Work Text:
i think i'm gonna make it worse
i talk to you, but it don't work
i touch you, but it starts to hurt
what have been doing wrong?
tell me what it is you want
love, i'll let you go
oh, it's enough to be better,
if i could.
REAL, YEARS & YEARS
Lucas didn't want to choose.
There was too much responsibility in having a choice. The burden, he thought, would be on him. He'd be responsible for breaking a heart, his own happiness, the direction of Riley and Maya's friendship. He pictured the fracture so many times, jagged and loud and molten. His skin crawled with both of them looking at him like he simultaneously held all the power and none of it. None of it: Lucas was willing to let them figure it out. He wanted them culpable. He wanted the heavens to open up, the sun to shine down and a strong, booming voice to spread a decree that would solve the problem.
The universe would know the right thing.
Lucas just had to believe.
He didn't see the catch-22 until Riley and Maya had ripped any choice out of his hands right when he was coming around to making one: a breaking heart, happiness, and friendship were at stake either way.
Riley's light and shiny. She's got brightness rimming her eyes and a halo glowing around her hair. Lucas likes how easy it is to sit with her, how she looks at him like he's light and shiny, too.
"Look!" she says, smile growing wide instead of soft as she throws her arm down next to his on the table. "We're matching."
They are, dark blue and light blue. Lucas smiles back. "We are."
"We have to take pictures." Riley grabs for her phone sitting on the kitchen counter behind her. Her hair fans around her head before settling perfectly by her shoulders. She crowds his space, crouching behind his chair, her head next to his. Her arms are long, but his are longer, so he gingerly takes the phone to snap a few shots. Her grin is so at home on her face that it makes Lucas' smile feel more genuine on his own. They take a few pictures with teeth showing and a few without, Riley's fingers lightly touching his shoulders where they rest against his chair.
"The couple that matches together stays together," Riley chirps, pulling the phone from him as she retakes her seat across the table.
Lucas laughs. "That's the first time I've heard that one."
"It can be our thing." Riley nods, not looking up from where she's no doubt sifting through filters. "We can coordinate our outfits when we go on dates. It'll be super cute."
It's a ridiculous notion, amplified by the fact that he knows Riley will follow through. Lucas can't help the fondness seeping warmly inside his chest. "Are you going to send me pictures of your outfits every morning before school?"
"Don't be absurd, Lucas." She looks up and tilts her head warmly. "I have to surprise you with my beauty sometimes, right?"
The thing about Riley is the words come out so confidently that the insecurity trickles through. She tugs the corner of her lip into her mouth with her teeth, eyes locked on his as she searches for something indiscriminate on his face. Her eyes get a little wild after a few seconds. Lucas folds his hands on the table in front of him. "You're always beautiful, Riley."
"Thank you." Her cheeks pinken, and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. She looks down.
Lucas likes how he feels when he's with Riley like this. It's comfortable and nice, and he feels like he's succeeded in being the person Riley thinks he is when she slides her phone to him, showing off her newest Instagram post. She's tagged it "relationship goals," and Lucas doesn't roll his eyes, because he knows Riley would not take it kindly, and the type of person Riley loves is sweeter than that. "We look good," he says honestly.
"Perfect match," she agrees.
His eyes drift to the top of her page, her icon: Riley and Maya, Maya holding bunny ears over Riley's head, sticking her tongue out at the camera as Riley laughs. Something tenses in Lucas' chest, but the universe must have wanted it this way, so he says: "Very clever."
Riley doesn't wink, but her cheeks dimple. She reaches across the table and grabs his hand with her own.
It's ... comfortable and nice.
That's good, he tells himself. That's safe.
He and Riley don't fight.
They go to church with each other's families, trading off weekly. He sits next to Riley in the pew, looking up at the stained glass panels and listening to a sermon about living Jesus' message, of teaching through every day example. She helps his mama bake, and they experiment with vegan brownies and cupcakes, insisting the recipes cut bad fats out, and the substitutions are healthy. Lucas likes the ones with black beans more than he thinks he should. Riley starts researching so-called "super foods," and then his mama is putting chia seeds into his oatmeal, which he doesn't appreciate nearly as much.
