A Scary End to the Triangle

Feelings Revealed

Back at the Friar Ranch, Lucas was doing all his routine chores completely unaware of his friends travelling to Texas. After completing his chores, he decides to go upstairs to his room to rest.

He hadn't been sleeping very well because all he could see through his closed eyes was his friends' faces, Riley's face, when he snapped.

He realized that he had hurt Riley. He broke his promise to Auggie.

He also realized that even though he had snapped the other day, he still had some suppressed feelings.

He needed to get these feelings about the whole affair out to move on.

He knew Pappy Joe was worried about him but he didn't feel ready to talk to anyone yet.

So he decided to do the next best thing for himself.

He decided to write down a completely honest letter to Riley to get his feelings out.

He knew he would never send it to her so he was completely honest.

He wrote everything about how her actions had hurt him for months.

How her belief in him was what gave him the courage to finally ride Tombstone last year.

How he was actually going to ask her to become official again before she suddenly said that she loved him like a brother.

How he wondered where they had gone wrong for him to not notice that she didn't like him the way he loved her.

How he went out with Maya once because she asked him to and he had always trusted her judgement.

How it had hurt him when he noticed that she was avoiding him since they came back from Texas.

How he had wished she would talk to him just like they did before.

How he hated the fact that she went out with Charlie Gardner of all people to hide her feelings from him.

How much it had hurt him to learn that Riley had lied to him about her feelings and how much it had hurt to hear that from Farkle of all people.

He also revealed how much he loved her from the moment he had seen her on the subway.

He didn't realize it until later and had to hide from her because first he didn't want to scare her off with the magnitude of his feelings but then the triangle mess had begun.

He mentioned the jelly bean experiment that Farkle and Zay had him do to figure out his feelings.

How he had always answered honestly for Riley and made something up for Maya because he wanted her to be the first one to know how he felt about her.

He went on with the triangle just so that he could try to figure out a way for Maya to realize that she didn't actually like him but the idea of him because of how he was with Riley.

He went on with it even when it hurt him so much just because he didn't want to hurt her and hurting Maya would have also hurt her.

He also revealed that he had avoided them as much as he could without raising suspicion because he was exhausted from making things even with Maya.

He spent time with Auggie instead because that way he felt close to her and eventually he started to care for Auggie as his own brother.

He knew how important Auggie was to her so he wanted to spend time with him and get to know him.

He always took Auggie's warnings seriously because Auggie was her little brother.

He also apologized to Auggie for hurting his sister and breaking his promise which was never his intention.

He ended the letter wishing he could say all this to her in person and not get rejected.

His biggest fear had become not being good enough for Riley which was why he didn't tell anyone about him being kicked out of school in Texas at first.

He had wanted Riley to get to know him and not judge him like other people did by just seeing his record.

He worked hard on controlling his anger because he wanted to be the best version of himself to be good enough for her.

Lucas quietly said, "I wish I could say all this to you Riley and it's not like you'll ever read this."

He folded and placed it on his desk. He looked at the letter for a few moments.

He then shook his head and went to lie down on his bed to get some rest.

----------

Unbeknownst to Lucas, Pappy Joe had been at his door the whole time and had even heard him.

Pappy Joe silently vowed to make sure that Riley read the letter.

He knew that Lucas hadn't been sleeping well so he went back downstairs to let his grandboy rest for as long as he could.