A Moment in Time (Adult Rucas AU)

Chapter Seven

When Riley woke up she felt warm which was weird, since the last thing she remembered was sitting in her office which had an air conditioner. Her head hurt, there was a steady pounding at the back of her head, she didn't want to open her eyes but the heat was getting to her. When she opened her eyes she came face to face with bright green eyes, and Lucas smiling down at her. All of a sudden she remembered the phone call with her mother, and a handful of memories she couldn't remember from the car accident she had been in when she was still with Evan. She didn't know what to think, he had taken advantage of the fact that she had lost her memory in order for them to stay together, she wouldn't have had gone through the second accident if she hadn't lost her memories in the first place. She was leaving him, they got into a fight because she was driving to her parents' house to talk to her mother the accident had happened on the exit of the highway. She shuddered at the memory, and decided to try and push it away but the thought that Evan was missing and somewhere out there to come after her made her fear for her life. He had gone after her before and she didn't know if she would survive the fallout this time around.

Lucas didn't say a word, and she knew that he was being patient with her and waiting for her to make the first move. He was a kind man, and very sweet to her, she hadn't realized it before but she was falling for him but she was still afraid that her past relationship would come back and haunt her. Or taint what she had with Lucas at that moment. She pushed the thoughts away and decided that she was going to live in that moment instead of having the past ruin it. She needed to move forward, she needed to let go and hopefully Evan will turn up somewhere far far away from her. She wasn't going to let the memory of one bad relationship ruin the possibility of being happy for once in her life.

She smiled at Lucas, before saying anything "Hi."

"Hi yourself," he said before kissing her forehead.

"How long was I out for?"

"About twenty minutes, Liliana is with Missy and Jake, they're using her as practice. Maya and Josh went out to get some supplies for the picnic, and we decided to have a movie night as well," he pulled her close and kissed her again. "Josh told me part of what happened, and Maya told me the rest. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, but know that I'm here whenever you need me."

"Thank you," she whispered to him and pulled herself closer to him, tears in her eyes. She didn't want to cry but the fact that he was giving her an option to talk, or even comforting her without asking for anything in return felt freeing. "One day we can talk about it, but for now I think I just want to have some fun and forget about it for a little while longer. It feels too fresh in my mind even though it happened a long time ago."

"That's fine by me," he said as he hugged her closer. "Why don't you go upstairs freshen up, and we'll sit down and eat, and later we'll set up the projector on the side of the house and watch some movies."

Riley pulled herself away from his warm embrace and stood next to him, she leaned down and gave him a quick kiss on the lips before walking towards the door. "Set up outside and I'll be there in ten minutes, I'm just going to wash up and meet you outside."

"Okay," he said before walking out of the room.

Riley felt happy, especially because Lucas was so understanding. But as she walked to her room so she could change, the dread of the memories that were slowly resurfacing made her feel chaotic. There were flashes of memories, trips to the hospital, but none of it made any sense to her. She remembered the accident and the fight but everything else was in pieces, and thinking about it made her head hurt. She didn't know if she should cry or if she should be relieved that she had been able to move on from all of that. Except Evan was now missing from New York, and even though no one knew where she was, she knew that he would somehow find her.