Untold Stories of Us: A Collection of One-shots

Books and Big Ideas

Title: Books and Big Ideas

Point of View: Riley's

Prompt: Riley and Lucas studying together

This takes place before Riley and Lucas are officially together, so probably before high school starts and maybe even before the whole triangle began. I just wanted to write something to establish how important their friendship is before I write about the lovey dovey stuff. ;)

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The library was silent as I stared up at the hundreds of books resting on the bookshelves in front of me. It was as if they were looking back down at me, urging me to learn about past lives of soldiers and princesses, to join brave explorers on their dangerous expeditions, and to cry alongside broken hearted lovers, lost without one another's company. I had been spending as much free time as I could in the library these past few weeks. There was something calming about it that made the noise of the outside world disappear that I had desperately needed lately. There had been a lot on my mind that I really wanted to forget and-

"Boo!"

I spun around quickly, my heart playing leapfrog out of my chest. Lucas was standing behind me smiling, his eyes crinkling at the edges, indicating that he was clearly proud of himself for scaring me.

"Ha ha, very funny. Scare the girl afraid of practically everything in a spooky, silent library. Real nice, Mr. Perfect," I teased, lightly nudging him in the arm.

"Oh come on, it's all in good fun. Well, fun for me anyway. You should've seen how high you jumped. You could've made Olympic gymnasts look like rookies," Lucas nudged back, leaving his hand on my arm a second longer than was necessary.

"Oh yeah, real fun. You know what's even more fun? Quadratic equations! Yay!" I exclaimed, grabbing my backpack with one hand, Lucas' arm with the other, and dragging him over to an empty table in the center of the library. Not that it was hard to find a table that was empty. The library was deserted except for the old man taking a nap in the corner of the non-fiction section.

Lucas made a face. "Yeah, about that. How about we ditch the math, and just go for frozen yogurt instead?"

"Lucas, I promised I would help you study for the math test on Friday. So here we are studying for the math test on Friday! Page 128, let's go!" I asserted, setting my backpack on the table and removing my math book from it.

We were quiet as we both flipped to the correct page in the math book. Once he found the right page Lucas spent an unnecessary amount of time rummaging for a pencil in his cluttered backpack. I tapped my fingers impatiently and rolled my eyes.

"Okay, enough stalling. Starting at the top of page 128. I think it's always best to refresh your memory on what a quadratic equation actually is before we dive in and start solving them . So in the gray box in the corner it says, 'a quadratic equation is a...'" I began, but stopped when I noticed that Lucas was staring up at the same bookshelves I was looking at earlier.

"Lucas, are you even listening?" I asked.

"What were you looking at earlier? Before I scared you?" he inquired, his brows furrowed and his eyes curious, as if he was genuinely interested in what my mind had been so immersed in before he walked in.

"Nothing, I... Wait a minute. You did not scare me. I was just surprised by a cloud of dust that came from one of the books you bolted past on your way to disrupt the solitude of this fine institution," I fibbed.

"Don't avoid the subject. What were you staring at?" Lucas pressed, turning in his chair so that we were face to face.

I looked up at him and saw the determination to get me to talk about this in his eyes, so I sighed in defeat and gave in.

"I was just... looking at the books and thinking about all the lives they might have changed just by existing," I began, feeling a little awkward. "I do that sometimes. I just stare at the books on the shelves and wonder about whose hearts might have been healed by authors' words about knights in shining armor or tales of brave men and women fighting for a cause that they believed in so much they were willing to give their lives for it. I know it's silly. But sometimes I wonder if I could ever write something that powerful. Or do something powerful enough to be written about," I confessed, tucking my hair behind my ear and staring down at the table. I had never told anyone this before, not even Maya.

"And then there are other times where I get this crazy idea that I can do all of those things. And that's probably the silliest thing of all," I finished.

Lucas looked at me and smiled.

"That's not silly. Believe it or not I think about stuff like that too. All the time. About whether or not I'm doing enough to make an impact on the world. Or if I'm affecting people's lives at all with the decisions I make. And I know what people will say. What can a 15-year-old boy from Texas possibly do to change the world? But I like to think that I can do a lot. At least that's what I hope," Lucas admitted, looking down at the table and picking at a piece of chipped wood.

"I know it's not the whole world, but you've affected my life in the best ways possible, just by coming to New York and by being my friend. You've helped me grow and to understand myself in ways I don't think I could have on my own. And for that I will be forever grateful. I know that's not exactly what you meant, but hopefully it means something," I expressed, smiling shyly.

"That means everything. And for what it's worth, your loyalty to your friends is powerful enough to write a dozen books about," Lucas assured, looking me directly in the eyes.

I laughed awkwardly. "Man, what is it with us and libraries that makes us want to spill our deepest secrets to each other?"

"I'm not sure, but we should stop before I tell you about the time Zay and I were running away from this really angry cow and to get away we had to hop this fence and when I did I ripped..." Lucas stopped when he saw the look on my face. "Nope, not gonna do it."

"Aw, come on!" I protested.

"Quadratic equations remember? Quadratic equations are equations where..." Lucas continued where I left off, but there was something I needed him to know before our study session could continue.

"Lucas?" I asked, setting my hand on top of his.

"Yeah?" he responded, glancing down at our hands stacked atop one another and then slowly moving his eyes to match my gaze.

"I'm really glad I have you to talk about this kind of stuff with," I admitted.

Lucas smiled widely.

"I am too."

Lucas took my hand in his and squeezed it. The library held our deepest secrets, ones we had trouble hearing over the noise of the outside world. Ones that we didn't want the outside world to hear. I was really glad I had him to share my books and big ideas with because even if things were different when we left the silence of the library and its safe shield of bookshelves, Lucas was one of my favorite people to talk to. And that was never going to change, no matter what happened between us.