Mr. Matthews won't let him within five feet of Riley's bedroom unless there's someone else present, and Lucas gets a big kick out of it.
Riley rolls her eyes and stomps her foot. "Dad, come on. I just want to show him something on my laptop."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Mr. Matthews narrows his eyes, allowing them to shift back and forth between the teenagers.
"I want to show him something on my laptop," Riley repeats, slower this time.
Mr. Matthews' eyes settle on Lucas, and Lucas stares back, mouth pressed into a straight line. He breaks when Mr. Matthews blinks and growls low in the back of his throat; Lucas holds his hands out in surrender and takes a step backward. "It's fine. Riley can bring her laptop to the living room, right?"
"It's a video with sound," Riley says. Her mother's working on a case in the living room, and she already politely raised her voice, instructing everyone to be quiet so she could focus.
"With sound," Mr. Matthews gasps, hand flying to his chest and switching his gaze back to Riley.
Lucas breathes and relaxes his shoulders.
"It's of farm animals!" Riley shakes her head. "Stop being ridiculous. I just want to share my interests with my boyfriend."
"You can come watch with us," Lucas suggests to Mr. Matthews.
"Lucas," Riley says, and when he looks at her, she's got her eyes narrowed like her father's.
"Sorry!" He tries to take a step away from her, too, but his back hits the wall. "Look, I need to get home anyway."
Riley frowns, but her body slumps forward in resignation. Lucas feels Mr. Matthews' presence looming as Riley walks him to the door, closing it behind them after they step into the hallway. He knows her father is watching through the peephole. "I hope he didn't scare you away," she sighs. "There was a really cute part about pigs."
"Next time," Lucas assures her, reaching out to pat her arm.
"Okay." She smiles small, chin tilted up, eager and waiting.
Lucas places a soft kiss on her cheek before walking away.
He's gotten good at coming up with excuses not to kiss Riley, ranging from "Your father is in the next room and will kill me," to "I'm starting to come down with a cold," and even "The mood just isn't right."
For Riley's part, her frustration seems minimal, even though she's started pulling her bottom lip between her teeth and looking up at Lucas with batting eyelashes more often.
She never pushes.
"How was the big date yesterday?" Zay asks, grabbing an apple off the bowl in the middle of the table.
Three months. Besides Darby and Yogi, no one in their grade has lasted longer. "Good."
"Good?" Zay's eyebrow arches. "Come on, man. Spill the deets."
"So you can go blab them to everyone?" Lucas laughs and rolls his eyes, continuing to the living room where the gaming console is already plugged in to the big screen. The promise of video game night with Zay is the only thing that made his science homework bearable.
"I'm running out of Lucas stories!" Zay argues, and Lucas knows that's a load of baloney. Zay plops down in front of the sofa and takes a crunchy bite of his fruit, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. "You don't want me to get into the great mudslide disaster of 2012, do you?"
"Zay." Lucas stares hard, watches Zay raise and drop his shoulder, smirk growing loonier. "It was good, okay? I don't know what you want me to say. There aren't any juicy details. We went out for pizza, and Riley didn't laugh when I started cutting it with a fork. The movie was fine. One of those romantic comedies she loves so much. I walked her home, arm-in-arm. Typical."
Zay chews more apple, watching Lucas with prying eyes. He swallows, and Lucas knows he's not going to like what Zay has to say by the furrow of his eyebrows. "Typical, huh?"
"Normal date stuff," Lucas clarifies.
"Normal date stuff," Zay repeats.
Lucas hates this game. "Can't we just collect all the gems or save the kingdom or blow stuff up?" Lucas reaches for a controller and settles next to Zay, pressing a button that brings up a menu screen.
"I mean, we could, but I'm more interested in why it sounds like your three month anniversary date was something you just had to 'get through.'"
