based on perfect by selena gomez bc thats my jam i heard it once and wrote all of this

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The beginning of the end happens on a Tuesday, and you used to love Tuesdays, but you don't think you will anymore. You don't want to think about it being such a thing, but you know it is because Lucas has this spark in his eyes when he gets back from his first day of class that you haven't seen since your sophomore year of high school, all because of a girl.

The shift is subtle, it's beyond subtle, but it's there, and to you it screams louder than anything you've ever heard. He's just a little less present, a little less affectionate, a little less in love with you- and you just know that this is it.

You ask him how his day was because that's what you always do, and his grin spreads from ear to ear when he tells you how interesting his art history course really is. He expected it to be boring, but the assignments seem fun and they arrange trips to museums and 'There's this girl, Riley, and she's only a freshman but she's the teaching assistant. Isn't that amazing? We're the only freshmen in the lecture hall during class, so she insisted that I sit with her and she helped me with my notes because I couldn't spell all these artists' names for the syllabus up on the board that were moving so quickly through slides, and I think I'm going to love this class. I know I only took it to bullshit a fine arts credit, but it's actually really cool.' and he's just so freakin' excited that you force your biggest smile because you love him, you do, and he's happy.

"That's great, babe!" you muster out, an ache in your gut that you wish wasn't there because he's so damn happy.

He tells you he can't wait for class on Thursday.

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You have been with Lucas since the second grade when he asked you to be his valentine. You accepted, obviously, and you've been his valentine every year since then because he's your boyfriend and you're in line to be the next Cory and Topanga.

You have a routine between the two of you. Every other Friday is date night, and every Monday night you watch whatever cooking show is airing, and Wednesday is Taco Night, and it's been this way since you were thirteen, and you like it this way. You love it this way because you're Riley and Lucas, the Riley and Lucas, the goal of all goals in a relationship and college was supposed to bring you closer because you're at the same school and you're sharing an apartment- which is why it upsets you a little bit when you find out that Lucas has Maya's number because suddenly he's texting her during Chopped and he's absentmindedly sending her pictures while he's eating his tacos, and he considers staying in on date night because she wants to watch some special on serial killers and he said he would livetext it with her so that they could discuss it during their next class together.

You start dreading Tuesday and Thursday mornings because he's so eager to get up and get dressed that he's out the door before you can even make him his favorite breakfast.

He doesn't even kiss you goodbye.

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You honestly wonder if he's trying to forget you, or if it's coming naturally. Every other word he says is Maya this or Maya that and you don't even think Maya knows you exist. You sure know that she does, though.

Especially when Lucas drones on and on about her artwork that's in museums that you need to go and see because it's unreal.

'It's so beautiful, Riles, you would love it. It's like those little coloring books that you have for anxiety except better.'

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He has lunch with her a lot, but he used to have lunch with you so it makes it all really suck. You sit alone for hours only for him to return, reeking of sugar and spice and everything that you're not enough of.

You don't bring up the tension, and he doesn't either, but, that night, you sleep a little further apart on the bed.

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You think that maybe you should pick up a new hobby, a distraction from your crumbling home life, but when you go to the craft store you're drowned in art supplies and it makes your veins burn in envy.

In high school, he would smile about you how he does about her. You don't even know if he realizes what's happening, but you've always been referred to as the dense one of the relationship so you can't see it. You're oh so oblivious Riley, the last to catch on and to ever see the darkness lurking around.

You wonder if broody artsy girls with the bluest eyes your boyfriend has ever seen are ever seen as oblivious.

Probably not, but you really wish they were.

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He takes you to one of her exhibits for your date night, except it's not even really an exhibit. It's just a museum that has her pieces in with the new age of art, and he tries to explain to you the depth in her canvases, but all you see is squiggly lines and colorful monsters.

He grabs your hand for a second, but when you try to interlace your fingers, he withdraws and is crossing the aisle to show you yet another masterpiece by Maya.

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He kisses her on a Friday, on one of your Friday's.

He is searching for his keys before you even have a chance to get dressed to go out, and you know where he's going. She's waiting for him downstairs, most likely, with a smile brighter than yours and irises as clear as the ocean.

You know that he kissed her because when he gets home, you greet him how you have for the past seven years, and the taste of peaches stains your tongue when you lick your lips.

