Sixteen years old and it finally felt like I could breathe again. The past few months had been hectic - yet nowhere near as hectic as it had been a couple years ago when everyone was just graduating from middle school. Back then, I thought the biggest problems I would have to face revolved around a certain troublemaker I tried to keep from thinking about anymore. Which was easier said than done, especially when that troublemaker was still one of your closest friends.

School had just been let out for summer vacation yesterday. This was supposed to be one of the greatest experiences of our entire lives - we were high school kids, we were going to officially be juniors in August. We would be kings. But it's harder than I'd like to admit to enjoy the idea of being a king when everything had already fallen to pieces.

I glanced over at my alarm clock. It was currently 9:03 A.M., which inevitably meant that Maya Hart, my best friend, was probably still fast asleep. She made a promise to herself that she would sleep in until at least eleven every morning until we had to go back to school. I wasn't sure if that was going to last for long, especially since her longtime boyfriend was a bit of an early riser, but it made no sense to comment on that. Or remind her how she said those same exact things last year, just to be awoken before nine every single morning. That was the one and only time I thought she was seriously going to murder her boyfriend.

My eyes flitted around my bedroom somewhat mindlessly. If Maya was awake, she would be here by now, which immediately destroyed any motivation to do much of anything. I knew that there were probably a million different things that had to be done, but I couldn't be bothered to bring a single one to mind at the moment. My eyes eventually landed on my sacred bay window, which had barely changed throughout the years. Aside from switching up the curtains and painting the walls so they were varying shades of green instead of blue and purple, everything looked pretty much the same.

I felt a pang of nostalgia over the billions of memories that flashed through my mind before I tore my gaze away from the window. Nowadays, my only frequent visitors were Maya and occasionally Farkle Minkus, her aforementioned boyfriend since eighth grade. Our other friend, Missy Bradford, usually preferred simply using the front door unless it was a real emergency, and as for that troublemaker I mentioned earlier ...

Well, he didn't really come around much anymore.

I exhaled, mentally scolding myself for thinking about him again. I had promised myself that he wouldn't cross my mind unless necessary this summer. And maybe I was becoming a real pro at breaking promises I made to myself, because I slipped up at least twenty times last night alone. It was pathetic, honestly, that after everything he did, he was still the only thing on my mind.

"Knock, knock."

I spun around immediately, stumbling back a couple feet in surprise. It was almost like I had somehow summoned them here with my muddled thoughts. "Them," as in, my best friends. My little group of four.

"How did you guys even get in here?" I hissed, despite the fact that my mild annoyance was already dying out. I glanced between Maya, Farkle, Missy, and Lucas, although my glance towards the last one was rather fleeting. I could practically feel him rolling eyes at me, not that I bothered looking.

Maya laughed, leaning against the door frame. "Your parents let us in. Your dad said he could feel you thinking from down there, so it was perfectly fine if we paid you a little visit. Although he's still skeptical about that one," she added shamelessly, gesturing towards Lucas with her finger.

"Can you blame him?" Missy asked, raising a single eyebrow delicately. "They dated until just two months ago-"

"Okay!" I interrupted loudly, already feeling my face heating up in humiliation. If there was one thing I hated to be reminded of, it was everything that went down a couple months ago. No one knew that better than Maya and Missy, and yet here they were, bringing it up without an ounce of shame. I knew what they were trying to do, but it wasn't going to work. Certain things weren't meant to be, and there was absolutely no way a typical good girl was supposed to be in a steady relationship with your not-so-typical troublemaker. That was something we both had learned the hard way. Though it seemed slightly less difficult for Lucas, but that was another story completely.

Lucas snickered, fleetingly looking around my bedroom. "Are you ever going to change this place up, Riley? It looks the same way it did when you were fourteen."

"I repainted," I mumbled defensively before heaving another quiet sigh before striding over to my bay window, reluctantly plopping down. "So, what is everybody doing here? It must be really important if you guys managed to wake Maya up before eleven."

Farkle chuckled, sitting besides me. "Yeah, that one is sort of my fault."

Maya rolled her eyes, quickly sitting on my other side. "It's completely his fault. Can you believe that my mom and Shawn actually gave him their permission to barge into my bedroom at eight o'clock in the freaking morning? They said he was the only person that could get me up, along with some other sarcastic remarks about earthquakes not being able to wake me."

