Abaddon
n. a place of destruction; the depths of hell.
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AU: Ever since he broke up with his girlfriend, Lucas Friar has been stuck in a perpetual state of purgatory. One night, he shows up outside of her apartment, desperate to escape the emotional paralysis that’s held his soul hostage for over a year. What he discovers eventually sends him on an emotional journey through Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell as depicted in The Divine Comedy.
Pairing(s): Rucas centric, but Joshaya are dating in this AU.
Rating: M - there is nothing graphic, but there is some language and some adult situations, so I’d rather play it safe. If it were a movie, it’d be rated R due to the fact that fuck is said more than once. This is an angsty/dark fic, but there are dashes of fluff, too.
Flashbacks are in italics. Quotes from The Inferno are sprinkled in and notated.
Chapter Word Count: 6,862
Tagging: @naelacy @iwantyoutochooseme @madelinecoffee@fireawayniall @katherinefrays if you want to be tagged, let me know
“There is no greater sorrow than to recall our times of joy in wretchedness.” - Dante, The Inferno
Prologue | Limbo | Lust | Gluttony | Greed | Wrath | Heresy | Violence | Fraud | Treachery | Epilogue |
Chapter One: Limbo
‘When I had journeyed half of our life’s way, I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does not stray. Ah, it is hard to speak of what it was, that savage forest, dense and difficult, which even in recall renews my fear: so bitter – death is hardly more severe! But to retell the good discovered there, I’ll also tell the other things I saw. I cannot clearly say how I had entered the wood; I was so full of sleep just at the point where I abandoned the true path.’ (Inf. I. 1-12)
The last 24 hours felt nothing short of surreal for Lucas Friar. It still didn’t feel real, even after he boarded the afternoon bus to Connecticut. Maybe it was because at this particular point in this life, nothing seemed to surprise him. Maybe it was because over the course of the last year, he found it hard to care about anything at all. And, he learned, if you didn’t really care about anything, you couldn’t ever really be surprised.
So, he pondered as the bus pulled out of the station, if he no longer possessed the ability to care about anything, why was he on a bus to Connecticut—to Farkle’s parents’ ski cabin? Sure, he used to enjoy snowboarding, but why did he have the sudden urge to spend the next several days gliding down the slopes? He hadn’t had any desire to do anything evenly remotely considered fun in over a year. Why now?
Because he knew that it had nothing to do with snowboarding and everything to do with who else would be there that weekend.
She was going to be there, and after the previous night, he knew that he had to be there too.
The same she that he swore to himself he’d stay away from. The same she that invaded every single one of his senses the moment she fell onto his lap on the subway when they were in 7th grade. The same she who had occupied every ridiculous dream he had ever envisioned for himself. The same she that he left behind on her 21st birthday.
Lucas pressed his forehead against the slightly frosted window as the New York City skyline slowly faded away. Had it only been a year since that dreadful night? It felt like a lifetime ago. He was a completely different person back then. That Lucas had hope for the future. That Lucas had goals he wanted to achieve, and was well on the way to making all of those dreams a reality. That Lucas had a clear direction for his life.
Above all else, that Lucas could feel. Back then, he was capable of experiencing every human emotion under the sun: joy, sorrow, anger, pain, but above all, he knew what being in love felt like. And God, he loved her more than he ever loved himself.
And yet, it was that version of himself who broke her heart. He broke up with her hours after she turned 21. Even now, a year after the fact, whenever he closed his eyes, he could picture her standing in the middle of her bedroom while he told her that he wanted to end their six year relationship. Over the course of the last twelve months, he had become haunted by the anguish that shown in her beautiful brown eyes. He could also pinpoint the precise second when her heart broke, because that was the exact moment his did the same.
Seeing her crumble right in front of his eyes—and knowing that he was the one who caused it—had to be one of the most gut-wrenching moments he would ever experience. Almost immediately, he tried to take it all back. He didn’t want to break-up. He never wanted to break-up. He only wanted everything to be better. He wanted her to be happy. The moment he saw the first tear slide down her cheek, he knew that he had made a horrible mistake. He desperately tried to take it back, to fix everything he had just done, but it was already too late. She promptly kicked him out of her apartment and out of her life.