You spend ten minutes trying to scrub it off with your toothbrush until your tastebuds bleed. (You're just happy the fucking peaches are gone.)

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You used to think of sex as making love, but there has to be love there to make it, doesn't there? Every time you and Lucas as much as make out anymore, you have a voice in the back of your mind reminding you that he's picturing the girl that really has his heart instead of you.

He wants to brush her hair behind her ear.

He wants to kiss her lips instead of yours, treating your intimacy as a chore rather than something exciting.

He wants to say her name against your skin, and with her taste against your tongue again and her perfume clouding your mind, you almost do, too.

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Sometimes when you wake up from your sleep late at night, you think you hear her laugh. In the curve of his spine twisting his body away from you, she lingers unintentionally without mercy.

You even dream about her; imagining the hue of her eyes when she stares into his, imagining his touch caressing her gently, imagining their love flourishing behind your back as you toss and turn on your mattress.

He shakes you awake, softly informing you of your bad dream and pecking your forehead after telling you it's over before he rolls back over. He used to hold you every night, and you want to scream to him that your nightmare is only beginning.

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The first time that you actually see Maya is when Lucas asks you to grab his phone from your shared nightstand. You don't even try, the image appearing as clear as day after you pick up the device. You absentmindedly click his screen to grin at the photo that you took during your high school graduation (a selfie with a sloppy kiss being pressed to your cheek from the boy that you love) that has been his background from the day it happened- right up until it wasn't.

It's her now. You know it is by the blush in her cheeks and the beauty in her irises and her smile tugging her bottom lip into her mouth. She's eating an oversized cupcake, dabs of pink frosting scattered on her nose and chin. He snapped it from across a picnic table, swings and slides in the background to reveal to you that they're sitting outside the tiny elementary school that's not too far from your campus.

He hasn't taken you to a playground since you were sophomores, but with a girl as radiant as that, you'd take her to a million parks.

You'd take her around the world on your arm, bragging to every soul you meet that she is yours and she is everything that you could dream of- But she's not yours. She's his, and you try to remember the last time you were in that place.

You try so fucking hard.

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He looks like he's going to combust when he eagerly rushes into your apartment to tell you the news of a group of his senior friends from that damn art history class getting passes into some museum that you don't care about nine hours away.

It's apparently a big deal and you don't need to ask if she's going. He wouldn't smile so wide if she wasn't, and so you only grin in return, a small voice telling him how excited you are for his trip. It's his first big college outing and they're even getting a hotel room for the night. It's on another date night that would've been cancelled anyways, so when he turns away to go work on whatever essay he has due, you quickly mark it on the calendar with a quivering lip because you don't need to ask who he's sharing a bed with either.

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You're not as dumb as everyone thinks. Yes, you have your ditzy moments, but you know what's happening. You know where he is, who he's with, what he's doing. You know and you can't tell anyone because they wouldn't understand why you're still lying on your side of the bed, awaiting his return.

He's all that you've ever had.

He was your first date, your first kiss, your first love, your first relationship, your first time, everything that he could've been first for he was, and you entered college hoping that he would also be your last for all of those- but you're not dumb. You saw it when he met her, and you saw it when he kissed her, and you see it now as he fucks her in some hotel room states away that you were wrong.

You decide to do your research on her, any type of research despite how it makes your stomach churn and that's how you end up on her Facebook page, scrolling through hundred of pictures of the most beautiful girl you've ever laid eyes on. She's holding awards and painting artwork and strumming guitars and grinning so fucking wide that it feels like rays of sun are shining from the screen of your laptop. She's from New York, a native to where you reside instead of traveling from Texas where you and Lucas were raised, and her birthday is exactly thirty-seven days after yours, and if she wasn't the love of your boyfriend's life you really think you could be friends. You could be such great friends, maybe even more, because your mom has always told you that you need someone around to help you unfold your hands but you've always had Lucas and he's always protected you so there was never a need for anyone else. He was your best friend, your boyfriend, your soulmate.

He was, was, was.

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You want to be like her, what he wants, and so you try to paint. You find the prettiest shade of purple and you buy the largest canvas you can afford and you paint for hours until you realize that you're staring at a lopsided stick figure cat and the ratio of paint on you versus the actual painting is ridiculous enough for you to see that you haven't been painting for hours at all.

