Then I Found You

Chapter 8

Rayden or Jiley? (@_halcyon I need your expertise)

Riley lay down on the bed in her room, staring at the ceiling. She hadn’t spoken to the boys in a month. She saw them around school but anytime Jayden or Ghost spoke to her she would brush them off. She didn’t know why she did this. Anytime she became even a little bit close to someone, she distanced herself from them eventually which is probably why she basically only had one friend: Nick. She could probably count Ethan and Emily but she had stopped talking to them. Sighing, she got up from the bed and walked out the door.

“Never step on my foot again, you hear me!” she heard Ms Twist yell. She ran in the direction where she heard Ms Twist’s voice and she saw the lady beating a little boy with her show. Riley gasped and put a hand over her mouth. Normally she would intervene but she couldn’t do anything but stare and feel bad for the kid. This is why she hated living in the orphanage.

Ms Twist looked up and sadly noticed Riley standing there. She glared at her and threw the shoe she was beating the child with at Riley and stormed past her. Riley had to hold her breath as she passed by since she smelt like alcohol.

“Are you okay?” Riley asked the little boy but he simply sat in the corner and wept. She felt a few tears of her own escaping and she left the building and took a walk. She shoved her hands in her jacket pockets as she walked. It was freezing but she didn’t care. She decided to sit down in the park nearby.

She watched as a few people who looked to be around her age, joked around and played. Why couldn’t her life be like that? She was stuck in that orphanage with Nick and she was always moving from state to state so she couldn’t keep friends and she was afraid of everything. She only had one person she could be herself around and that was Nick.

Just then she heard someone take a seat next to her, when she looked she noticed it was Jayden, the expression on his face was stressed out. The muscle in his jaw was ticking, Riley wondered if he noticed that she was there or if he was simply ignoring her presence like she had been doing to him and Ghost for the past month.

“You always know when someone has a secret” Jayden said, she stared at him for a moment, wondering if he was talking to her or not. He answered her silent question when he looked directly at her.

“They act like you” he finished. She cocked one eyebrow at him and he shrugged. “So you never used to talk before, start talking to us for like a week, then ignore us for a month. Care to explain?” he asked.

She didn’t respond to him. They sat in silence for a while before he spoke again.

“I know you can talk now. So talk” he said in a slightly demanding voice.

“I have my reasons” she said, her voice coming out slightly raspy. She hadn’t used her voice a lot recently so she understood why it sounded funny.

“You remind me a lot of myself” he commented, when she gave him a confused look he continued. “You don’t let anyone in so then you end up pushing the people you care about away.”

She let his words sink in for a while. He was right, she did do that. But who was he to tell her that?

“I know I was probably a little bit hard on you sometimes, that’s because I have a pretty short fuse” he said, giving a humourless chuckle. Riley knew she should be running away, making up some excuse to leave. Jayden terrified her, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to run away from him.

“I know you have some sort of history. You look like you’ve seen and been through things the average seventeen year old has never had to deal with” he stated. He was correct so far. How was he analysing her so easily if she was barely saying a word? The thought scared her, it meant that many other people could have looked at her and guessed that. Unless Jayden was exceptionally smart or he has been through similar experiences.

She thought about when the little girl called him ‘daddy’ or the sixteen year old girl who looked like his sister had been in the house, she was obviously hung over and she was wearing inappropriate clothes and Jayden had kicked her out. It was obvious he had seen things no eighteen year old see.

“My sister is just like you” he commented, staring at her. Riley could understand that since his sister reminded her of herself when she was that age. She was stupid.

“C’mon Donovan!” she shouted, running towards the ocean. She felt the alcohol in her system still working even though they had gotten back from the party hours ago. When she finally reached the shoreline, she giggled when the water touched her feet.

“The water is wet!” she shouted, getting on her knees and playing with the wet sand. Donovan finally caught up with her and slapped her at the back of her head making her cry out in pain.

“Will you be quiet? You’re embarrassing me!” he hissed at her. She nodded at him and kept quiet, playing with the sand. “I love you” he said suddenly.

“I love you too” she said, giving him a sad smile.

Riley didn’t even notice she was crying until she realized how alarmed Jayden looked.

“Are you okay?” he asked. She nodded and took a shaky breath before putting her head in her hands. These were one of the times when she wondered if the pain will ever go away.

'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'

 “Riley wait!” she heard Ghost’s voice behind her as she walked down the school hall. She hesitantly stopped walking and turned around to see Ghost. She had been avoiding him for a while. A few students looked in their direction, she guessed it was due to the fact that Ghost had been shouting her name for a while now but she had studiously ignored him.

“Why did you stop talking to us?” he asked breathlessly. He was probably running for a while now. Riley gave him a guilty look and shrugged. He grabbed her shoulders and shook them.

“Don’t be like that Riley” he said. “We know you can talk so talk.”

“Don’t be like that Riley, we know you can talk” she mocked him playfully. She knew she was playing a dangerous game but after talking to Jayden in the park. Well after Jayden talking, she realized she wanted friends, she really did but she just needed to make sure the orphanage played their cards right and Ms Twist didn’t see the reason to run away since child services hadn’t been checking up on it lately.

“Nice” he muttered sarcastically. Just then Emily came up to us and gave a shy wave to Ghost.

“Riley! I need to talk to you” she said, giving her a look that dared her to say no. Riley nodded and waved to Ghost before following Emily outside. She knew Emily was going to ask about the bruises she and Ethan had seen but there was one problem.

Was she ready to tell Emily yet? She didn’t even tell Jayden yet.

She was running through a million different ways in her head to tell Emily that she couldn’t tell anyone about the bruises and then another million ways on how to tell Emily about the bruises.

When Emily finally stopped she realized they were under a huge tree.

“So I want to know about those bruises. You obviously didn’t do them to yourself so someone else could have done them. It wasn’t your brother right?” Emily asked cautiously making Riley shake her head. Everyone in the school assumed Nick was her brother not that she minded. It was better than explaining that they came from the same orphanage.

Riley decided it was best to tell Emily some of her story. It was healthier to tell someone right? She sighed and opened her mouth to begin to talk. She was going to tell Emily her story.

It should be interesting.

K so I’ll start updating this book more frequently (it’s a short story btw *20 chapters*) when Last Trip to Italy is done which should be soon.