The moment his legs carried him away from her apartment, every incredible feeling he had ever felt with her faded away. The pain that had overtaken every nerve in his body intensified with every step he took away from her apartment. When it all became too much—when the weight of his actions and his own heartache became unbearable—a new sensation overpowered him: numbness. When he realized that he no longer felt suffocated by what he had done, a tidal wave of relief washed over him. In the back of his mind, he knew that it wasn’t right—that pushing down all of this self-inflicted pain would only be detrimental in the end—but he didn’t care.
That was the entire point.
He simply didn’t care about anything anymore.
Until last night.
Lucas wasn’t sure how long he paced outside of her door.
He wasn’t even sure what he was doing there.
He hadn’t heard a word from her in over a year. She refused to speak to him. She refused to see him. Even though he found an alternative way of handling the pain of the break-up, he still wanted to try explain the situation to her, perhaps even salvage their relationship, but apparently, he was the only one. She ignored every single gesture he made the month following their split. When winter break drew to a close, he knew he had to leave. Even though he transferred to Cornell, even though he was now in the same state as she was, he realized that he had to give her what she wanted.
After all, it was the least he could do.
He wanted to fight like hell for her—for them—but the fact that she wouldn’t even talk to him sent a very clear message to the stoic Texan: leave her alone. The fact that he now felt completely numb to the entire world around him made that choice a much easier one to make. The old Lucas wouldn’t have given up so easily, but this new Lucas realized that she deserved something much more than what he had been able to offer her for the last three years.
With that in mind, he ceased all attempts at communicating with her. He didn’t call, didn’t text, and deactivated all of his social media accounts. She knew nothing about his life just has he knew nothing about hers.
So, why did he end up outside of her apartment—the one place he swore he’d never return to?
Because it had been over a year since that horrific night and he still couldn’t feel anything. He had become completely detached to the world around him. Logically, he knew that it was no way to live—that he had somehow detached himself from his emotions in order to cope with what he had done—but he couldn’t help but to wonder if this coping mechanism had become permanent? Maybe his brain was still trying to protect his heart from facing the emotional consequences of what he had done. Maybe it was because he had not idea how she was doing. Every time he talked to Zay or Farkle, he was tempted to ask about her, to see how she was, but he never did. He knew he lost the right to know anything about her life a long time ago.
And yet, here he was—about to disrupt her life just to get a glimpse of the woman he had foolishly left behind that frigid night. Maybe if he saw her, maybe if he knew that she was ok, that she had moved on, he’d be able to feel something again.
He had been selfish with her once before. It was how he ended up exactly where he was now. He knew that if she wanted to talk to him, she would have reached out by now. He knew that he had absolutely no right to barge in on her life anymore.
He knew that he was being selfish once again, but her apartment was the first stop he made when he got back to the city. It wasn’t even a conscious decision. Somewhere between leaving his apartment in Ithaca and arriving in New York, he shifted into autopilot, but instead of ending up at his parents’ place, he ended up outside of her apartment. That had to mean something, right? Maybe it meant that enough time had finally passed. Maybe it meant that they could act like adults and finally sit down and talk this whole thing out. He had no expectation that anything would return to normal or that they would even part as friends, but he also knew that he couldn’t even begin to repair himself until he saw her—until he knew that she was ok.
Maybe somewhere deep down, she felt the same way.
Before he could second-guess himself for the tenth time since he arrived at the building, he knocked on the door.
As Riley loaded her bags into Farkle’s SUV, she was hit with an incredible sense of dread about the weekend ahead. She groaned as she tried to squeeze her bag in with the other luggage and groceries piled underneath it. She wasn’t sure why she was suddenly feeling so anxious about the trip. It was ridiculous. They had planned this little vacation for nearly a month now, not to mention the fact that being able to escape the city for a few days was the only thing that pushed her through finals.
It was going to be fun.
It had to be fun.
She knit her eyebrows together as she continued to wrestle with her luggage. She knew that it would also be the first time she had gone back to the mountains since the breakup.
Maybe her sudden bout of anxiety was just a side effect from seeing him the previous night? She paused as a flash of him outside of her door came to mind. She shook her head as she tried to quickly chase the mental image away. No. That wasn’t it. That couldn’t be it. Lucas Friar no longer had a hold on her. He broke up with her over a year ago. He dumped her on her 21st birthday. That was it. That was the end of their story.
