searching the crowd of tipsy teenagers for any sign of her brother. "He disappeared after the game and I haven't seen him since."

"Nope, I haven't seen him," Jessica informed her almost too quickly, averting her gaze to peer into the contents of her cup.

"He must be with our mom," Merritt guessed, crossing behind Jessica to take a seat between Zay and me. "She likes to nag him about all the other things he could be doing instead of wasting his time on lacrosse. Especially after he's just won a state championship."

Merritt played with the fringe hanging off the edge of the couch, and Jessica shuffled over to sit on the arm of the chair next to me.

"You were awesome tonight, Lucas," Jessica gushed, her words coming out slurred as the effects of the alcohol was starting to set in. "That last shot you made - that was one for the record books."

"Couldn't have done it without my teammates," I admitted, reaching across Merritt to give Zay a quick high five.

"You sound like the team captain," Merritt smiled at me as I settled back into my position on the couch.

"Yeah, right, like I could ever live up to your brother's legacy," I disagreed, shaking my head at the thought of being team captain.

"No arguments there," Jensen emerged from behind us, coming in from the stairs leading up the the roof where the party was being held.

"Where have you been?" Merritt turned in her seat to glare at her brother, and he came around the couch to sit in front of them on the coffee table. His eyes met Jessica's for a moment before turning his attention back to Merritt.

"I had some things to take care of," Jensen brushed her off, not wanting to give her details on where he had been for the past two hours. "I got us a little treat for tonight. Care to go for a joy ride?"

Jensen held out a key in front of us, looping the key ring that read 'New York City Schools,' around his finger.

"Jensen, you stole a school bus?" Merritt gasped, snatching the key from his hand and examining it more closely.

"Borrowed," Jensen corrected her, quickly taking the key back and shoving it deep into his pocket. "I called in a favor, okay?"

"Sweet, let's go to my house," Jessica suggested, and everyone turned to look at her. "Well my parents summer house. It's only like 45 minutes from here. We could hang out in the hot tub, skip stones on the lake behind my house, pretty much everything you can't do in the city."

"Sounds fun, but we have one stop to make first," Jensen told her, turning to look at the rest of us expectantly. "Anyone else?"

"Can't - designated driver for the majority of the team," Zay declined, standing from his seat on the couch and patting me on the shoulder as he hurried off in the opposite direction.

"Yeah, and I feel like I'm going to blow chunks any minute. A moving vehicle would just make it worse," Merritt clasped her hand firmly over her mouth and ran for the stairs to search for a bathroom.

"Lucas?" Jensen challenged. "You gonna chicken out on me, or are you gonna show us what you're made of?"

Maybe it was the way he was looking at me - like I was too much of a coward to go with them. Or that he would hate that I had the guts to go, But either way, I knew that I could not let them get on that bus without me.

"Count me in," I announced, as I met Jensen's gaze with a leveled expression to let him know that I had no problem accepting his challenge.

"Excellent," Jensen smirked. "Let's go."

"So let me see if I'm following," Riley began, shifting in her seat to rest her elbows on her knees. We had moved locations and were now sitting at one of the couches in Topanga's Bakery. It was after hours, so Riley and I were the only two left in the room. "You, Jensen, and Jessica were headed out to some lake in a stolen school bus fully aware of how much trouble you could get into?"

"I'm not proud of that," I admitted, running a tired hand down my face and slowly raising my eyes to meet hers. "But unfortunately, it gets worse."

"Hit me," Riley sighed, preparing herself for the worst.

"I didn't know this at the time, but Jensen had just caught my father and his mother kissing in the hallway just before the party. He wasn't just fueled by the alcohol or the danger of getting caught - he was fueled by anger and hatred, and even worse - he was fueled by the need to seek revenge."

"Are you sure you should be going with him? He looks a little, I don't know, off?" Zay narrowed his eyes at Jensen from across the room, and I placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"He always looks like that," I reminded him. "Besides, if I'm going to be team captain next year, I have to learn from the best don't I? If I'm going to be Jensen Friar next year, then I need to start acting like him don't I?"

"So you need to start acting like you're even more wealthy, privileged, and unpredictable than you already are?" Zay raised his eyebrows at me and I smiled at him in response.

"Exactly," I agreed. "I will become the 'Mr. Perfect,' 'Golden Boy,' 'Team Captain' that has made Jensen Haynes such a legend," I joked, and Zay broke out into laughter.

"All set, Friar?" Jensen approached, the keys still dangling from his index finger.

"Yeah, let me just grab my jacket," I turned around to head back over to the couch where I left my jacket when Jensen called back to me.