Lucas sighs. "It's not a big deal. Everyone keeps saying it is. But it's not. A year is a big deal, you know?"
"You realize Riley thought it was a big deal, right?" Zay asks. "That girl updated all her social media accounts with it. Lots of emojis. She's very creative." Zay smiles, and Lucas has to smile, too. He'll never look at those clock emojis the same way again.
"I don't mean it's not a big deal, I just..." Lucas scrubs a hand over his face, trying to speak in a way that doesn't make him sound insensitive. "Riley knows I'm not into all that stuff, but I think it's cute that she is."
Zay looks down and twirls the apple core between his fingers. Lucas is waiting for it: some kind of lecture. He knows it doesn't sound like he's trying, but he swears he is. He picked a nice pizzeria for dinner because Riley decided pizza is their 'date food.' There were linen tablecloths and a fancy chandelier. He found the nicest movie theater with the plush reclining chairs. He bought red gummies for her even though she swore she wasn't hungry after dinner. It's exhausting always trying to figure out what Riley wants from him and what a good boyfriend would do for their good girlfriend. It doesn't come naturally.
"Okay." Zay nods.
Lucas wants to protest. He wants to know what Zay really thinks. But he's not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he throws Zay the other controller and lightly shoves at his shoulder. "Let's do this."
Maya is perfectly friendly.
She and Zay are always finding something to joke about and distract the group with. She lets Riley braid her hair while they sit in Topanga's and study for their history midterm. She taps her pencil against her textbook and asks, "What'd you get for number three, Lucas?"
He busies himself with focusing on Riley, especially after the triangle mess. He wants her to know that he picked her, and that he likes her, and that this is the right thing for everyone. He knows that he and Maya are distancing themselves from each other. It's only proper etiquette. There's something different about her being his girlfriend equally as much, and Riley being his sole girlfriend. There has to be.
He texts her when he's watching High Noon with his mama, because sometimes he likes lobbing her a softball, and because he wants to know if she'll ask about the oatmeal.
She doesn't respond.
He brushes it off. She could be hanging out with Riley, or lost in a painting, or spending time with her mother and Shawn. Maya has never been a prompt responder when it comes to texting, and when she doesn't mention it at school on Monday, Lucas lets it go.
When he texts her a picture of the new painting his father bought for the dining room, she still doesn't respond, so he asks her about it in person.
"What'd you think of the painting?"
It's an overhead view of the city, as if being watched from an airplane window, but the colors are swirls, realism lost to impressionism. Lucas likes it, but he's never had an eye for art besides knowing how much the painting above his mother's vanity costs versus the one over his dad's wine cabinet. What makes one hundreds of dollars versus another thousands beats him, but he knows the value of Maya's focus when she's drawing, the pride that swells in his chest when she holds up a meticulously crafted painting he knows she's been perfecting for months.
"What painting?" she asks.
"I sent you a picture of it? My mama hung it in the dining room."
"She changed it?" Riley asks, leaning toward him from where she's been organizing her desk. "I can't wait to see it!"
"At Sunday dinner," Lucas assures her. "Maya?"
"It's beautiful," she says, already shifting her body and attention to Riley.
And from the taut tone of her voice and the emphasis on the "So," in her, "So, Riley, Shawn wants to take the both of us to the Met this weekend," Lucas can tell that she really wants to change the subject. He can tell she has no idea what he's talking about.
He tests his theory a few days later when they're all hanging out at Topanga's, and Riley and Maya get up to order smoothies. He texts: Howdy, y'all, biscuits and gravy, rodeo, lasso, stirrups, saddle up, ma'am. He watches her come back and look at her phone. Nothing. He does that creepy thing where he tries to look over her shoulder, and she has no message from him, as far as he can tell. He looks at the Delivered on his own cell, rereads it until he starts to question its spelling.
He wants to ask why she blocked his number.
He doesn't.
He dreams of a night full of stars, thousands of little lights sparkling above them in the endless sky. He dreams of a fire crackling, embers flying and scattering around their feet. He dreams of her face between his hands, skin soft and warm, thumbs brushing at her cheeks. He dreams of a wordless gasp. He dreams of kissing her.
