A/N: This is the last official part of this story, however there is still the epilogue that should be posted in the next few days or so. Thanks for reading and sticking with this story for so long! If you want to know anything else about the story let me know. For example, alternate endings, actors I was thinking of for characters like Jensen or Merritt, the link to the soundtrack I made for the story, etc. Pretty much anything you want to know, just shoot me a message! Thanks again!
Chapter 24: The Journey of Finding Yourself
Lucas
Before I left for London I took a trip into a local bookstore near my family's apartment. I asked the shop owner working at the counter for any book recommendations that centered around people traveling the world on some sort of journey. Without a word, he proceeded to escort me to the travel section of the store stocked with maps and travel guides and thick books documenting the best types of cuisine around the world.
"I'm sorry, I should have been more clear," I said, looking at him apologetically and placing a hand over one of the European travel guides. "I meant a novel. A novel about a man or a woman seeking to discover something and doing everything in their power to find it, no matter how long it takes. A character on a journey. A character looking to start over and grow into who they're meant to be."
"Ah," he murmured, turning away from the shelves of books to raise his eyebrows at me knowingly. "You want to do a little research on the journey of self discovery and rejuvenation."
"I'm not sure what you mean," I frowned, shaking my head at him in confusion as he led me back to the front of the store.
"Every book I've read about a man traveling the world in hopes of completing their mission -whatever that may be- always turns out to be a matter of discovering, or sometimes reinventing, themselves," he explained, rearranging the trinkets set up on the top of the counter and quickly glancing up to meet my gaze.
"What if that was my goal all along," I admitted, twisting my hands together and bending down to pick up a bookmark that had flown onto the floor when he moved one of the display cases. "What if I'm seeking to find the person who I used to be, but also the person I'm meant to become. Will I find something else along the way?"
"No man takes a journey of any kind without returning home with an unintentional discovery," his lips curled into a smirk as he turned back around to look up at me. "In fact - I think I have just the book for you, son. It might not be exactly what you're expecting, but I think you'll find it's exactly what you need."
Reaching behind the counter, he pulled out a small, beat-up copy of a novel that looked as though it had gotten a lot of attention in its lifetime. He placed it in a bag without revealing the title to me and held it out for me to take.
"Thank you," I told him, reaching into my back pocket to pull out my wallet.
"I hope you find what you're looking for," he gently pushed my wallet away and I smiled at him gratefully. "Or rather, who you're looking for."
"Me too," I said in almost a whisper.
Clutching the bag in my hand, I turned on my heel to push through the rickety door at the front of the bookstore. I didn't remove the book from the bag until I got on the plane that same night. I recognized the title immediately, but was taken aback by the shop owner's choice. Yet, another part of me wasn't the least bit surprised that the one book that a total stranger had chosen for me to read in an effort to discover myself again just so happened to be the one book in the entire world that Riley Matthews had chosen to be her favorite.
I never read the book. In fact, for my first month in London, it sat on the desk in my dorm room at the boarding school that my mother organized for me to attend and it remained sitting there unopened for the next month. And the next. And the next. And the longer it sat there untouched, the more miserable I became. The book was there as a reminder that I could choose to rediscover myself at any time, but I simply didn't care enough to do so.
"Your phone's ringing."
My roommate appeared in my bedroom doorway and I slowly turned to glare at him, making sure to let my annoyance come across in my expression. To say we didn't get along was an understatement. His name was Liam and he constantly wanted to talk to me about school or my parents or my life back in New York, but I was tired of talking. In fact, I wanted to anything but talk.
It was as if coming to London opened my eyes to everything that had happened in the past year and it was just now crashing down on me. My father cheating on my mother. My brother lying to me. Jensen making my life miserable. Lacrosse. Merritt. Failing English. Meeting Riley. Almost losing Riley. Loving Riley. Leaving Riley. So instead of talking about that with Liam and his stupid questions and childish haircut, I coped in a different way.
"Let it ring," I grumbled, picking up a pen from the cup sitting on my nightstand and scribbling on a sheet of clean notebook paper.
"But I'm trying to study and it's distracting," Liam whined, fidgeting back and forth from one foot to the other.
"Then go out into the common room," I snapped, the scribbles becoming much darker as I put more pressure on the paper the angrier I became. Something next to the mahogany dresser caught his eye and he averted his attention to the other side of the room.
"You know, I'd really appreciate it if you wouldn't leave that stuff in the room," Liam spat, stomping his way over to dresser and swiping the bottle of tequila from the hardwood floor. "We could get in trouble."
