✓ | 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐟 ( 𝗿𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘀. )

EIGHT.

a/n: LOOK WHO DECIDED TO COME OUT FROM THEIR HIBERNATION.

okay enjoy this chapter and don't forget to vote and comment. Thank yous for everything, have a merry christmas and a happy new year.

. . .

riley matthews
Contrary to popular opinion, I loved to read books. It gave me such joy; the fact that by simply reading a few words on a page you could almost immediately forget about all the worries in your life and dive into the life of someone else. It was as if you were transported to a completely different world from your own, even if it was just for a short a moment. Reading was what helped me get through many stresses and changes in life, like when my parents decided to have another baby, or when Maya broke up with Charlie, or when I began to realise that I was harboring feelings for a boy that I could possibly never get in a million years.

The current book on the agenda was The Fault In Our Stars, a very obvious favorite of mine. It was so beautifully written and I swear I cried more than ten times during the book and also the movie. Through the eyes of Hazel Grace Lancaster, the author John Green wrote that you fall in love the way you fell asleep: slowly, and then all at once.

If everybody fell asleep this way, I was certainly the rare exception. I would be completely out the moment my head hit the pillow, though that might've only been because I went to sleep at unreasonable hours. And it wasn't because I spent most of my nights out partying like Maya did. In fact, it was the complete opposite. I didn't even like partying that much. I would've very much preferred to stay home and study all night. It was the only thing that seemed to help me clear my mind of my nightly unwanted thoughts, anyway.

I didn't mind being referred to as the popular girl who was also really smart and made of complete sunshines and rainbows. To be fairly honest, the only two reasons why I was even remotely popular to begin with was because I was on the cheerleading team and because my best friend was the infamous Maya Hart. Otherwise I would probably have been deduced to nothing but the school's biggest nerd and be friends with people like Farkle Minkus. Not like there was anything wrong with that, of course. Farkle was especially sweet to me, which was strange because he was particularly cold and rather sarcastic to almost about everyone else.

There was one strange occurrence that had happened a few nights ago, when Lucas was over and we both wound up accidentally falling asleep on my bedroom floor. It was strange because it was the first time I had actually fallen asleep at a reasonable hour. And maybe that was because I wasn't alone to ponder on my own thoughts ... because Lucas was keeping me company. But perhaps there was just something about his voice that could soothe me right to sleep. It was the last thing I heard before I drifted off.

So perhaps unlike Hazel Grace Lancaster, I did not fall in love slowly and then all at once. There was certainly no slow aspect to it at all. It came fast, like getting hit by a bus going full speed. Once I fell, I fell. And I knew it from the moment I met him. I knew there was no going back, because I had fallen deeply and madly in love with Lucas Friar. All at once.

. . .

I was always quite exhilarated when it came to my English classes, despite what the rest of the school thought about the subject. I found joy in everything related to books. Though, that being said, I found joy in everything period.

Although I had always looked forward to English, today proved to be the only exception. My mind wasn't able to focus, frequently slipping in and out of consciousness until I gave up fighting to stay awake. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, or because Lucas Friar had just transferred into my English class and was sitting only a few seats behind me. There had been some sort of mix up in his timetable, and the new one the school had assigned for him oddly chose many classes that I was in.