Crap.
Riley bounds up to him in the hall, eyes wide as saucers. "They want to do a segment about us in the yearbook!"
"What?" Lucas' hand drops without grabbing his algebra notebook. "What do you mean?"
"There's going to be a section for each class, and the freshmen one is going to have a page on relationships evolving, you know? Obviously Yogi and Darby, but us, too!" She grabs his arm and shakes it, bouncing up and down on her toes. "We're going to be immortalized forever!"
Lucas blinks. "Yeah. I guess we are."
"A little more enthusiasm, please?" She wraps her fingers around his wrist and tugs.
He takes a step closer, trying to figure out what this entails. "That's great, Riley." He breathes and finds he means it. "I guess all your hashtags paid off."
"They did." She beams. She's shiny: her eyes, her hair, her smile. He loves when she's like this, a ball of passion and happiness trying to sweep him --and everyone in her path -- along.
"What do we have to do?"
"We have to give them a few pictures, and they'll put one in. Or we'll pose for one. I don't know yet. A short interview." She shrugs with her entire body, and it seems more like a dance move than anything else.
Lucas grabs her hand. He's gotten used to her softer palm against his rougher one. "Sounds great."
"A memory we can cherish forever." She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and bites at her lip, face tilted up toward his.
He squeezes her hand and turns back to his locker to pull out his spiral. He doesn't want to know if disappointment flashes across Riley's face or not, and he doesn't know if it would be better or worse if it did. But by the time his locker door shuts and they head down the hallway, she's yammering about where they might want to take a picture of the two of them, and she really, really hopes they can do it in the library.
They do get their picture taken in the library. They try the classic prom pose in front of the stacks, and they get a shot with his arm slung around her shoulders, smiling into the camera. The photographer -- Bailey -- instructs them to sit at one of the wooden tables in the center and gaze at each other. Riley rests her cheek in her hand and actually sighs. She says: "To get in character." Lucas' mouth quirks up.
When they're done posing, they stay seated at the table and a yearbook writer named Frank comes over from where he was laughing a few feet away with a group of juniors. The introductions feel formal, handshakes and all.
"So, you guys are kind of a big deal," Frank says, placing an actual recorder onto the table and pressing the button with the red dot. He uncaps a pen, too, drawing a line down the middle of his notebook.
Riley giggles.
"Tell me when your relationship started."
"Well," Lucas says, sitting up straighter and eyeing the recorder. "She fell onto my lap on the subway."
"Really?" Frank's eyebrows shoot toward his hairline. "Fate, huh?"
"Totally!" Riley interjects. "It really was like the universe sending us a sign."
Frank scribbles something down. "And where did it go from there?"
"Well, we wanted to be photographed in a library because that's the first place we really connected. He talked, and I listened and understood what he was saying. That's why we think communication is the most important part of a relationship. Conversation and honesty."
"Yeah," Lucas adds.
"Lucas," Frank says, turning toward him while taking a few more notes. "What do you talk about?"
"Everything," he says instinctively. He knows it's a lie the minute it comes out of his mouth, and he glances at Riley. Wiping his hands on his jeans, he continues: "How our days are, school, the important things."
"Our hopes and dreams. What we care about and believe in," Riley says, nudging his shoulder. "We agree on everything."
"Yeah," Lucas confirms.
"Cool. So, do you think your relationship helped you transition to high school?"
They look at each other, and Riley's mouth tilts to the side.
Lucas wants to disappear. He's thinking about Maya and how he almost destroyed Riley's relationship with the most important person in her life. His brain is caught on how he hasn't told her that he's still not sure about her yet, about this, about the two of them together. He hasn't told her so many things. Lucas doesn't know if they stopped talking, or if he never really felt comfortable being completely honest with her in the first place. He edits with her, and sometimes it feels more like acting than being. Even with all of those questions and complexities, Lucas has always thought it's nice that Riley is his girlfriend. He liked that they would have this page to remember that by, no matter what comes next. But now all the yearbook will say will be, at best, half-truths, and, at worst, complete lies.