Missy laughed lightly, sitting besides Farkle and twiddling her thumbs. It was something that she seemed to do a lot. Almost absentmindedly. "Well, I think I can believe it. Has Shawn considered popping the questions yet? I mean, he has been living with you guys for the past year and you can tell he really cares about your mom."

Maya shrugged, leaning the back of her head against the shiny glass of my window. "I dunno. I'm hoping so, but he isn't very talkative about those sorts of things and I don't have mid reading abilities like those vampires you adore, Missy." You could tell by the tone of Maya's voice that she wasn't the hugest fan of Missy's obsession, which was something that always had the two of them bickering with each other. They could go on and on for hours at a time. Sometimes it was amusing, but the majority of the time it was just exhausting.

I cleared my throat awkwardly, breaking into the discussion before it could even begin. "So, what brings you guys here?"

Lucas shrugged, making sure to keep his distance. He appeared to be the outcast of the group, isolated from the rest of us, and I hated how true that honestly was. Ever since things went down two months ago, he had been drifting from the rest of us. Even Maya, who might as well be his younger sister. Maya and Missy couldn't understand what was going on with him, but Farkle and I had a couple guesses we were keeping to ourselves. There was no reason to alarm Missy or Maya with our thoughts that might not even be correct.

"They dragged me along," he told me, pressing his lips together firmly. Of course they did, that shouldn't even be a surprise to me. He never willingly came to visit me anymore. "Truthfully, for some freaky reason I was hoping I could sleep in today."

I pursed my own lips, fiddling with my fingers nervously. "I thought you'd be up bright and early to hang out with Alyssa," I commented, trying to sound nonchalant. The key word there, of course, was "trying." It wasn't like I was ever successful at this sort of thing.

Alyssa Allen was a close friend of Lucas, and his rumored fling. None of us knew for sure - whenever we questioned him about it, he only shrugged us off. We hadn't even attempted asking Alyssa about it. Considering the type of person she was, I assumed she actually would bite our heads up if we brought it up around her. Needless to say, she wasn't exactly the most fantastic person to know.

It wasn't like I was jealous or anything. At least, that wasn't why I was thinking these things. In freshman year, Missy and I had tried being friends with Alyssa, since she had moved here from Maryland. She had been an outsider at first, but still didn't have the time of day for either of us. Missy's popularity had gone down the drain once she finally ditched her old "friends," and I had never been the popular type, so Alyssa ended up blowing us off. Now, she was the leader of the pack of a fairly large group of girls, three of them being the girls from Missy's old clique.

At first, I had assumed that Alyssa had more depth than she was willing to let show. After all, that had been the case with Maya, Lucas, and Missy. But soon enough, I came to the conclusion that she had about as much depth as a blank sheet of paper. She purposefully flunked tests so she could grab the attention of her fellow populars, and knocked anyone in her way down in her rush to reach the top. She had a great family life, with two younger brothers and two loving parents. Her mom stayed at home to take care of everything, while her dad actually worked with Stuart Minkus, Farkle's father. They were kind, selfless people, which is why it had always shocked me why Alyssa was the way she was.

I didn't understand Lucas's abrupt infatuation with her. She didn't exactly seem like his type, but then again, what did I know? The only person he had ever taken an interest in before this was apparently me, and we all saw her terrible that turned out. Maybe he figured it was a good time for a change

And boy, did he change. Sometimes I couldn't help wondering if he really was the same person from Austin, Texas that I had grown to care about so much. Because he couldn't possibly be anymore different now.

Lucas shrugged again, jerking me out of my messy thoughts. "She's spending the weekend with her parents and her brothers."

Surprise, surprise. It was truly a rare occurrence to ever see Lucas with Alyssa at his side, even when we were all hanging out as a group. He had brought her along twice so far, and both times had been total disasters. Maya was obviously not Alyssa's biggest fan and didn't ever try to hide it. In fact, neither did Missy. Farkle and I both tried to feign politeness, but it was easier said than done. We all upset her within the first thirty minutes of our little hang outs, thus causing Lucas to inevitably rush after her.

So. Yeah. We didn't spend time with Lucas half as much as we used to.

"Aw, of course. The little princess has to make time for her family eventually, right?" Maya remarked, her voice tainted with false niceness. Maya was trying the hardest to steer Lucas away from Alyssa, and she could never understand why Farkle, Missy and I were so against her doing so.

If she kept it up, Lucas was going to assume that it was because I was jealous or hurting over his new friendship or relationship or whatever with Alyssa. And that was a can of worms that I was hoping to avoid prying open for the rest of my life, thank you very much.