So, if that were true, then why had she thought of little else since she saw him through her peephole last night? An even bigger question she had for herself was why she let him come inside in the first place? Why did she pretend that everything was perfectly fine when she felt anything but fine? Why did every single feeling she had spent the better part of last year trying to free herself from come charging back at her the moment she looked into those brilliant green eyes again? Why did her legs quake when the right corner of his lips turned up into that charming little half smile? Why did her heart race at the sound of his voice?
But why, above everything else, did she ask him to stay?
“Need help with that,” Farkle chuckled from behind her.
Riley spun around as she faced one of her best friends. Her frown deepened when she noticed that he looked completely bemused at her frustration. ‘If you only knew,’ she thought to herself as she handed him her bag. She said nothing else as she walked toward the passenger side door.
She mentally chastised herself as she opened the door and climbed into the black SUV. As soon as she buckled her seatbelt, she leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes.
She should have never answered that stupid door.
Riley groaned as she leaned her head back. She rubbed her aching neck as she looked back down at the chemistry book that sat on her coffee table. “I hate you,” she muttered. She had always been pretty good in her science classes until she came face to face with an organic chemistry class the fall semester of her senior year of college. She glanced at her phone. ‘12:35am.’
She yawned as she slowly stood up and made her way to the kitchen. It was going to be another all-nighter. She needed coffee—tons of it. As soon as she put a K-cup in the Keurig, she heard a knock on her door. She frowned at the sound, and briefly considered ignoring it all together, but her curiosity quickly got the better of her. Maya was spending the night with Josh, so unless something catastrophic had happened, she knew it couldn’t be her roommate. Besides, Maya had a key. She wouldn’t knock on her own apartment door.
Riley frowned as she peered into the peephole. No. This couldn’t possibly be real. Her mouth ran dry as she closed her eyes and leaned forward in order to rest her forehead against the door. It was the last person she’d ever expect to see outside her door in the middle of the night. She had no idea what he was doing here, but she knew that she couldn’t see him right now. Not only was it the first time she had seen him since that night, but also, she was in the middle of preparing for a hellacious exam that she had to take in seven and a half hours. Maybe she could just walk away and pretend that no one was home? Maybe she could force herself to forget all about the guy who stood on the other side of the door?
She leaned away from the door, fully prepared to turn around and walk away from him just as he did to their relationship, but instead, she found herself unlocking the door. She shook her head at her own weakness as she opened it. Even in the middle of the night, even when she looked like a complete mess and was stressed beyond belief, some small part of her demanded that she face the past.
As her tired chocolate eyes met his shiny emerald ones, it felt as if she were teleported back to when they first met that fateful morning on the subway ten years ago. Despite the fact that she could hear her heart pulsate in her ears and could feel her legs quiver at the mere sight of him, she tried to act casual. She knew she had to. She couldn’t let on that he had any sort of physical affect on her.
In order to mask her quaking form, she leaned against the doorframe as she crossed her arms over her chest in a protective stance. God. She hated her body. She hated how it always seemed to betray her in situations like this. She cleared her throat as she forced herself to focus on the fact that her ex-boyfriend had showed up outside of her apartment in the middle of the night. “Lucas? What are you…when did you,” she took a deep breath in order to steady her rapidly unraveling nerves, “It’s after midnight…what do you want?”
Lucas had rehearsed what he was going to say the moment he realized where he was, but as soon as he laid eyes on her, his entire speech went out the window. He couldn’t help but to take in the spectacular picture that had always been Riley Matthews. The girl of his dreams, the one who got away, the one who still haunted his every dream, even a year after their painful breakup.
The corner of his right lip lifted into a smirk—his first attempt at a smile since the breakup. “Are you wearing my shirt?”
Riley looked down at her apparel. She wore a blue button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. The denim shorts she wore could barely be seen underneath the oversized shirt. Her long brunette tresses were piled on top of her head in a messy bun with a pen to hold it all in place. “I-I don’t know,” she lied, “I can’t remember where I got it from.”
The truth was that she could recall every detail of the moment that he gave her that shirt, but she wasn’t about to let herself go down that road. It was another lifetime ago. They were different people then. She hadn’t spoken to him in a year. She didn’t know anything about the guy who stood in front of her. He was nothing more than a stranger to her now, and while at one point, the thought of Lucas Friar becoming a stranger seemed impossible, Riley refused to allow herself one second of remembering him as anything else.
It was easier that way.