"Yeah, I do," Riley says. She clears her throat and focuses on Frank. "We know we can count on each other, encourage each other, and help each other with any problems we face. I believe Lucas can do anything." She glances at him with adoration, and it's not unlike the first time they sat in a library and he told her he wanted to be a veterinarian.
"I believe Riley can do anything, too."
It's the one statement he makes during the entire 10 minute interview that Lucas will stand by.
He keeps dreaming about Maya. Not with any regularity. Lucas tries to discern a pattern: when he's worried about a big game or test, when he's stayed up past 11, when he's eaten a bowl of ice cream less than an hour before settling down for the night. He comes up with nothing tangible, nothing he can do to fix the problem.
Lucas decides it's just hormones.
He wants to double-check, but he can't tell Farkle because he'd tell Riley. He can't tell Smackle because she'd tell Farkle. He can't tell Zay because he'd tell everyone. He can't tell Maya. Lucas would google it, but the idea of typing in 'Why do I keep dreaming about kissing my girlfriend's best friend?" into the search bar makes his skin crawl. He doesn't know what he'll find, and the uncertainty might be better than a concrete answer.
In his dreams, it feels like a lot of things: regret, guilt, fear.
In his dreams, he wants to keep kissing her.
"Is Riley ... happy?" Lucas asks.
Farkle's eyebrows tilt together. "Yesterday she held a 'yay' for over 20 seconds."
"No, I mean with our relationship." Lucas fidgets with the trim around the paper coaster his water glass sits on, and he watches condensation slide slowly toward it.
"What?" Farkle asks. He doesn't sound confused, exactly, but he doesn't sound entirely shocked, either.
"She doesn't feel like something's missing?"
When Lucas exhales, he chances a look at Farkle. Farkle's eyebrows are fully furrowed now, but there's no other tell on his face. "I don't think so? I haven't noticed anything. Why, have you?"
"No," Lucas says quickly, shaking his head. "No. No, of course not."
Farkle's eyes narrow, and Lucas accidentally rips the coaster. "You don't feel like something is missing, do you?"
He swallows and shrugs. "I don't know. I don't know what a relationship is supposed to feel like."
"Well, I don't know what everyone else feels. But Smackle makes me happy. I'm always excited to see her and spend time with her. I look forward to planning dates I know will be intellectually stimulating for us. I feel tingles when she holds my hand, and boylalaloo when she kisses me. She inspires me, and she scares me, but I feel safe with her." Farkle's face has gone soft and faraway, but he looks grounded. "I don't know. It just feels right. How do you feel with Riley?"
Lucas wants to say he feels like that look on Farkle's face. He wants to feel that. "I don't know. I like her. She's sweet, and she's weird in the best ways. And I like that she makes me feel like a good guy."
"And it feels right?" Farkle pries, and there's the ghost of something in the set of his jaw that makes Lucas think there's a right answer to the question.
"I don't know."
It's the wrong answer.
Farkle's jaw locks, disappointment shades his eyes, and he shakes his head. "You better figure it out soon."
Lucas makes an effort to kiss Riley more.
Her lips are soft, and her mouth is always warm, and it's fine.
He may be an idiot, but he knows kissing the right person is supposed to be more than just nice.
He knows he's supposed to want to kiss the right person again and again and again.
In English they read a bunch of short stories, and because of the alphabet, he and Maya are assigned to present "Araby," to the class. Her expression is pinched as they push their desks together, and Lucas is sure the smile he sends her way makes him seem equally as thrilled.
"So, Lucas, you read this thing, right?"
He sighs and shakes his head. "I did. And-" he reaches across the desks and flips to the story in her packet. She's scribbled houses lining a street, a train with smoke billowing to three corners of the page, and flowered teacups, "so did you."
"I doodled in the margins," Maya says. "I don't even know what a bazaar is supposed to be."