"And a few more beers!" Jensen shouted as he started heading for the staircase. "If you want to really celebrate with the team captain, you need to do it right!"

"Okay," I rolled my eyes. I slipped my jacket on, and then quickly headed over to the cooler to do as Jensen instructed. As I rounded the corner, I slammed directly into a girl holding a notebook of papers that went flying every which way as we made contact. "Oh, sorry!"

"Oh, no it was my fault," the girl apologized, scrambling to pick up the papers that had flown halfway across the roof. "I'm always this clumsy, believe it or not. You know, I actually think it's gotten worse since I was little. You'd think it would get better, the older I got. But sometimes I just trip on thin air. Seriously, nothing will be in front of me, and there I go, just falling on the ground anyway. Wow, I am talking a lot."

I smiled at the girl, whose face was hidden by the hair that had fallen forward as she bent down to pick up the papers. When she finally stood, I noticed that she looked familiar, but I couldn't place her name.

"Hey, you're on the newspaper, aren't you?" I asked, handing her the stray papers that I had collected. "I haven't seen you around here before, have I?"

"Oh, no," she scrunched up her nose like she had just smelled something completely foul. "I'm just here to gather information for an article. For the paper. The paper that I'm a writer for."

"Well, I hope you got what you needed," I smiled. I found something extremely charming about her habit of talking too much and the panicked look she got on her face when she realized she was talking too much. It was refreshing. And beautiful.

"Oh, I definitely did," she assured me, stumbling to the side even though there was nothing nearby for her to trip on.

"Good," I nodded, starting to back away as the realization that Jensen would probably leave without me if I didn't get out to the parking lot soon set in. "Well it was nice to meet you..."

"Riley," she tucked her hair behind her ear and stood up straighter. "Riley Matthews."

"Riley," I said in almost a whisper. "I'm Lucas."

"You were there that night," I mumbled, as the memory finally came back to me. I turned in my seat to look at Riley, but she wouldn't meet my eyes. "That was the first time we met. We had a conversation and I completely forgot about it! Why didn't you ever say anything?"

"Because you clearly didn't seem to remember," Riley told me, pushing herself off the couch and crossing the room to stare into the freezer for something to snack on. "And I was seriously so pathetic. Like beyond pathetic. I wished that I could forget the whole thing too."

"Riley - " I started to say something to comfort her - to tell her that I would have remembered if I could have - but she stopped me before I could go there.

"No, it's okay," Riley assured me, taking out a piece of raspberry cheesecake from the refrigerator and placing it on a clean plate. "Seriously, Lucas, it's not a big deal. Continue with your story - what happened once the three of you were on the bus?"

"Tell me again why I'm driving?" I quickly glanced at Jensen, who was sitting in the seat closest to the doors, looking out the window and tapping his foot nervously.

"Because Jessica and I have had far too much to drink," Jensen explained, patting Jessica on the knee and smiling up at me. "Plus, this makes your experience more authentic. You wanted to know what it's like to be team captain after we won the state championships right? Well, here you go."

We drove on in silence for a moment, as I followed Jensen's directions. When we took a familiar turn down a street I walked down everyday, I furrowed my brows in confusion.

"Why are we going to the school, Jensen?" Jessica asked, recognizing the building we had just pulled up to, even though I could see that she was struggling to sit up straight.

"I'm meeting someone," Jensen muttered, giving no more explanation on the matter. "Here, pull into the parking spot right in front there."

I did as he instructed, and turned back to look at him once we were parked safely in front of the building.

"Wait here, I need to check on something," Jensen opened the doors to the bus and reached into the cooler in the seat opposite him pull out a beer. He looked at it for a moment before tossing it in my direction. "Here Lucas, have another. You need to catch up my friend."

"But I'm driving," I protested, shaking my head and handing it back to him.

"We're parked," Jensen snapped. "Don't be a wuss."

With that, Jensen hopped off the bus and headed in the direction of the school.

"Before you say anything, I didn't drink it," I hurried to explain myself, already worried that Riley would think I was someone who would drink and drive. "I wasn't that stupid. But I did hold it in my hand to make it look like I had. I just wanted him to think I was worthy of being the next team captain. I don't know why it mattered that much to me, but it did."

"You didn't have to tell me that, Lucas, I knew you couldn't do something like that," Riley placed a hand on my shoulder and I looked up to meet her gaze. "You want to impress Jensen Haynes. You wanted to fit in. Isn't that what we all want?"

