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She never would have married him if she had just realized before the wedding that he was in love with her best friend.
Well, she'd known it forever, but when highschool passed and college flew by she hoped he would just grow out of it. She didn't want to believe that he was truly, deeply in love with Maya Hart, and if he denied it then she could too. Because dating him for 8 years should have been enough to erase the stain and strain on his heart that Riley could never grasp, and that Maya had always held without effort.
Because Riley trusted Lucas, and if he said he loved her then she would believe him, and if he stared at Maya with eyes that never shined as bright when she wasn't around, and said that they were just friends that briefly dated in highschool, and if he said that his heart wasn't trapped by hers and their souls weren't bound, then Riley would just have to believe him.
Yeah right.
She could look past it. When the blonde beauty wasn't around, Lucas was loving. He was perfect, no scars on his heart or a past that he ignores, and he said he loved her. Riley would never look deeper than that, and she knew it was wrong but if she searched far enough she knew he would leave and find Maya and scream his feelings to her like a prince, and they wouldn't be perfect but that would be okay. But Riley was selfish. She wanted Lucas to be her prince, to stay perfect and if that meant ignoring his eyes and his shift in attitude and that goddamn smile that never appeared without her fucking bestfriend in eyesight , than that was it.
Because she put a decade into loving him. Caring for him, kissing him, doing the 'girlfriend duties'. She knew, but she didn't want to notice that when Maya had a longer lasting boyfriend, Lucas would drink more. She didn't want to notice that one time, Maya had been in a car accident and Lucas had left work because he was damn sure going to be there when she woke up. She didn't want to notice that when Maya had to stay at the hospital, Lucas would bring burgers and chinese and books and sketch pads because he needed to be there and make sure that she was fine. Riley didn't want to notice that one halloween, Riley and Maya had dressed up as each other to be funny and that was the best sex night of Riley and Lucas' entire relationship.
So she didn't.
And when Lucas had asked her to marry him, she felt a small part of triumph, because he asked her and not her best friend. She didn't notice the shift in Maya's voice when she told her, she didn't notice the times she spent with Maya slowly becoming further and fewer apart.
And the years flew right by, and she didn't notice the drinks in the fridge disappearing like lightning, or how late Lucas would stay at the bar. And when Maya visited for the first time in 15 years, Riley didn't notice that the goddamn twinkle was back in her husbands eye. And when she was putting her children to bed that night, she tried to block out their voices when they noticed Daddy was the happiest he's ever been around that blonde lady who visited, and is she his sister?
And Riley had wished upon a star that he could pretend to love her half as much as he loved Maya, because Riley had always loved him and still couldn't bear to part with her perfect husband whose eyes twinkled at her best friend.
She'd like to think that she would've never married such a perfect(broken) man(who wasn't in love with her), but she thought it in the way that she thought Lucas loved her, in the way that she thought he was beautiful and perfect and not in love with her best friend, in the way that she thought she could handle being the safe choice.
Because she trusted him, and she'd believe him when he said that he loved her.
(And not her best friend.)