Broken Souls {l.f. + r.m.}

See you at Lunch

L U C A S

Well, I guess you could say time flies when a girl from your dreams wants to talk to you at lunch. Before I knew it, I was walking down the hall to the cafeteria. Suspiciously, I scanned the room to find her.

What's her name again? Reagan? Rachel? Rebecca?

I saw her sitting alone at a tiny table in the corner of the room, completely isolated from the rest of the high school realm. She just sat there, eating her spaghetti.

Riley. Riley Matthews.

I grabbed my lunch and made my way over to her. When I finally reached there, I pulled a seat over to her.

"Hey. So I'm Lucas. Lucas Friar."
I said with a smile.

Why are you trying to be charming? She has no interest in you.

Right after I said that, she grabbed my wrist.

"What are you..." I said.

That's when I saw it. She had a huge bruise that extended all the way around her wrist. She gazed into my hand like a palm reader. She brushed the cuts on my palm. The fit her nails into the cuts perfectly. She wrapped my fingers around her wrist. It covered the bruise completely.

"No. This can't be real." She stammered.

"So I guess you've had some dreams too?"

"Yeah. I know what skydiving feels like now."

She was funny and amazing. For the rest of the lunch period we talked and talked and talked. The next few weeks were like that. No matter which classes we had, we always had 4th period lunch, and we always ate it together. As we talked, we learned more about each other. Riley loved chocolate, and Beyoncé (surprisingly), and anything related to bunnies. She told me about her brother after a while. She said he had died. She told me that she really loved him. His name was Elliot. I felt so proud to be there for her. It was good to have a friend. She trusted me and I trusted her. I told her everything. I told her about my mom, how she died of breast cancer, and how after that my father and I were never close again. I explained to her how I ended up in California. Talking to her was so easy, so fluent, so natural. After school, Riley and I always met up at the swing set. We talked there too. After a while, it became routine. I would pick her up at her house, walk with her to school, eat lunch with her, talk at the swings, and walk her home. Before I knew it, it was the end of November. It was right before Thanksgiving. Over the months that I had been there, I had made some friends. First there was Zay. Zay was my confidant. He was sort of a younger, annoying brother to me, but I loved him anyway. Then there was Farkle. Farkle was just about a fireball of all things artistic and nerdy combined. I was talking to them one day, and somehow the topic of Riley came up.

"Dude, when are you gonna just ask Riley out?" Zay asked.

"Yeah, Lucas, come on, if you don't make your move, the guys here are gonna. They've backed off a little because they think that you may just kill them if they go anywhere near her."
Farkle added.

"Oh come on guys. Riley and I aren't like that. We're friends. Not anything more." I responded.

Zay and Farkle broke into complete laughter.

"YOU'RE SO NAIVE, YOUNG LUCAS" Farkle cried out in between bursts of laughter.

That night, I thought about it more. I had just gotten some money from my dad back in Texas and I finally rented my own apartment. It wasn't hard; my dad and I went to court to make sure it was legal. It was great. I was on my own. I thought about what my friends had said. The next day, as I walked to Riley's house in the morning, I decided to ask her out.

I have to do it today or else I will never gain the courage to do it. It's now or never, Friar. You gonna ride that bull, or are you gonna let it ride you?

It was so hard to talk to Riley without the question bursting out of me. Balmer's class had just ended and Riley was waiting for me at the door. I grabbed my stuff and ran up to her. She smiled at me.

Oh God. She's so beautiful. I wish I could just make her smile every day, and one day...STAY FOCUSED!

We walked to our next class. While we made our way down the halls, something was different. All these guys were looking at Riley. They all started saying hi to her.

What the hell happened?

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore.

Now. or. never.

"Riley, hey."

"Yeah, Lucas?" she smiled.

"Riley: I gotta ask you something. So this Saturday, I was wondering if you wanted to get some pizza."

Riley opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, the bell rang. This period, Riley and I had separate classes.

"Um... I'll see you at lunch, okay?" she kissed my cheek and ran off.

[Whoa. Hella long chapter 😅. I really hope you guys are liking this so far 💙. xoxo]

A/N: I won't be updating until I get some more views so yeah. love y'all.