Before the silence that hung in the air between them completely took control of the situation, Lucas knew he had to just come out and ask for the impossible. “Can I come in?”
Even though she was surprised to see him outside of her apartment, she was floored when he asked to come in. “I-I don’t know,” she stammered as she crossed her arms over her chest once more. “Why are you here?” She knew that she wasn’t mentally prepared to handle the situation that was beginning to unfold in front of her. She hadn’t seen him, let alone talked to him, since their breakup. Even if she didn’t have that final in a few short hours, she wasn’t sure if she was ready to see him—or even if she’d ever be ready to see him again.
“I know it’s late,” he began as he began to fidget with his fingers, “but I just got into town and I…well, I…I know it’s late, it’s just that…I…um…” He eyed her from head to toe once more. His memories of her did not do her a shred justice. She was still completely and utterly hypnotic. “I had to see you.” Before he could stop himself, before he could back peddle and accept the fact that he had caught her at a bad time and leave, he told her the one urge he forced himself to bury for the last year. He needed to see her the moment he left her apartment that night. Every day, every hour, every minute since then he had to stop himself from doing exactly what he had just done. He thought that after being away for a year, after accepting the fact that he was no longer of capable of feeling anything, that it would be easier to see her—to know that he made the right decision that night, but now, as he stood in front of her, he wasn’t sure how he had ever managed to utter those words to her. It was the biggest lie he had ever told anyone, and he said it to the one person he swore he’d always be honest with.
She swallowed under the scrutiny of his gaze as she tried to ignore the slight pang in her heart at his words. Why did he need to see her? Did he want a first hand look at the ruins he left behind? Was this some sort of ploy to placate a guilty conscience? Riley didn’t want to know. She had learned over the last year that, perhaps, some things were better left unsaid. “I…um…I have a final in the morning.”
He nodded slowly as a wave of disappointment flashed across his features. He should have known that she was busy, not to mention the fact that it was late. If she weren’t in the middle of something important, then she’d most likely be asleep. He should have been more aware of the time. He should have talked himself out of this whole thing long before he ever reached her door. He had been able to do it every day for over a year now. What made tonight so different? “Oh. Well, I…um…you don’t have to…you probably don’t want to, but is there any way I can see you sometime over break…maybe this weekend?”
She bit her lower lip as she considered her options. This whole thing was completely unexpected and to say she was thrown by it would be a complete understatement. She had no idea what he wanted to say, and quite honestly, Riley wasn’t sure if she was ready to hear it. She wasn’t sure if she ever wanted to engage in any sort of conversation with him ever again. She knew that if she did, that night would inevitably come up, and she had no desire to relive a single second of it. “I’m going to Connecticut this weekend.”
“Connecticut?”
She looked down at the ground next to his feet. “Farkle’s parents’ cabin.”
He nodded. “Oh.” How could he be such an idiot? Zay had mentioned something about going to the cabin a few weeks ago, but much like most of his thoughts, that little piece of information completely vanished the moment he saw her.
“Yeah. I mean…with everything going on…graduating in a few months and everything, Farkle wanted to go…and I need to…” She took a deep breath as she tried to control her chaotic thoughts. “I need to get out of my head for a little bit.” She turned her head to the side as she looked back in the apartment. Her gaze immediately landed on the bane of her existence, which taunted her from its position on the coffee table. She wanted nothing more than to throw the book and all of her notes out the window. When she turned back to Lucas, a completely insane and desperate idea came to her. “You aced organic chemistry when you took it sophomore year, right?”
He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, but chuckled at her question nonetheless. “Yeah. I took an advanced course last spring, too.”
Why was she even entertaining this notion? She was absolutely certain that this was a terrible idea, one in which she would question during the following days, but right now she was desperate, and once upon a time, before everything got complicated and they completely imploded, they were friends. And friends helped one another, right? “I know it’s late, but if you aren’t doing anything and aren’t jet lagged or something…would you mind helping me study? I’ve been struggling with it all semester and the final is half of my grade…and it’s in seven hours.”
He never thought that she’d even open the door to him, let alone ask for his help with something. Desperate to spend any amount of time with her that he could, he gave her a small smile. “Of course. You know I’d do anything for you.”