You've been sitting, dreaming of him coming home to you with your name on his lips and your perfume on his clothes and he'll taste like kiwis and flowers and rainbows again.

He's not going to, but you dream of it because he's going to find your purple cat and it'll settle in that you're never going to be the artist he wants.

You take a burning shower until your skin aches with blotches of red and you tug out your laptop from under your pillow before you even put on clothes so that you can start searching for a new apartment. You foolishly put this lease in his name, thinking that it would one day be yours, and you're not so sure if you're as smart as you think you are anymore.

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You follow him to lunch one day because you just want to know what she's like with him. You want to know how she touches him because you could do that, be that for him, and so you lurk from a distance as he walks to the playground exactly twelve minutes away from your apartment like it's his second home, creeping behind the mess of blonde sketching at the picnic table with her back to him. His hands fly to cover her face and she lets out a shriek, giggling at his touch.

Watching her stand up and turn around is almost surreal. Her hair dances in the wind, fluttering like ribbons just like the hem of her skirt. It happens in slow motion; her arms linking around his neck when her picks her up to spin her quickly, their lips connecting within seconds. One of his hands tangle into her hair as he gently sets her down and she smirks into their kiss, her own grasp slithering down to ball a fist into the front of his shirt.

It's aggressive and it's rough and it's hot and you stumble back, a lingering feeling of intrusion clouding your mind at their intimacy.

(That night, you try to be more like her when you kiss him and you bite his lip right open, beads of blood bubbling on the surface of his frown when he sets you aside in bed and closes himself into the bathroom to wash away your failure.)

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When he showers, you sometimes take his phone to watch videos of her.

There's one that's your favorite; it's in her bed. He's lying down on his back and she's completely on top of him, a few inches lower than his chest as she delicately strokes his skin with brushes covered in colors in set of paints beside their bodies. You can't make out the image, but you can make out the freckles dashes all over her face and the dimple in her cheek when she's satisfied with what she's done and the love in her eyes when she finds his eyes behind the camera.

"What?" she asks with a scrunch in her nose, an adorable scrunch that takes the air from your lungs.

"Nothing," he replies. He's smiling. You know he is from his tone, and you don't know if you're watching for her or to hear his voice so happy again.

His fingers curl under her chin when she tries to continue her work, her eyes widening as she breaks into a grin. "Oh no, no, no, you'll get me covered in-" but as soon as she smiles, he's tugging her closer and you can make out the smearing of paint across chest and tank top from their lips connecting. She sits up, straddling his lap with a lovesick daze, shaking her head at the paint now bundling the ends of her hair and covering her previously clean clothes. "I was almost done, you asshole."

He laughs at her, a pure genuine laugh before she snatches his phone and turns the camera on him. Your eyes wander from his bare chest to his beaming look at her, her thin fingers reaching out and tracing a small heart into the puddle of colors left on his skin after their kiss.

"You're dead to me, Friar."

"Oh," he snorts sarcastically, "I'm shaking in my boots."

You always try to shut it off before he suggests a shower with a dark smirk and his phone is forgotten when he scoops her up from her sheets and her laughter echoes until it's distant enough to disappear.

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You don't know when he stopped loving you in the way that you've always loved him, but you pinpointed it somewhere between meeting Maya and their first kiss, and it kills you.

You want to meet her, and you want to ask her to take care of him. You want to tell her all the little things she'll need to know like he doesn't like mustard and he has to tie his left shoe first and everything that she's going to have engraved into her heart for the rest of her life. You call her, and she answers almost immediately probably not figuring that it was you. She agrees to meet you and gives you the address to a little bakery, some place called Svorski's that she insists is the best in the world, and so you don't hesitate to say that you'll be there at four sharp. You only ask that she doesn't tell him that you're doing this, and she promises not to.

And so you prepare. You look at the apartment that you found for when your lease is up, you think of the light in his eyes the day that he met her, you tell Lucas that you'll be out for a little bit, and you walk out the door to meet the girl that your boyfriend is in love with, and you probably are, too, at this point.

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The start of your new life happens on a Tuesday with a breakup and the opposite, the boy you love kissing his girlfriend hello and your soft wave bidding them goodbye. You're trying to love Tuesdays again.