"Not you," I shook my head, looking at her intently. "Ever since I met you, you've always known exactly who you are what you've wanted. You were never afraid to be who you already are. Never ashamed of it." I turned away from her pick up a few stray napkins that customers had left on the end table next to me.

"I never liked who I was. Not back then," I stood from the couch and walked over to throw the napkins in the trash bin, before slowly turning back to look in her direction. "Back then I wanted to be what Jensen Haynes was - popular, loved, practically untouchable. And when I got that, I hated my life even more than I did before. But then I met you. And I finally liked who I was. When I'm with you, Riley, I finally feel comfortable with being Lucas Friar. Not Golden Boy. Not Mr. Perfect. Just, Lucas. You make me proud to be who I am."

Riley stood from the couch to join me by the counter, taking my hand in hers and smiling up at me sadly.

"Most days, Lucas, I still have no idea who I am," she admitted, her eyes starting to fill with tears. "I'm so insecure about everything - my writing, living up to my parents' legacy, my schoolwork, my looks. I mean, I can't compete with Merritt Haynes, okay? I can't be her. I'm never going to be her and that terrifies me."

The tears fell faster now, and she turned her cheek away to avoid my gaze. I quickly lifted her chin with my index finger, turning her face back in my direction and wiping a falling tear.

"I don't want Merritt," I asserted, making certain that our eyes were interlocked. "I want you, Riley. I only want you."

"You do?" Her voice sounded so small, so vulnerable and I realized then that I had been turning her into that untouchable, perfect person that Jensen turned me into, in my own head. But she wasn't that girl. She was vulnerable and insecure just like I was. And that was it's own version of perfect.

"I've never wanted anything more in my entire life," I breathed, resting my forehead against hers and closing my eyes. "Except maybe to kiss you right now."

I breathed in deeply, fighting every urge I had to meet my lips with hers. But this wasn't the right time. My moment with her wasn't going to fueled by emotions brought on by the terror that Jensen Haynes has caused. My moment would be my moment. And it was going to be perfect.

"But we need to get through this nightmare first," I explained, taking a step backwards to put some distance between us. "We need to expose the truth about Jensen. Get through homecoming. And then.."

"And then?" Riley pressed, her eyes lighting up expectantly. "What happens after homecoming?"

"I'll guess we'll see, won't we?" I smirked, my heart aching for her. "Anyway, where was I?"

"You guys were parked at the school, Jensen gave you that beer -"

"Right," I nodded, as the memory started to come back to me. "When Jensen got back onto the bus, he was... different. I couldn't clearly read his expression, but it was definitely a mix of frustration and disappointment. But... I think what I noticed more than anything was the resentment in his eyes."

"Hey, did you talk to whoever-" I started to ask, but Jensen cut me off before I could even get the next word out.

"Just drive, Lucas," he snapped, taking a seat on a bench further back than before and keeping his gaze locked at the road in front of us.

"What?"

"Drive the damn bus," he growled. "We're going to Jessica's house."

"Okay," I muttered, starting to feel even more uneasy about this outing than I had been before.

We drove in silence for a few minutes, my eyes shifting from the road to Jessica sitting in the seat slightly behind me, and then back again. She looked like she was asleep, but by the way her fists were clenched and placed firmly on her knees, and the slight rock back and forth she was doing with her body, I knew that she wasn't.

"Did you see your dad after the game?" Jensen asked, and I furrowed my brows in confusion.

"No, he disappeared from the stands right after the game ended," I explained, looking up at him in the rearview mirror. "Why?"

"Just curious," Jensen replied quickly. There was a long pause before he stood from his seat and made his way to the front of the bus to place one arm along the back of my seat. "Because I couldn't find my mom after the game either, until I bumped into her in the hallway. She was a little preoccupied though, so we didn't have a chance to chat."

"Okay?" I took a moment to take my eyes off the road and shoot him a puzzled look. "Jensen, I don't understand why-"

"Turn right up here," Jensen directed, pointing to the street that led to the highway. "We're going out of the city."

"He was testing you," Riley inferred, as she gathered her backpack from behind the counter and making her way to the front door. "To see if you knew about your dad and his mom."

"Yeah," I nodded, holding the door open for her as we stepped out into the cool night air. "And I don't know what I did to make him think this, but he believed without a doubt that I knew. And he hated me for it."

Riley turned around to lock up Topanga's Bakery, before we headed down the sidewalk to in the direction of her apartment.

"But what I don't get is that Jessica was with him when he found my parents in the hallway," I shoved my hands in my jacket pocket and glanced at Riley. "She knew too, but she didn't say anything about it."