Riley opened her eyes when she heard the driver’s side door open. She reached for her purse as Farkle slid into the driver’s seat. ‘Yeah. You did everything but stay,’ she thought as she put on her sunglasses. She knew she had to get out of this funk before they reached the cabin. If Maya suspected that Riley even saw Lucas last night, let alone the fact that she spent a few hours with him, Maya wouldn’t ever let her hear the end of it. She didn’t want the whole weekend to be focused on every single detail of the few hours she spent with her ex-boyfriend. Despite what had happened the previous night, Riley believed that their romantic relationship was exactly where it belonged—in the past.
Farkle frowned as he looked over at one of his best friends. “You ok?”
“Yeah,” she lied as she leaned her head back against the headrest. “I guess I’m just burned out from finals, you know? It’s…been a very long semester.”
Farkle nodded. It had definitely been a rough couple of months. He had spent the better part of it interning at Minkus International. Between that and his classwork, he barely had any time left to see his friends. He was hopeful that this weekend would somehow reconnect everyone before they scattered for good after graduation in the spring. “At least it’s over now though, right?”
“Yeah,” she sighed as he pulled away from the curb in front of her apartment building. “Yeah, I’m sure I’ll be more like myself once we get there, you know?” More like herself? What did that even mean? Riley was fairly certain that she hadn’t been ‘herself’ in years. She wasn’t sure where that bubbly little optimist was anymore. She lost bubbly somewhere in the middle of freshman year and her optimistic nature had slowly diminished the older she got. Now, she was just stressed-out-exhausted-and-way-too-busy-to-allow-herself-to-think-about-much-of-anything-else-Riley. Maybe this weekend would offer her something that the last year hadn’t—a moment of peace. She looked over at one of her best friends in the world and gave him a small smile. “Let’s get some music going and I’m sure I’ll decompress on the way there.”
When Riley reached forward to turn up the volume on the radio, Farkle’s frown deepened. He had known her for seventeen years. He knew when she was stressed out. He knew when she was upset. He also knew when her mind was focused on something, rather someone, else. “Are you sure it’s not anything else?”
“I’m sure,” she easily lied before she changed the radio station. “So, where’s Zay? I thought he was riding with us.”
Farkle knew when to take a not-so-subtle hint. He learned a long time ago that just because he knew she was hiding something from him, he didn’t necessarily have the right to call her out on it. She had changed the subject and he knew that he needed to respect her desire to talk about something else. “Finishing up his last final. His stuff is already loaded up. We just need to swing by one of the performing arts buildings to pick him up. After that, we’ll be on the way.”
‘And just as he who unwills what he wills and shifts what he intends to seek new ends so that he’s drawn from what he had begun, so was I in the midst of that dark land, because, with all my thinking, I annulled the task I had so quickly undertaken.’ (Inf. II, 37-42)
The two-hour trip to Connecticut felt more like ten hours to Lucas. While he still felt emotionally disconnected to pretty much everything around him, the time he spent with Riley the prior evening had revealed several cracks in his emotionless foundation. For the first time in a very long time, he felt something—perhaps a twinge of nervousness—at the prospect of seeing her again. He wasn’t sure if she knew that he was coming. He had no clue if Zay had warned her or if she was going to be completely surprised by his presence.
He spent the majority of the previous night with her as he helped her study for her exam. For the most part, they kept it strictly about the material, but his thoughts couldn’t help but to drift back to her as the wall he had built around his heart began to crumble. In the few hours they spent together, he was reminded of every single reason why he fell in love with her in the first place. She was easily the most captivating person he had ever met. By simply being in her orbit, he felt lighter. At one point, he even felt something akin to actual happiness. Even though they spent most of the time studying, her mere presence had more of an affect on his emotional state than anything else in the prior year had.
He told himself all along that if he showed up and she seemed ok—that it appeared as if she had moved on from their relationship—then he would force himself to finally let her go. He would attempt to shuffle through the rest of his life and be content enough with the knowledge that somewhere out there, she was happy.
But somewhere in the midst of studying for organic chemistry, he realized that she didn’t seem to be happy. It was late at night and they were studying what had to be her least favorite subject in the world, (not to mention the fact that her least favorite person was helping her), but even with taking all of that into account, she still didn’t seem quite like the girl he fell in love with. Melancholy and despondency clung to her in much the same way that it did to him.
As he approached the bus station, he began to think that perhaps he was wrong in his assessment—that maybe he only saw what he wanted to see. He knew that if he saw only a slight hint of sadness in her eyes, it would push him to do the one thing he should have done a year ago—fight like hell to keep her.
