1 | MESSAGE SENT ( rucas )

XXI. LUCAS.

"SO WAIT LEMME GET THIS STRAIGHT.

YOU FINALLY managed to get to courage to tell Riley Matthews that you're madly in love with her and as soon as you do, she hangs up on you. Man, that is rough." Lucas sighed loudly, placing his head in his hands and resisting the urge to scream. "I mean, I always figured there was a change that she wouldn't like you back, but that's a rough blow." Lucas groaned, really wishing that his best friend would shut up and stop trying to help.

"I mean she really couldn't have made it more clear that she doesn't feel the same. She could have hired a skywriter that said 'I DON'T LIKE YOU LUCAS FRIAR' and somehow that would hurt less than being hung up on." He had tried to reason that maybe there was a reason that he had been disconnected, but he had yet to hear from her since it happened, and he was started to realize that her hanging up was, entirely intentional.

"What if she didn't mean to?" Farkle said from his position on Lucas' bed. "I mean, maybe she got hung up and then when you were gone, thought you were the one that did it. Maybe she lost reception, there's a good chance she didn't mean to hang up on you." Farkle shrugged slightly, ignoring the glare that Lucas threw at him and merely sharing a look with Zay.

"I would believe that if it hadn't been almost an entire day since she hung up on me. The radio silence isn't exactly making me feel any better." He hadn't texted Riley since the incident last night, feeling thoroughly embarrassed by his admission of his feelings and her subsequent cutting off and non response. He had hoped that maybe she would reach out, but part of him was slightly grateful that she hadn't. The last thing he wanted was a rejection in words.

"Maybe she's embarrassed, maybe she thought you disconnected and thinks now that you're ignoring her." Farkle said, earning a nod from Zay, who was now pointing aggressively at Farkle across the room.

"The genius has a point. You're so damn negative all the time, maybe this time you don't have a reason to be." Lucas rolled his eyes, giving his best friend a look before glaring at his other friend across the room. He stands, beginning to pace back and forth in front of his bed.

"Zay, you were the one that told me that she probably didn't even like me." Zay merely shrugged, throwing his hands up in the air. "And listen, I'm not trying to be negative, I have a very plausible reason to be negative. I tell a girl I like her, she hangs up on me and then doesn't talk to me. Clearly she's trying to tell me something."

He sighs loudly, throwing himself down on the bed letting his back hit the mattress with a definitive thump.

"Why did I even think that she could like me to begin with. She's some big actress and I'm just this loser from Texas. She could date any guy in the world probably, it was stupid of me to think that if I told her how I felt that she would even feel a fraction of the same back."

Lucas could practically hear the sighs coming from his friends. He knew that he might have been being slightly overdramatic, but this was his bedroom and he was allowed to wallow if he wanted to. He didn't need Farkle and Zay to sit around sighing at his expense.

"Listen, I'm not going to sit here and tell you what to feel, but maybe you should actually ask her how she feels. Sure, you might end up actually getting rejected..."

"Which would be sad, but also funny because your pain his hilarious." Lucas lifted his head a couple of inches to glare at Zay, and noticed that Farkle was doing the same.

"As I was saying, sure, there's a chance that she might not feel the same way. But maybe she does. Maybe she accidentally got disconnected and is nervous about talking to you, maybe she didn't even notice that it happened and thought that you were the one that hung up. Don't immediately go the place that assumes that something bad happened." Lucas sighed softly, Farkle did have a point.