"Not even when you were alone in the bus with her?"

"She didn't say a word," I explained. "Which, looking back on it now - that fact alone really should have spoken a thousand words."

"You think he scared her into not saying anything?" A chill went down her spine as the thought of how Jessica must have felt went through her mind.

"I think he just scared her," I explained, stopping to turn and face her as we approached a crosswalk. "Period."

"Park in the back, near the lake," Jensen directed, pointing to the long driveway leading to the back of the house. "Your parents better not be home, Jessica."

"They're in the Hamptons for the week," she assured him, taking a deep breath and standing up straight. She no longer looked like the scared girl curling up in her seat and shutting out the rest of the world. She was the fun-loving Jess that we had always known, once again.

"Good," Jensen mumbled, not meeting her gaze. "Why don't you see if there's anything else to drink in the house? We'll meet you by the lake."

"Okay!" Jessica agreed. Her tone was almost too cheerful, like she was relieved to be doing anything she could to please him. "I'll see you out there!"

Jessica made her way into the house, and Jensen and I stepped off the bus to make our way to the rocks near the shoreline of the lake. I bent down to pick up a rock and tossed it back and forth in my hands.

"Can you believe we won that game?" I asked, my smile coming across much wider than I'd like to admit."Man, I've been waiting so long to feel something like that, to feel..."

"Like a hero?" Jensen took a step forward, his voice low and his expression leveled. "Trust me, that feeling goes away after you realize what it means. You have to do things for the greater good that you don't necessarily like. You have to fight for what's right - And for what's yours. I mean, you have to do whatever it takes, Lucas."

Jensen took a swig from his beer and tossed it off to the side, where it landed in the grass. He took a few more steps closer to me, his eyes boring into me and making me feel extremely uncomfortable.

"Jensen, have you had too much to drink?" I tried to make my voice sound light - like I was making a joke instead of like I was terrified out of my mind.

"Tell me, Lucas," Jensen snarled. "Do you think you're ready for that kind of responsibility? Are you ready to sacrifice yourself to be the person that everyone admires? Because it seems like you want my life so badly, I just need to make sure that you know what your getting yourself into."

I stumbled backwards, trying my best to get as far away from him as I could.

"What are you talking about?"

"You want my position as team captain? That's fine you can have it," Jensen offered, holding out his hands to side as if to say - what else do you want? "You want to be with the most popular girl in school? Well lucky for you, that's going to be my sister next year, so you've got that going for you too. But my family's wealth and reputation? That you can't have. That belongs to me. Tell your worthless father to stay away from my mother's money."

"He thought your dad just wanted his family's money?" Riley took the ice cream cone from the guy behind the counter of the ice cream shop we stopped in, and turned to look at me. "That's why he thinks your dad was having an affair with his mom? But wait - isn't your family just as wealthy?"

"My dad's company was going bankrupt," I explained, licking the melting ice cream that was dripping down the sides. "We were practically losing everything until an anonymous donor made a generous contribution to the company not long before the lacrosse championships that essentially put the company on stable grounds again."

"And Jensen thought that the anonymous donor was his mother," Riley finished for me, and I nodded in response.

"I don't even know how he found out about it to be honest," I shook my head, trying everything I could to solve the mystery that was Jensen Haynes. "But there was more to it than Jensen being afraid that we were going to steal his family's money. There was something in his eyes. I can't explain it really."

"What about Jessica?" Riley took a big bite out of her ice cream cone, and crumbs went flying everywhere. "Did she ever meet you guys back at the lake?"

"See, that's where the story gets... Are you sure you want to hear the rest?"

"Lucas, I told you I wanted to help you," Riley placed a hand on top of mine and I laced my fingers through hers. "That means hearing the whole story."

"So it turns out that my brother had a bunch of friends over last night," Jessica shouted as she made her way down the hill to meet us at the rocks. "They drank the last of the beers. But I did salvage a few wine coolers."

Jessica finished off the bottle she was drinking from and tossed it to the side. She didn't waste another second before opening the other bottle in her hand and taking a sip.

"I think you've had enough, Jessica," I told her, as I reached around her to take the bottle from her. She jerked away before I could grab it and stumbled forward."You can barely walk."

"I'm fine, Lucas," Jessica hiccuped, and I reached for her arm in an effort to steady her.

"She says she's fine, Lucas," Jensen bellowed from behind us. "Give her the drink."

"Jensen, I'm not entirely sure what your problem is, but you need to back the hell off," I hissed, my voice low and angry. "Now."