It was nearly 2am before Riley’s fourth cup of coffee that night began to wear off. She and Lucas had been going over the material for well over an hour by the time first yawn escaped her exhausted lips. She squeezed her eyes closed in an attempt to offer them a brief moment to recharge. She knew she couldn’t stop and go to sleep now. It finally felt like she was getting somewhere.
When she opened her eyes, she looked over at Lucas, who seemed—amused?—by her sudden drowsiness. “I think I need another cup of coffee,” she admitted.
“I think you probably need to get some sleep,” he commented when she yawned once more. As much as he wanted to spend more time with her—even if it was just to help her study for her final—he also knew that at some point, she either knew the material or she didn’t. Riley seemed completely exhausted. All of this studying wouldn’t do her any good if she fell asleep during the exam.
“I’ll be fine,” she grumbled as she stood up. “Do you want some?”
Lucas was too captivated by her simple movement to fully comprehend the fact that she asked him a question. He couldn’t help it. It had been a year since he had seen her. In that year, he had forced himself to forget how he felt by simply being in the same room as her. Even though he could tell that she had changed in much the same way that he had, she still had this uncanny ability to make him forget about everything that existed outside of the space they shared.
It scared the shit out of him.
He thought that he was so far gone that even Riley Matthews wouldn’t be able to infiltrate his stone cold heart, but there she stood, completely unaware of the fact that she was threatening to dismantle the walls he subconsciously constructed the moment he left her apartment that horrible night.
“Lucas,” she curiously asked as she slightly tilted her head to the side.
“Hmm,” he answered as the sound of his name on her lips slowly brought him back to reality.
“Do you want some coffee?”
“Oh, s-sure,” he stammered. When she disappeared into the kitchen, he turned his attention back to the book in front of him. He began to fidget with the pencil she gave him earlier as he looked back down at the book in front of him. He slowly inhaled as he forced himself to remember what happened the last time he was in this apartment.
No matter how she made him feel, he knew that he had no say in whatever path their relationship would take—or even if they would have any kind of relationship after tonight. He was well aware of the fact that they weren’t even friends right now. They were barely acquaintances, strangers more precisely, although he knew he would never be able to classify Riley Matthews as a stranger, no matter how much distance was between them.
When she reemerged into the living room, two steaming cups of coffee in hand, he could feel the distance between them as a result of the selfish decisions he had made in the name of love and for the sake of the utopian future he had always dreamt of with her. The irony wasn’t lost on him. He did what he did in order to preserve the wide-eyed optimistic brunette who flew into his arms one fateful day on the subway, but instead, his actions had forced both of them to grow up and grow cold.
When she offered him one of the mugs, she gave him a small smile. Most people wouldn’t think twice about it, but Lucas immediately noticed the significant amount of effort she put into that forced little smile. He could always distinguish her genuine smiles from her fake ones, and this was no different.
At least she tried.
It was more than what he had been able to offer anyone in the last year.
When he reached for the mug she held out to him, their fingers brushed against one another—the first time they made physical contact with one another since the night of their breakup. He swallowed as he felt a dull pang deep inside of his chest. It felt more like a thump than anything else. Still, the sensation was more than anything else he had felt in a very long time.
Judging by the way Riley’s eyes immediately fell to their still slightly interlaced fingertips, he could have sworn that she felt the same sense of longing that threatened to demolish the emotional barrier that guarded his tortured soul. If she looked back up at him, if those gorgeous brown eyes met his, he knew that everything he had tried to protect himself from would immediately flood him. A year of suppressing every painful second of that horrific night and a year of self-hatred—mixed in with the consequences of spending a year without her—would completely engulf him, and while he wasn’t sure exactly what would happen next, he knew that at the very least, he’d crumble to his feet in front of her.
He never got the chance to find out, because instead of shifting her downcast eyes up toward his desperate gaze, Riley flinched as she pulled her hand back and tucked her hair behind her ear. Her gaze fell to the floor behind her as she turned away from him.
Neither breathed a word about it. Neither acknowledged the way their hearts jumped at the sensation. Neither wanted to admit the truth that threatened to suffocate them.
They’d both prefer to choke on their respective heartaches than to admit what the absence of the other had done to them over the course of the last 12 months.
