Happening >>Riley Matthews<<

Chapter 10

I couldn't move. My ankle was the size of a hot-air balloon. I sat back in defeat. I hated this. I absolutely, 100% hated this with my whole, smashed, demolished heart.

"You can't run from your problems, Riley. They won't go away. They just follow you and haunt you until they eventually collapse and cave in on you. They swallow you whole and keep you in their bellies until you can't breathe anymore. Then they spit you back out into reality. You look around the world and realize that you'd rather be digested again. Except this time, when the problems swallow you, they don't spit you back out. You start to suffer and suffocate. You stop breathing completely and only then do they give you back to the world where you thought nobody cared about you. Well, the truth is is that they do. They care about you very much Riley Matthews. And nothing, absolutely nothing! is going to take you away from them. You understand me?!"

Wow, Maya. Bravo. You're the winner of the Motivational Speech of the Year award. Horrah. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm meeting my neighbor because anything is better than seeing your pukey face right now. Okay? We cool? We cool. Good day. I must now leave to go meet my doom, which is still better than seeing you in all your weird stupid faced glory. I think it would look a lot better if I put my foot in it. I think it would give it a real nice touch.

"You..." I stared her down. She can't possibly compare with my pain. She can't. There is not one way, shape, or form that she can understand. She has a great life and she just doesn't understand. "Need. To stop. Yelling. At me."

She looked at me. Through me. Into my deep, dark, broken down soul. "You don't understand what I'm going through and you need to stop." I warned. She was getting to close for comfort. Not physically, but her eyes kept eating away at me.

"Oh I'm sure I can't know your pain. I'm sure I can't. Riley Matthews, am I sitting here with you in this time because I don't know how you feel? I don't know what it feels to be hurt? I don't know that? Are you sure?! Cuz I'm pretty sure you're not. I know you're not! You don't think I know what it feels like to be left alone?! You don't think I know what it feels like to be left?! Riley Matthews, you don't know what it's like to be left! You don't know how that feels! So why do you pretend like you do?! WHY?! WHY ARE YOU PRETENDING LIKE YOU KNOW MY LIFE BECAUSE YOU DON'T!!!" She stared at me with wide, fearful eyes. Not the eyes that had penetrated me. Just the ones that were looking on the surface.

"Excuse me Miss Maya Hart! But I do know what it's like to be left. I do know. You know how I know?! Because you're about to walk out that window because you're so mad at me! Why are you mad at me?! Why?! Didn't I just ask you to not yell at me? Do you know what you just did to me?! You made me even more broken than I already am!!!" I just yelled at my best friend. What have I done?

"Oh you're broken? Excuse me, but I don't think you know what it's like to be broken!!!"

"What about Ring Power?!"

"Screw the ring."

Maya was furious. She took off the ring, threw it at me like there was no tomorrow, and crawled out the bay window like her life depended on it.

I looked at the ring sitting in my lap. It seemed to be torn between my ring and my best friend. I didn't actually think she would go out that window. But she did. She left me. And I don't think she's coming back. I clenched the ring in my left fist, took off my ring and clenched it in my right, and sobbed. Right after she tried to lift me up, she brought me down. She said she was never going to take off that ring. She lied to me. She left me. I know what it's like to be left.

"Lucas?" Farkle read my mind. I'm glad he did because there was no way I could talk right now.

"I'm on it." He pat my back and then took off after Maya. A super hero. He's my super hero. But he left me. Just like she did. Just like they all will.

Farkle scooted up next to me. He brought my head closer to him and I leaned into his shoulder. I didn't care how bony it was. It was the only thing I had left. He pet my head. "Shhh. Shhh. It's going to be alright." He soothed. "Lucas went to go get Maya and I'm right here. Shhh."

After I calmed down a little bit, I was able to hear voices outside. A low one that sent me soaring and an angry one that pulled me to the bottom of the ocean.

"Farkle, why are you still here? They both left. Why didn't you follow them? You know you want to."

"Riley, they didn't leave. They just stepped out for a bit. I think this whole thing is hitting Maya really hard and she just needs a breath of fresh air."

"She doesn't understand what I'm going through. Why is she pretending like she does?" I mumbled angrily beneath my breath.

"We all feel hurt in different ways. Maya's father left and you feel like no one is here. I think Maya finally just let out all the hurt she had been holding in whereas you said the things you did to make you feel more hurt."

The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right. "Why are you always right?"

"That's not true."

"Then how come you know so much?"

"Because I think I have a different perspective on it than you do. I don't know exactly what you're feeling, but I can relate."

"How, you've never even been through this."

"I said that I can relate. I didn't say that I knew what you're feeling. At the beginning of this year, my parents were fighting a lot. I didn't really know why. I would just hear them yelling at each other once I was "asleep." I was confused and hurt." Oh my goodness, Farkle. Why didn't you tell any of us?

"I thought that if while my parents weren't looking, I took the ring and gave it to someone I loved that wasn't already taken, it could be used for something good instead of nailing my father in the head." I'm so sorry, Farkle! How can I help?

"Riley, we're all broken and hurt, just in different ways. Look at Lucas. Do you think he's hurting?"

I shook my head. "His life is perfect. He even kinda admitted it."

"Riley, where was he before he came here?"

"Texas."

"And what did he do in Texas?"

"He got in a fight?"

"He's hurt just like the rest of us. There is not one person I have met that isn't broken somehow."

"How can Lucas be broken?" I sat up. "He is the strongest person I know."

"Did you get mad at him when he didn't tell you about his past?"

"Yeah..." I dragged out. "But what has that got to do with anything?"

"Don't you think he feels bad that you got mad at him?"

"No. He's gotten over it. I told you. He's strong."

"How about when he accidentally yelled at you? Do you think he feels guilty about that?"

"Why would he be? He was just expressing his feelings."

"Just like Maya was expressing her feelings?"

"Farkle, that's totally different."

"Fine. How about this then." He looked at me straight in the eye. "Did he hurt you when he yelled at you. Did you see your face? Cuz I did."

"No, I wasn't hurt, I was just..."

Whoa.