There's Always A Plot Twist | Wattys 2023 ✓

24| The Cocoon

From the moment that Riley was born, she viewed the world in binary.

It was easier that way, to explain why the bad could co-exist with the good, why anything good usually attracts the opposite, why it always seems that the worse sorts of people are usually, but not exclusively, the wealthiest people in the world.

Light is always surrounded by darkness, just look at the planets and their suns, suspended in a seemingly endless void with hiding things that science says shouldn't exist but do.

Or similarly, like the protagonist of our epic fantasies who fight back against the forces of some sort of great evil. Ever notices how there's rarely a time when the light chases the dark, it's always the one provoking the other into action, resulting in an anticlimactic victory.

Light within and darkness out. A phrase that Riley honestly lived by for her entire life.

But it's as she thrust herself into a sitting position, rising from the dead of sleep with a sporadic heartbeat and sweat making the hairs on the back of her neck stick together, with bones that ache and twist and turn and lungs that scream for air, she acknowledges that something has changed.

At some point she had fallen asleep, apparently too tired to shut the curtains over her windows because now the most blinding stream of morning light burst into the room.

She rubs her sealed eyes, still shaking as she works on levelling her breathing until her heart no longer feels like it could give out at any moment.

What we fail to realise is that the rules of a binary system can still apply when inverted, the only difference is, it can be a little harder to see.

"Jesus." Riley groans, scuttling across the cold floor of her room, closing her navy blue curtains in one swift movement before slipping back underneath her covers.

"Bad dream?" Arlo asks, his floating head appearing on the opposite side of the bed after spending the night on her floor with nothing but a few pillows and a thin blanket.

"Sorry, did I wake you?"

"You know I'm a light sleeper." he replies kindly, in other words meaning yes. He lazily stretches his arm muscles as he climbs onto the bed. "Move over a little."

After making room for him on her bed, Riley peers down at his chest where she can see the outline of his nipples through his cotton vest.

"I don't usually dream, like at all."

Arlo rubs Riley's back, the circling motion feeling oddly satisfying to her. "Want to tell me about it?"

"Well there's not much to it. It was about my friend, Jayda...she...well she...erm." Riley closes her eyes, tapping her nails on her forehead as she tries to say the words out loud. "She unalived herself, a while back, during the summer."

Arlo holds the air in his lungs for a second too long, double blinking after receiving that piece of information. "I'm so sorry Ry."

"It still doesn't make much sense to me, I mean, we hung out, everything was fine." Riley shakes her head, keeping her eyes trained on anything that isn't Arlo. "It was just another random Monday."

"How did she...was it an accident?"

"She drowned." Riley swipes at her face, her skin still feeling hot and prickly. "But there were these letters that came out way later."

Arlo peers down at Riley, noticing how empty they look as if her soul and mind are a million miles away. "We can stop, if you don't-"

"-No...no, I...I just realized why I was so mad at you last night."

"Care to share with the class?"

Riley nibbles on her bottom lip, her sense of smell catching onto the savoury smell of bread being toasted. "I hung out with Jayda on a Monday and by Wednesday she was gone."

"So...what? You think I'd try to end my life or something?"

"My point is people die everyday, and I know you get that, but starting a bar fight, riding into the night with a stranger, none of that behaviour will keep you safe."

"You don't have to worry about my safety."

"But that's the thing, I don't get to choose when to turn it off. I don't know how to!" Riley throws the covers off once more, leaping to her feet. "The nightmare, I was dreaming about opening the letter Jayda wrote for me."

"You never read it?"

"I burnt it." she replies, cupping her face in her hands. "I burnt it because I couldn't...I would have read those words and my brain would have engraved them into memory."

"But you still have regrets about it, right?" Arlo utters huskily, offering her his hand to go alongside his apology. "I'm sorry I worried you. Next time I'll think before I act."

Riley raises a brow, not all the way satisfied with the wording of his apology. "Next time?"

"It's rush week, you have to at least give me a grace period from being an absolute moron."

"I never called you a moron." Riley retorts, letting him pull her back onto the bed. "Did I?"

"Not in so many words..."

Riley exhales, finding comfort in knowing that if he didn't get anything else from this conversation, then at least he understands that the little things, no matter how small, will find a way to eat at her psyche.

However, when the conversation takes a turn she doesn't protest, allowing Arlo to cup her chin and use his thumb to wipe away the final tear desperately clinging to the side of her face.

It's such a small act of kindness, sure, but currently the bar when it comes to her standards in men is somewhere in hell. And its in moments like these when she remembers why she fell in love with him in the first place, and why she continues to fall even further.

When Riley leans in, Arlo is hesitant, his lips hovering mere centimetres from hers. All he has to do is take it, to want her back.

However, Arlo makes the split decision to pull away, his head of curls falling into his face as he bows his head.

Even in her current condition Riley acknowledges that he made the right choice and makes sure to thank him for it, even if the sting of reject feels like a live wire being struck with lightning bolts whilst implanted in her chest.

"Thank you." she whispers, pecking him on his cheek instead.

When the door to her bedroom suddenly burst open, they hardly react. In their eyes they'd done nothing wrong, but from Amara's perspective, the situation looks all kinds of messed up.

"Oh for the love of god, Riley, please tell me you didn't bang him...again."