MOMENTS ( rucas )

ii. the act of behaving selfishly.

a/n: hello friends!!! so it's been a couple days and i honestly have a couple pre-written one shots that have been posted on my tumblr that i'll gradually be posting on here along with one shots i write along the way. so this one is one that i wrote months ago tbh that i wrote angrily while watching season 2. basically this takes place post the texas trilogy and is my efforts to retcon the entire triangle. there are two little details in this fic that are minor canon deviations but they are very very minor and if i hadn't pointed them out you probably wouldn't have noticed them.

anyway!!! this isn't proofread (yet again) so please excuse any mistakes. enjoy and please let me know what you think!!! ily.

...

In the end, Riley blamed everything on Texas.

Texas was where things had changed, where truths had come out of months of hiding, and where other truths were buried beneath mountains of lies. And it was where Riley had learned how easy it was to break her own heart.

Part of her, the selfish part, the itty bitty selfish part of her, wishes that they had never gone to Texas. That they had stayed in New York, where things were easy, where she was Riley, he was Lucas, and Maya was Maya, and together they were RileyLucasandMaya, the three best friends that anyone could have.

But of course, that's not what happened at all. Now, everything was different and it was all her fault. Why had she told Lucas that she only thought of him as a brother, why had she pushed Maya right into Lucas' arms, and Lucas into Maya's, whywhywhywhywhy? Because, she would tell herself at night when the tears were pooling and her heart was heavy, Maya deserves to be happy, and if Lucas makes her happy, and Lucas likes Maya, then why should Riley stand in the way of that. Riley is the pretty brunette who never gives up on anyone or anything and no sacrifice is too big for her friends (a mantra she repeats to herself at 3am when her own lies come back to haunt her), and just wants everyone to be happy (even if she's letting herself fall apart).

It was easy enough to convince herself that she was ok, that it didn't hurt when she saw Maya and Lucas in the hallway, shoulders touching, or that she didn't see the way Lucas' mouth twitched into a smile when Maya made sarcastic comments in her dad's class. She thought she was doing a pretty good job of convincing everyone else too, even if she never really believed herself.

Until Charlie came along. To say that Riley was surprised when he asked her out would be an understatement. She almost said no, it was too soon, scars from Lucas and Maya too fresh, but then she saw Lucas look at Maya and Maya look at Lucas and neither one of them look at her, and suddenly they were LucasandMaya and she was just Riley, and before she could control herself, the words "yes Charlie, I will go on a date with you" were spilling out of her mouth.

(She shouldn't have been surprised that Farkle had seen right through her, he had always been able to read her better than she could read herself sometimes. But she pushed what he said aside, because Maya was her best friend, her sister, and Maya deserved happiness more than anyone Riley knew, and Riley would be willing to do anything for Maya to be happy.)

She wished, oh how she wished and prayed, that she could fall for Charlie. Charlie, who was sweet and easy, who smiled at her in the hallways and held doors open for her. It would solve all her problems. It would be easy to be with Charlie. But feelings aren't easy, and they aren't manipulatable (again, how she wished and she prayed that they were). And, as sweet and easy as Charlie was, as respectable as he was on their date (walking her to her door, kissing her on the cheek, squeezing her hand and telling her he would see her at school the following Monday), she couldn't will herself to fall for him.