"Can someone please tell me why you guys are all here? I've asked twice already," I interjected, forcing a weak laugh. Farkle flashed me a knowing look, which I pointedly chose to avoid. There was another thing I was hoping to avoid forever.

Missy smiled. "Well, Lucas and I were talking last night and he mentioned something, which gave me an idea I wanted to share with you guys. So I called in the rest of the troops."

Lucas and Missy were still somewhat close. Although he had pushed her away, too, he was still more likely to talk to her whenever he wasn't obsessing over Alyssa. She was the newest addition to our little group, which kind of explained it. Still, the fact that I hadn't had a decent conversation with him in ages came to mind, which stung way more than I wanted to admit to myself. We were supposed to be friends still, right? Our breakup shouldn't have changed that. So why was he acting like he hated me?

"What's your idea?" I asked quickly, desperate for some kind of distraction from the thoughts running wild through my mind.

"Lucas told me that his mom has been bugging him about visiting her for the past couple weeks," Missy explained, glancing over at Lucas before looking back at Maya, Farkle, and I. "She obviously isn't going to shut up until he actually does visit her, so I was thinking that we could all tag along with him. Kind of like a road trip, but without, you know, the road itself."

Maya raised her eyebrows, seemingly caught off guard. "You're kidding me, right? There's no way I can afford a plane ticket, anyway, and California isn't really my style."

Farkle smiled widely, apparently anticipating this type of reaction from his girlfriend. "I already talked to my dad about it and he said he would be willing to pay for all of our plane tickets. The only catch is that he'll only do it if we all go together."

I paused for a long moment, blinking slowly. Of all the things I had been expecting to hear this morning, this was certainly not one of them. Apparently Lucas and Maya were thinking the same things - we were both completely still, neither of them uttering a single word. "I'm not sure if my mom and dad would actually let me go," I said after a minute, already desperate for some way out of this situation.

I hadn't seen Isabella McGuire, Lucas's mother, since she tried to drag him out to California once we graduated from eighth grade. She never visited her son, and rarely called, so her sudden urge to be in his life and see him again seemed a little strange to me. Then again, what did I know? Maybe his relationship with his mother had somehow improved over the past couple months. It isn't like he would ever tell me. Not anymore.

"I'll convince them," Missy said automatically, grinning. "You know how persistent I can be, Ri. It'll be the easiest thing in the world."

"What are Mom and Shawn?" Maya interrupted, seeming just as eager as I was to get the heck out of this. "They'll never agree to it."

Farkle raised his eyebrows. "Maya, Shawn's been wanting to find some way to get you to travel for months. This is the perfect opportunity, and even if your mom doesn't like the idea at first, you know he'll convince her."

Maya and I exchanged a brief glance, unique expression of horror on each of our faces before reluctantly looking back over at Lucas. "You wouldn't want us tagging along, would you?" I asked him quietly. Right about now would be a great time for him to despise my existence again.

Lucas hesitated before eventually smirking slightly. "Actually, I'd love to have you guys with me. Kind of like moral support, don't you think?"

"So, who's in?" Farkle asked.

I knew that Maya wouldn't be able to resist the hopeful, puppy dog expression on her boyfriend's face. She sighed, mouthing "sorry" at me before nodding a little. "I'm in."

Missy grinned widely. "Awesome! Farkle and I are in, obviously, Lucas pretty much just said that he was in ... so, what do you say, Ri?"

No! I wanted to scream. There's no freaking way in the world I'm in. There's no way you could ever convince me to go to Cali-freaking-fornia to visit my ex-boyfriend's mother who already hates my guts. There's no way I'm even leaving my bedroom until I have to go back to school. And there's definitely no way I'm getting on a plane with Lucas Friar.

Still, I felt like blurting all of that out would be frowned upon. The last thing any of us needed right now was that kind of conflict, anyway.

I exhaled. "Yeah, okay. I'm in."

. . .

A/N: I'm baa-aack! Okay, but seriously. You guys inspired me to keep this story going, so here we are! :D I hope you guys liked the first chapter of this story! Thoughts on what might have happened to cause Lucas and Riley to break up? Lucas drifting away from everyone? Alyssa? Anything at all? I love hearing from you guys, so feel free to leave your opinions!

Also, I still don't own Girl Meets World. I vaguely recall going over this forty-four times already.