"Relax, Liam," I groaned, rolling my eyes and throwing the piece of paper and pen onto the dresser. "It's not like anyone is going to come to the door for a surprise room check anytime soon."
As soon as the words left my lips there was a knock on the door that made Liam's face turn as white as a sheet.
"Oh no," he exclaimed, tossing the bottle in my direction. Luckily I caught it before it hit the floor, and Liam rushed over to the other side of the room. "Quick, shove it under the pillow!"
"Liam, calm down," I instructed, trying my best to keep my voice as calm as possible. "I'll take care of this, you go answer the door."
"But-"
"Go!" I gestured towards the door and he nodded, taking a deep breath before turning the doorknob and swinging the door open.
I could hear hushed voices from the front of the room as I shoved the bottle, and anything else that might have gotten us kicked out of school, underneath my mattress. I didn't notice anyone entering the room until I looked up from smoothing out the wrinkles in my bedspread to see Liam hovering over me with an amused expression on his face.
"It's for you," he announced, stepping to the side to reveal the visitor who had entered the room after him and was waiting patiently behind him.
For a split second I thought that I was dreaming. I had imagined this moment happening a thousand different times in a thousand different ways, but it never felt like it would actually happen. And now that it was, I wasn't sure if I could trust my eyes or not.
"Riley," I said breathlessly, unable to make my voice come out any louder than a whisper.
"You didn't answer your phone," she pointed out, gesturing to the phone laying face down on the desk on the other side of the room.
"What are you doing here?"
"The second session of the writing program is being held in London this year," Riley explained, swapping her bag from one hand to the other and biting her bottom lip nervously. "And I wanted to see you."
"This doesn't seem real," I muttered, rubbing the back of my head and looking up at her in awe.
"I know," she nodded, and I finally stood from my crouched position to meet her face to face.
We stood there staring into each others eyes for a moment like we were back in New York before everything happened with Jensen. It took Liam coughing like he had an entire chicken bone stuck in his throat to snap us back to reality and Riley glanced back at the door. "Can we go somewhere and talk?"
"Uh, yeah," I scrambled to grab my keys and wallet from the bedside table and headed for the door. "I know just the place. Let's go."
Since arriving in London, I found that I had been doing a lot of wandering. I wandered through town, through parks, into random coffee shops and local pubs. I think that I imagined that wandering would eventually lead me to finding what I had been seeking all this time. But the longer I wandered, the more frustrated I became that I was just walking aimlessly with no direction. Then one Sunday afternoon I took a chance on this park about fifteen minutes away from my boarding school. I spent hours walking and observing strangers walking their dogs or playing with their children on the playground, not finding anything of interest until finally I found a little section of the park that reminded me of home.
"It's beautiful out here, Lucas," Riley told me, leaning forward on the bench located away from the busier sections of the park, taking in the lush greenery and vibrant peonies in the garden beside us.
"I thought you might like it," I smiled slightly, tucking a piece of hair that had grown long enough to reach the bottom of my earlobe, behind my ear and turning my head in the direction of the area that she was admiring.
"It reminds me of-"
"The secluded area in the park by your apartment that has the overgrown willow tree and the worn-out bench," I finished for her, looking down at the foot that was grazing the graveled path in front of me and kicking at it. "I know, that's why I liked it."
"Right," she nodded, quickly glancing in my direction before averting her gaze to the hands resting carefully in her lap. There was a moment of silence in which neither of really knew what to say, until we both looked up and began talking at the same time. "So how have you been?"
"Why did you come to see me?" I started to say, but stopped when I realized that she was asking me a question as well. We laughed nervously until I gestured for her to continue with what she was trying to say.
"Here's the thing," she began, turning in her seat so that her entire body was facing me. "I need you to come back."
"Riley," I shook my head, not wanting to have this conversation, but she grabbed my arm and forced me to meet her gaze.
"No, Lucas listen to me, please," she begged, her eyes pleading with me. "I need you to come back because I want a chance to be with you in a way that I've dreamed about for so long. I need you to give us a chance. I need you to trust that I know you and that I've always known you in a way that you don't even know yourself."
"That's exactly why I can't come back, Riley," I admitted, knitting my eyebrows together and shaking my shoulder free of her grip. "How can you know me if I don't even know me? I'm so lost. And I'm not sure I can ever find my way back."