"There's the fire!" Jensen shouted, clutching the last of the beers that he brought from the party in his fists. "That's what you need to be me, Lucas. The fire that fuels the demon inside of us. I said it was that need to be a hero before, but I was wrong. There's nothing heroic about this. The hero makes us weak. The demon makes us leaders. Now all we gotta do is let him out."

"Jensen, stop!" Jessica begged, reaching forward to touch his arm.

"You stay out of this!" Jensen snapped, pointing an angry finger at her and backing away. "I know you're gonna tell him. You'll do whatever it takes to give him my life. You're gonna tell him what we saw, and it's going to ruin everything!"

Jensen took a few steps closer to me, balancing precariously on the slippery rocks. It was dark, the only light was coming from the house sitting on the hill. Jensen took a sip from his beer and stumbled forward on the rocks.

"Jensen, give me the drink, you're going to fall!" I tried to grab it from him, but he jerked away and pushed me backwards.

"Come on Lucas, show me who you really are!" Jensen challenged, coming closer and closer, pushing my shoulder, testing me to see what I would do next. Jessica tried to reach around Jensen to take the drink from him, but he swatted her hand away, making her stumble backwards.

"Don't touch me!" Jensen shouted, turning to look at her, his eyes blazing.

"Jessica, go back up to the house!" I ordered her, wanting her to get as far away from him as possible.

"Come on, Friar! Show me!" Jensen tackled me onto the rocks behind us, closer to the shoreline.

I didn't see it happen, but I heard it. As Jensen raised his arms to tackle me onto the rocks, his elbow connected with Jessica's jawline and she slipped on one of the rocks, falling backwards into the water.

"Jessica, are you okay?" I called out to her. When there was no response, I made the move to peer around Jensen to check on her. She was face down in the water, and I tried my best to scramble to my feet to help her.

"Where do you think you're going, Friar?" Jensen pinned me to the ground and I pressed my hand against his face, trying everything I could to break free.

"Jessica needs help, Jensen!" I yelled, kicking my feet in the attempt to wiggle my way out of his grip.

"You're never going to be me Lucas!" Jensen roared."You're never going to have my life!" Jensen pulled his arm back and used all of his weight to connect his fist with my jaw. My head jerked backwards and connected with one of the rocks. And then there was only silence.

"After that, everything went black," I explained, leaning against the doorframe of Riley's front door and placing my hands in the pockets of my jeans. "I didn't remember anything about that night until a few weeks later, when I went to visit Jensen and he told me that I was responsible for Jessica's death. All I remembered was that we were both on the rocks with her, she was reaching for a drink in someone's hand, and then she had fallen backwards. But Jensen twisted it to make it look like I pushed her."

"Why would he do that?" Riley questioned, her eyebrows scrunching together to make a small line at the top of her forehead.

"Revenge, I guess," I said in almost a whisper. "But Jensen ended up taking the blame for me for that whole night. The stolen school bus, the alcohol... He didn't get blamed for Jessica's death, though. They ruled that an accident... But, he got kicked out of school. His parents were furious. He basically handed me his life. That's what I don't get."

"He did it so that he would look like the hero in your eyes," Riley explained, her voice low and soft. " He convinced you that it was your fault, then he took the blame - he wanted you to know what a true hero looked like. He'd essentially give you the life that he thought you wanted. The popularity, the wealth, the pretty girlfriend. He wanted you to feel all of that - to feel everything that he gave to you..."

"So that he could take it all away," I finished, as the realization finally set in. "I still don't understand why he wanted to get thrown out of school. Why get sent to Dalton? Why go through all of this just to get back at my family?"

"That's where I come in," Riley announced, standing up straight and smiling confidently at me. "That's what I'm going to find out at the homecoming dance."

"I still don't like this, Riley," I told her, leaning forward and placing a hand on her cheek. "You were listening when I told you that story, right? Jensen? Bad guy."

"Lucas, I don't care," Riley stepped closer, putting her hands on my shoulders and giving me a reassuring smile. "You're worth it to me. You always have been. And once this is over, we can finally be together."

"I like the sound of that," I met her smile, and squeezed her hand before opening the door to let her inside of her apartment.

Jensen Haynes may have been a lot worse than I remembered, but he was still someone I had known for a long time. And he needed help. If Riley had taught me anything, it was that everyone deserves a chance to tell their story. Everyone deserves the chance to get the help they need to be okay again. So that was what I was going to do for Jensen after the homecoming dance. I just hoped that I didn't do anything to put Riley in danger beforehand. Because if that were the case, I don't think I would ever be okay again.