She pronounces bazaar like "bizarre," and Lucas can't help the way his mouth tilts up. "Bazaar," he corrects, and she rolls her eyes. "It's a market. He wanted to buy a gift."
"Maybe he could have started by talking to her instead of being a creep." Maya shades in petals on one of the teacups. She hasn't looked back up at him, and her eyelashes look longer than he remembers. She's done that swoopy thing with eyeliner that the older girls on the cheerleading team do. They did it for Riley a few weeks ago after practice, and she'd sent him approximately three snaps about it.
"Yeah, I guess that's true."
Maya snorts. "And then he just gives up. He obviously didn't like her that much."
"He didn't know her," Lucas says. He doesn't know why he feels the need to defend the protagonist. But when the story ended he felt sad for the boy, and he wonders if Maya did, too.
"Again, if he just talked to her."
"Maya," Lucas sighs. "Can we just do the assignment?"
She pauses, pencil stilling on the paper as she looks at him. "By all means."
"Themes?" He writes the word on the first line of his own notebook and underlines it twice. "Love, obviously."
"Ain't it grand?" The sarcasm drips, and she's moved on to drawing a kettle in the other margin.
"Maya," Lucas repeats. He wants her to look at him again, but she doesn't. "What do you think the story was trying to say?"
"What do you think?" she asks, her voice softer and smoother so it comes off like a genuine question instead of a smart retort.
He swallows and thinks. He read it once, and then he read it again, highlighting passages and annotating in the margins. He knows he liked it, and he feels like he both understood it completely and not at all. "I think ... I think he gives up because he doesn't know her, and he's only in love-"
"-In lust," Maya cuts in.
"Or that," Lucas laughs, twirling his pencil between his fingers and watching the twist of her pink mouth, the bow of of her lips. "He's only interested in the idea of her he's created in his head. And by the end of it, he realizes she's never going to live up to those expectations, just like the bazaar didn't."
Maya lifts her head. Her eyes are so blue, so wide, and so far away. Lucas feels like there's something closed off about her now, a distance between them that feels larger than it needs to be. He can almost see her holding tension in her body like she's afraid it'll tell him something. He misses her. He misses the way her mouth quirks up and her eyes smile when she makes fun of him. He misses the way she constantly surprises him, going quiet and sincere at the most unexpected times, teaching him lessons he didn't even know he needed to understand differently. He even misses her annoying elbow on his desk.
"Maya," he breathes. He wants to tell her he misses her, and he wants to ask her if they can go back to before, when they were actually, truly and really part of each other's lives instead of orbiting each other but never getting too close. He's settled with Riley, and Riley had explained how Maya never even really liked him anyway -- the loss of that acutely lodged between his ribs. It's been months. And he aches, fumbling with his pen and dropping it onto the desk, with how much he misses her.
"Don't," she says hoarsely. She blinks a few times and shakes her head before tapping on his notebook. She doesn't look fine, and he'd ask if he thought she'd answer. "Write that down. Also, write something about coming-of-age."
Lucas swallows around the lump in his throat, and in reaching for his pencil he accidentally knocks it onto the ground.
"Whatever you want," he tells her.
Lucas is starting to think the universe doesn't have a plan, at least not in this case.
He wishes he had chosen, had taken his life into his own hands so there could be no one to blame for the way he feels but himself. He tries to settle his thoughts with reminders that, by the time it happened, he was going to pick Riley anyway. The choice didn't matter, maybe, maybe it was just letting himself choose that mattered.
Because he didn't realize that Maya and Riley might be fine, but he's not. His heart isn't broken, per se, but it feels worn down, fissures slivering, fracturing out from the center like spiderwebs. And he's not quite unhappy, but he's not quite happy, either.
Maya's not his friend anymore. And Lucas would go back if he could, do anything and everything differently if he could change that.
And if he's being truthful, he still has no one to blame but himself.
Not making a choice is making a choice.
He just made the wrong one.
Lucas hopes he can live with it.