"Give me a chance to help you find it," she pleaded with me, desperation in her voice.
"You can't," I asserted, a coldness to my voice that I knew she was not used to hearing. "And I don't want you to."
"W-why not?" she stammered, her voice beginning to quaver, a sure sign that I had thrown her off guard with a tone that the old Lucas Friar would have never used.
"You might want a chance for us to be together in a way that's supposed to mean something, but I don't," I lied, hoping that I sounded convincing enough for her to believe me. "You think that you know who Lucas Friar is, but you have no idea. You don't know me. And we don't belong together."
"I don't believe that," she said, tears beginning to well up at the corners of her eyes.
"Well you should," I snapped, trying everything I could not to let my expression show how heartbroken I was to be saying this to her. "Because I'm dating someone else. And it made me realize that I never should have told you I loved you in New York, because I didn't even know what that meant. But now I do. And I don't feel that way about you."
"You're lying," she muttered, turning away from me so that she was on the edge of the bench, ready to get away at any moment.
"Go home Riley," I told her firmly. "Just - go home and be with someone who can make you happy. Please."
"This isn't you," she muttered under her breath. "But I believe that he's in there somewhere and that you'll find a way to bring him back again. I believe in him. But this person - this version of him, I don't believe in. Goodbye, Lucas."
With that, she pushed off the bench and headed in the direction of the path that we took to enter the park. I felt sick to my stomach. I was doing all of this so that I wouldn't hurt her again like I did by dragging her into my mess with Jensen, but I somehow found a way to hurt her anyway. I couldn't be with her because I knew that she deserved better. I didn't deserve to have Riley Matthews love me. I knew that now. And I also knew that I deserved to be alone. I was doing what I thought was best, and I had to live with that.
When I returned to my room later that night, all I wanted to do was sleep or drink or both, but Liam made sure that was the last thing I would do as soon as I pushed open the door and stepped inside.
"You were gone a long time," he pointed out, turning in his desk chair to watch me as I threw my keys onto my nightstand and flung myself onto my tiny twin-size bed.
"Not now Liam," I muttered into my pillow, hoping that if I buried my face further into my covers that I could disappear somehow.
"It's about that girl isn't it?" Liam asked, and I rolled onto my back and propped my elbows up on my pillows to glare in his direction.
"I said not,-" I stopped short when I saw something pressed up against the wall closest to the door. "What's that?"
"How should I know?" Liam, ever the helpful roommate, mumbled into his book. Rolling my eyes, I swung my legs off the bed and walked over to the door to inspect the foreign object that had been slammed up against the wall when I entered the room.
I picked up the envelope from the hardwood floor and stared at it for a moment before breaking the seal and unfolding the paper from within. There were two sheets - the first was a handwritten note that I knew was written by Riley as soon as I pulled it out of the envelope. I recognized the fancy swirls she added at the end of her 'y's' from the notes she had written on my English papers. I quickly read the message, my hands shaking as I tried to steady the paper.
This is the real Lucas Friar. This is you. Please find him again because I miss him more than I thought was possible to miss anyone. Hopefully this will remind you that there are people who still know him. People who still love him. Please bring him back. If not for me, then for yourself. Please.
I quickly placed the note behind the other sheet to find that it was a typed short story of some sort. I realized immediately that this was the story that Riley had submitted to get accepted into the summer writing program at NYU. It only took my reading the title to come to the conclusion that this story was about me.
The Boy Who Leaned Against Lockers by Riley Matthews
Students went out of their way to be around him - to watch and admire and be a part of it all. He made it look like an art, even though it was something everyone around him was doing. The way his left shoulder slumped to one side as he laughed at a joke that only he would find funny. The heel propped up against the wall. The hair sticking up in odd right angles on top of his head that looked like they were meant to be that way. These things gave everyone around him a sense of comfort that was hard to explain if you didn't know him. And not everyone did. Not in the way that he wanted them to know him. Not in the way that they noticed that he leaned against lockers because as a way to show the world who he really was.
I read the rest of the story on floor, slumped up against the door, ignoring Liam's strange looks in my direction as he moved about the room organizing things that didn't need organizing. Then I read it two more times in the coffee shop across the street. Then once more before I went to sleep that night. I read it again and again until I realized that Riley had seen who I was before I even thought about looking in her direction. She had known this whole time, and I was just too afraid to admit it.
