It Feels Like Forever || auston matthews

Chapter Twenty

"It's because of you he's in jail right now." Lyla said to Riley whilst they were sitting in the basement. 

"He's not in jail he's in custody, Lyla." Ryan said as he out a fork full of his TV dinner into his mouth. 

"That's pretty much the same thing, either way it's her fault." Lyla said.

"How is it my fault? You really think I can do anything from down here? I'm trapped because of him. Yes, I want him gone more than anything, but I'm still down here aren't I? I'm still down here with you two because even if he's gone, like I said, you two are still down here and I'm still not leaving because of you two. That's just one out of three that we need caught, and that's not even to mention that the cops are gonna need to figure out where I am and how to get to me." Riley answered, running a hand through her naturally long, straight hair. 

"You've got a point." Ryan said. Ryan was the easy going one, he was more chill, didn't yell as much, and definitely didn't cause her as much pain. She could have an actual conversation with Ryan. The only one who seemed a little less than absolutely psychotic. 

"It's still her fault we're in this mess in the first place." Lyla argued, crossing her arms and knocking her own TV dinner out of the way.

"You just can't take the blame for anything can you?" Ryan asked. "She was forced here against her will, taken into this mess of a house and treated terribly because may I remind you, your boyfriend wanted her back." 

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it, my boyfriend did a shitty thing, haven't we all. Technically if we go far enough back, we still wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for her." 

"Okay I'd love to hear how this one's gonna run down." Riley said, now she was crossing her arms. 

"Well if you hadn't broken up with him, you'd still be together and we wouldn't have to go through this." 

"You do realize that he abused me right?" Riley raised her eyebrows, Ryan looked down and away, and Lyla didn't say a thing, just stared right back at her. "Okay, so if we go even further back, we wouldn't be here without Caleb, if he hadn't asked me out on a date, and then once we were together if he hadn't thrown a punch, or hit me, or literally anything of that sort every chance he got, we wouldn't be here." 

"Whatever." Lyla said as she took her dinner upstairs and left Ryan and Riley.

"Sorry about her." 

"Why? Shouldn't you be sorry about yourself too?" 

"Okay what did I do wrong?"

"You didn't stop this. I get it, you were probably dragged here too, but you could've said no to the torturing me. There's a point where you get to say no too." Riley told him. Ryan nodded. 

"Well then I'm sorry for me too. I'm sorry that we didn't stop Caleb because after seeing all this, and knowing what's going on with you, you don't deserve this." Ryan said looking down. 

"Why'd you do it in the first place? Did you always know it was wrong?" Riley asked, she was now looking down. 

"Because I didn't think at first. I thought we were literally bringing you over here. And trust me, I freaked out when I figured out what was actually going on." Ryan said. "I think Lyla went out, do you want a coffee or hot chocolate or tea or something?" 

"Yeah, that'd be nice." Riley said. She started rubbing her eyes tiredly. Ryan got off his spot on the floor and grabbed both his and Riley's dinner, starting to walk upstairs again. He came back don after not too long with two mugs. One was a Toronto Maple Leafs mug, and the other was just plain white. Ryan handed Riley to Toronto one.

"Here ya go." He said handing her a coffee, already with two cream.

"How do you know what I liked in my coffee?" She asked.

"I paid a lot more attention in high school than you thought." Ryan said sipping his own coffee.

"You were an asshole in high school." 

"Yeah but you know all those times you were really tired in the morning and your day was already shitty and 'Caleb' would bring you a coffee?" He asked putting air quotations and emphasis on Caleb's name. Riley nodded. "Yeah that was just me getting it for you." 

"Are you serious?" Riley asked. Ryan just nodded kind of sadly. "I can't believe this. Was our whole relationship just a lie?" 

"I think it was mostly a lie." 

"Well isn't that just peachy, just another reason to hate him right now."