The Good Boy's Facade

30

"Why are we here?" Claire questioned Lucas, while following him to the football field anyway. They were in their highschool, and she couldn't help but marvel over how much the things had changed but the field remained the same.

Since it was pretty late already, there weren't any kids playing around. But few years ago, they were the kids playing around. She shivered at the thought.

"I wanted to revisit this place." Lucas said. "And what could have topped coming with a highschool friend?"

Claire gulped, looking at the bleachers. The exact same spot she had met him, as a boy, wearing a baby blue sweater. She looked at him, the present him, a little more mature and responsible.

A little different but still the same.

Lucas stopped walking forward, having lead her to the middle of the field.

He turned to face her, reading her bewilderment and chuckling quietly.

"Don't you think we need to talk?" He slipped his hands into his pockets, standing upright and looking down at her now.

"We do, indeed." She agreed nonchalantly, or she tried to do so.

His gaze fell on the camera again, and he started fishing out his wallet. And once it was out and in his hands, he paused for a moment. "Before that, I wanna give you something."

"Yeah?"

Lucas opened his wallet and pulled out an old Polaroid photo. He took a second to look at it again, before handing it over to her. "This has been with me since that school trip." He smiled.

She grabbed the picture from him, turning it over to see. It really was them.

No doubt.

It was them in the car. If she remembered it right, then it was the day they all hung out alone.

"Do you have more?" She asked, memories flooding through her brain, and no matter what, she loved how painful they had become to her over time.

"I don't." He shook his head. "This was the final one that I never had a heart to give away." Hearing that, Claire tried handing it back, but Lucas just didn't make a move to get it at all. Instead, he said, "Keep it. I have no intention of having it anymore."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Guess I was waiting."

"For what?"

"For your return. Now it's just too late isn't it?"

Claire looked down, scoffing. "If you don't want it, then I don't too." She said, before dropping it from her hands. It drifted off in air, landing a few feet away on the dirty ground, their eyes following it.

"That day," Lucas started, and he doesn't know why he's saying this. He doesn't want to bring it back, but he is. So he looked up at the bright sky, when he said, "That day on the New Year's Eve, right here,"

"I saw you." She finished the sentence for him.

"Under the fireworks, a few feet apart." He tore his eyes off of the sky and then looked back at her, taking in her shabby appearance, just like he loved. "You stared too long at me."

"That's because--"

She knew what he was about to say, yet she prayed that it wasn't true. Because all she had been good at was running from the truth.

"I said something that day." He stated blankly. "You know what I said."

Her palms were either itching or sweaty, and there was a lump in her throat now, which got worse as the man kept speaking. "I couldn't hear it."

"You read my lips. I know you did."

Claire looked at the bleachers again, a smirk slowly making its way onto her face. Her tongue pressed to her inner cheek for a second, and did Lucas miss this side of Claire who looked hot while in anger. "So what?" She said. "So what if you said you know everything? Did you think it'd make me change my decision?"

"No," Lucas took a step forward. "I thought it'd make things better between us, but you.. you never wanted to."

Claire slowly grit her teeth. "I had nothing to do with you anymore."

Lucas placed a hand on her shoulder, making her whip her head to look at him. "I'm not here to fight today, Claire. I'm here to tell you something that I couldn't tell you that night."

"What is it?"

Dammit, Lucas knew about her, didn't he? About what she did to Vincent, and about how she should have been rotting in prison.

Was that why Lucas could move on so easily? No matter how old, the incident really did leave a scar.

That night on the new year's Day in highschool, she didn't want to listen to him because she was afraid that he would see her differently from then on. The only reason why she walked away from him.

Today, he was bringing back the anxiety, the same way she felt that night.

"I know what happened." Lucas told her. "Dad made you do it, didn't he?"

Claire's throat went dry, the colour from her face draining altogether. "What did you just say?"

"Dad made you leave, didn't he?" He let out a tiny laughter. "He threatened you, with.. with those pictures, right? And not once, but more than that. That's why you said what you said." Lucas' voice wasn't cooperating, it kept breaking in the middle, as if he was having a hard time to breathe.

"How did you know-"

"Nate told me." He snapped. "He told me everything."

Nate, that guy, when would he ever stop being nosy?

"L-Lucas-"

"It's fine." Lucas waved a hand Infront of her. "It's just that, that night, only if you had stayed, the things would have probably been different today."

Claire took her chance, saying, "It still can be."

He shook his head, the smile still on his face as if it was glued. "I'm here to bid our relationship a final goodbye. It's going to be Hailey for me now."

Claire took off her bag, letting it fall on the ground. She looked totally dejected and defeated. The silence there was prominent, except for the sweeping wind blowing past them in gushes.

She looked up and into his eyes, shimmering gaze and quivering lips. "What if.. what if I tell you, you can change it. Call off the wedding, because I really am tired. Tired of wanting to return but never doing it." She took a step closer, hands rushing to delicately land on his cheeks. "It's not too late, don't you think?"

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