Or maybe I was too afraid to admit it to myself. I knew who I was and who I wanted to be from that moment on. I was someone who didn't want to care what people thought of me, who loved books and long conversations in secluded places, who loved eating cheesecake and other junk food instead of an actual meal, who loved listening to obscure records and playing video games with my brother and Zay, who enjoyed running, instead of playing an organized sport like lacrosse. But most of all, I realized that over the past year I had become someone who loved being with Riley. And I loved being and doing all of those things with Riley by my side.
Without another thought, I grabbed my suitcase from the closet and began throwing random pieces of clothing into it before zipping it up and hurrying over to the door.
"Going somewhere?" Liam appeared in the doorway just as I swung it open, and he raised his eyebrows at me as he took in my suitcase and passport in either hand.
"Uh, yeah," I mumbled, stepping to the side to let him enter the room. "I'm going-"
"You're going home," he finished for me, tossing his backpack on the floor and turning to face in my direction.
"Yeah, I am," I nodded, adjusting the suitcase from one hand to the other.
"It's because of the girl isn't it?" Liam asked. "The one who showed up here the other day?"
"I'm going home for myself," I explained, looking up to meet Liam's gaze. "I'm doing it for myself because I finally know who that is. And I think I've known him all along. But yeah, Riley helped me get there. She was a big part of it."
"Good for you, Lucas," he smiled, looking more genuine than he had since the day I met him. "Anyway, safe flight. By the way, I think you should definitely read that book that's been sitting on the desk since you got here in December on the plane. The Secret Garden? It's brilliant, really. Completely underrated."
Liam crossed the room to remove the book from the top shelf of the desk and tossed it in my direction. I caught it with one hand and smiled at him from across the room.
"Thanks, man," I told him, smoothing my free hand over the cover as I turned to leave the building. "I'll see you around."
"Let's hope not," Liam called back to me. "We were terrible roommates."
"Right," I laughed, giving him a quick wave before pressing on the door to step into the lobby. "Bye Liam."
With that, I headed out of the dormitory and onto the streets of London to make my way to the airport. I was headed back to the life that I was trying to get away from for all the wrong reasons. After reading Riley's letter, I realized that I wasn't trying to find myself when I left New York. I was running away from everything that had happened and refusing to own up to my mistakes. I saw how wrong I was now. I just hoped that it wasn't too late to fix everything.
Riley
We were packed into the gymnasium so tight that our shoulders were squished together and our knees knocked against one another every time we so much as breathed. It was the beginning of the school year assembly, and the seniors had the esteemed privilege of sitting up front where there was a lot less space and it was much hotter than it was in the rest of the gym.
"I'm sweating in places I didn't even know existed," Maya complained, fanning herself with the pamphlet they gave us as we arrived at the assembly.
"We really need a bigger gym," Farkle agreed, pulling on his green button-down shirt to keep it from clinging to his body. "Overcrowding is seriously an issue here. I'm definitely writing my first article of the year about that."
"Wait a minute, Riley told me that she would give the first interesting article of the year to me," Maya turned in her seat to nudge me in the side. "Riley, didn't you say that?"
"I don't know," I muttered, my mind somewhere else entirely. "I don't think I know anything anymore."
There were a thousand things I didn't know. A million even. More than a million. In fact, I practically knew nothing. But amongst those millions of things that I was in the dark about, there was one single, solitary fact that I was absolutely certain of that rose above the rest and made it's way into the light. I knew him. I knew him down to his very core. And I was so in love with him. And the inconceivable truth about it was that he had no idea who I was. Not in the way that counted. At least that's what I thought before... Well, just. Before.
"Settle down please," the principal instructed from the podium at the front of the room. "I'm very excited to get this school year started off right, so without further ado I would like to introduce our student body president from last year, Merritt Haynes."
Merritt stood from her special chair next to the principal's podium and took his place. She started talking about all the big events that she helped organize last year and how she looked forward to doing so again this year if she were chosen as student body president a second time. She introduced some other students with important-sounding titles who expressed the importance of joining clubs this year. It was all very mundane, heavy with information I had already heard the last three years I had gone to school here. Then it was Holden Friar's turn to talk about the drama club. My heart stopped for a second when he stepped onto the podium. He looked so much like his brother, it was a little hard to look at him.
"Last fall we put on a wonderful rendition of Death of a Salesman," Holden was saying, and I averted my eyes to the floor and refused to look back up at him. "And even though I wasn't a part of it, the spring musical was equally amazing. I'm excited to be here for the entire year this year and to-"
The room fell silent as Holden suddenly stopped talking in the middle of his sentence. My head shot up to see Holden frozen at the podium, completely unable to speak or move.