Besides, they both reasoned as they edged back into studying, they hadn’t spoken to one another in so long. Neither knew what the other’s life held—or even if there would be room for them in it—and what, if any, role they would play.
Lucas gripped the mug as he sipped the piping hot contents. As the dark liquid burned the inside of his mouth, he slowly fell back to earth. This was his reality. He chose to become a spectator, and until she indicated otherwise, he knew he had to respect that.
Right?
Riley was grateful that neither one of the guys seemed overly enthusiastic to maintain any sort of conversation as they made their way up to the mountains. If her mind had been a little less foggy, then maybe she would have noticed how uncharacteristic it was for Zay to not be fully immersed in the stereotypical high-energy road trip spirit. Riley was too preoccupied with being grateful for the fact that she had a couple of hours to think, to try to find a way to get that surprise encounter with Lucas out of her mind. Whenever she found herself analyzing any part of their interaction, she quickly reminded herself of what he did to her on her birthday. The guy she knew—the guy she once loved—would have never done that. He would have fought for her. He wouldn’t have shattered her heart, especially in the manner that he did.
When they reached the cabin, the trio unpacked the car in silence for the most part. Riley was grateful for the fact that Maya and Josh had apparently left the cabin in order to do something somewhere else. She knew that would buy her a little time to unwind from the drive and from the last several chaotic hours of her life.
She busied herself with unpacking her clothes while the guys took a quick trip into town in order to pick up a few last minute items from the grocery store. The mundane task of putting her clothes away became cathartic as her mind slowly drifted away from Lucas and toward the excitement of the upcoming days. Riley knew she’d analyze every millisecond she spent with him at some point, but for now, she was on vacation. She needed to get out of the city and get out of her own head for a while. Being in the mountains always offered her peace. She wanted to spend the next several days completely immersed in the moments that surrounded her. She wanted to create lifelong memories with her best friends and not dwell on one interaction she had with her ex-boyfriend.
Still, she was also well aware of the fact that this was the first time she had ever gone to the cabin without Lucas. When she first caught sight of the house that held so many memories for them, she briefly thought that this whole trip would be one huge mistake. How could she possibly not think about Lucas if everywhere she turned, she’d come face to face with a memory of him?
Surprisingly, and gratefully, Farkle switched up room assignments, so instead of staying in the room that they shared during the last few trips, Riley’s new bedroom was located on the opposite side of the cabin.
Perhaps that was why Riley was able to have a few moments to pull herself back together. She knew that she could do this. She could enjoy a long weekend in the mountains with her friends and not think about her ex-boyfriend. After all, she had been doing just fine for the last few months.
When she heard someone knock on the door, she half-expected it to be Maya and Josh. As her fingers gripped the doorknob, she failed to remember that Farkle had given the couple a key to cabin a few days earlier as Maya and Josh arrived earlier that morning. So when Riley opened the door and recognized who stood on the other side, her grip on the doorknob instantly tightened as her knees nearly gave out from underneath her.
She opened her mouth and closed it twice while her brain tried to reconcile what was happening. Was this some sort of dream?
Standing in front of her, with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, was the one person she was desperately trying to forget about this weekend.
Riley blinked several times as she gripped the doorknob even tighter. Her chest constricted as she felt the onset of a cold sweat forming across her entire body. This couldn’t possibly be real. Was he actually here right now? “Lucas?”
He gave her a small smile as he adjusted the weight of the bag on his back. He wasn’t expecting her to answer the door. He wasn’t even sure if anyone was there as there were no vehicles parked in the driveway. He only knocked as a courtesy before he grabbed the spare key, which resided underneath a flowerpot placed on the side of the house. “Hey.”
“Hi,” she automatically answered without even thinking about it. She didn’t possess the ability to focus on the fact that she had slid back into their old greeting. She was too floored by his presence to comprehend anything else.
“Hey,” he easily replied with a pang of nostalgia. It was the way they used to greet one another in middle school, back when they thought things couldn’t possibly get more complicated between them, and yet, here they were—eight years later and they couldn’t possibly be any more estranged from one another.
“Why are you…w-what are you doing here?”
‘Through me you pass into the city of woe: Through me you pass into eternal pain: Through me among the people lost for aye. Justice the founder of my fabric mov’d: To rear me was the task of power divine, Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. Before me things create were none, save things Eternal, and eternal I endure. All hope abandon ye who enter here.’ (Inf. III, 1-9)