based on the song, Forever and Always by Parachute. If you've heard it, you know where this chapter is going. If you haven't, I'm so sorry.
-riley-
I get home to an empty apartment and immediately make dinner for Lucas and I. Lucas has been busy with on the job training at the veterinary clinic and I like seeing his face light up as he smells his favourite food cooked and ready to eat when he opens the door.
It's a Friday and the two of us are able to have the night and the whole weekend to ourselves for once. His parents are back at Texas, my parents are in Philadelphia, and our friends are all on vacation (from being third, fourth, fifth, and sixth wheels). It's rare for us to have time alone ever since the engagement, but we have this weekend. We haven't stopped talking about our plans all week. But even if we just stayed home and watched a movie, it would have been fine, too. Spending time alone has always been a privilege and we cherish it any way we can.
I finish dinner and take a shower as I wait for him to get home. It was already six o'clock and he would be walking in any minute with the words, "I'm home, babe." (The babe being replaced by the twenty other pet names he's coined for me.)
I get out of the shower and settle on the couch hoping he'd walk in, but as episodes and episodes of different shows passed, there was no sign of my fiancé.
I decide to call him just to see where he could be.
No answer.
I try again.
No answer.
And again.
No answer.
I start to get worried as I call the tenth time because he never misses a call after six o'clock.
I pace my living room as I call another ten times and my heart can't stop speeding up. I try to think as positively as I can. Nothing's happened to him, Riley. He's probably just stuck at work.
My phone starts to ring and I rush to pick it up, not even looking at the number.
"Hello. Is this Ms. Riley Matthews?"
"Yes. This is she. Who is this?"
"This is Lenox Health. We are told you are the primary emergency contact for Mr. Lucas Friar."
"Yes. I am. Is everything okay?" My voice is quivering and I'm shaking. I had to take a seat to be able to calm myself down.
"There has been an emergency and you are needed here as soon as possible." I dropped my phone and stood in the middle of my living room for a couple of seconds to think about what I just heard.
I quickly gathered my things and headed out the door and hailed a cab to take me to the hospital. On the way, my mind went to December.
It was my 23rd birthday, we were finally out of all the school we had to do and celebrating on the rooftop of my parents' apartment building. He had me in his arms, all cozied up in the cold under the moonlight. He whispers that he had a secret to tell me. I tell him he can tell me anything, like always. He tells me he loves me... so much. I giggled and told him that wasn't a secret because I've known for eight years. He kneels in front of me and says, "What about this? I want you forever and always;
through the good and the bad and the ugly. I really want us to grow old together. Forever and Always. Will you do me the honour of marrying me?" His voice cracks and quivers the same way it did that day we came together. He held the same red box from the ski lodge, but this time, the purple jellybean is replaced by an engagement ring. And the "I do" I said at the lodge would be replaced by the "I do" I'd say at the altar.