"Why'd he stop?" I asked Maya, as I scanned the gymnasium to see students whispering amongst themselves with curious expressions.
"Riley," she muttered, her eyes locked on something near the gym's entrance.
"What?"
"Look," she pointed to a figure standing in the doorway and I followed her finger with my gaze to see Lucas standing with his hands in his pockets, looking more nervous than I had ever seen him.
It didn't take him long to find me in the crowd. As he made his way to the front of the room, every single eye was on him as they waited to see what he was going to do. With his gaze still on me, he leaned in to hug his brother before turning to face the microphone.
"Hi little brother," he greeted Holden, gesturing to the podium and the crowd sitting before him. "Mind if I take over?"
"No, the floor's all yours," Holden patted Lucas on the back before stepping to the side to let Lucas have the mic.
"Thanks," he mumbled, glancing down at the wooden surface in front of him as he took a second to gather his thoughts. "Hi everyone. Uh, if you were around last year you might have seen or heard some things about me that might give you the impression that I haven't really been myself. Or maybe you didn't notice because I haven't even known who that is for a very long time. At least that's what I thought. But anyway, someone very special to me showed me recently that I've always been the person that I was meant to be. It just took running away to London for me to understand that."
Lucas paused for a moment to take the microphone from it's stand and walk a few steps in my direction without meeting my eyes. I could see and hear the people behind me whispering to their friends and in that moment I really just wanted to crawl into a hole and hide for the rest of the day.
"This person has seen me for who I am since before I even knew her. And I know that sounds crazy and I know that half of you don't know what I'm talking about, but I hope that she does. And I hope that she is hearing me when I say that I made a mistake," Lucas stopped in front of me and finally moved his head slightly to meet my gaze. "I made a mistake by leaving and not trusting you or even trusting myself to find a way past all the craziness that's happened over the last year. I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. But I hope that you can give me another chance to prove to you that I'm not going to leave again and I'm still going to fulfill all of the promises I made to you. I'm right here, and I'll always be here, but you just need to give me a chance to-"
People might have thought I was crazy for giving him another chance, but I knew Lucas' heart. And I knew that he had found a way to overcome the darkness he had felt inside since everything that had happened with his parents and Jensen. I could see how genuine he was being and I knew he would do everything he could not to hurt me again.
"Lucas," I stood from the bench quickly to place a hand over his mouth to keep him from saying anything more. "You talk too much."
He didn't waste another second. Ignoring all the cheers from the students behind us, Lucas pulled me towards him with one hand and placed the other on my cheek, closing every inch of space between us. Before I could catch my breath, Lucas met his lips with mine and the rest of the world melted away. Our past didn't matter, the future didn't matter - all that mattered was the two of us in that moment, keeping the promises we made to each other and feeling like we knew one another in the most important ways.
"Ms. Hart, those are supposed to be for the pep rally next week, don't pull that rope young lady!" I heard the principal shout off to the side of the the gymnasium. A second later Lucas and I broke away to see Maya holding onto a rope and looking up at the ceiling mischievously.
"Oops, too late!" Maya shouted, pulling down on the rope to release a net full of balloons that fell onto our shoulders and surrounded us instantly. A second later the music began to play from the loud speaker in the AV closet and the crowd of students swarmed the gymnasium floor, pushing Lucas and me off to the side.
"Remember that day in the hallway last year when I asked you if I looked happy?" Lucas asked, holding my hands and leaning in close.
"Vaguely," I smirked, thinking back to that day and remembering every word we said to one another.
"Well what's your answer now?" Lucas wanted to know, stepping back and smiling down at me. "Do I look happy?"
"You look like Lucas Friar," I said confidently, returning his smile and kicking a few balloons out of the way so that I could step closer to him. "And I look like Riley Matthews. And it looks like we're going to have an amazing year together."
"I like the sound of that." With that, he leaned forward to rest his forehead against mine before our lips found each other for another kiss.
A lot had happened in the last year. And a lot was still going to happen. Lucas and I had grown in ways I didn't think possible and we weren't done. We might know who we are now, but that could change in a year or two years or even a week from now. I think we both finally realize that it's okay not to know who you are because if you find the right people or do what's best for you - you'll find your way. And if you're lucky enough, you can finally add your own name to that list of people you may know. I know I have. And I couldn't be happier.