young hearts. // riarkle & lucaya

☾Together.☽

I like him. 

Riley groaned, shaking her head, refusing to admit the truth.

I love him. 

Riley rolled onto her side, turning the picture of him, herself and Maya facing away from her.

I don't. He has a girlfriend.

She decided that wasn't enough. Riley laid the picture on it's front, sitting up in her bed. 

Here she was, Valentine's Day, without a date, without her makeup done, without her hair brushed, without being dressed.

Without him, really.

Riley covered her face sadly, refusing to accept the fate that she was given. He was going to ask her to be his. She knew he was. If only Isadora hadn't gotten in the way of that. Of them. Instead of being just Riley, it could have been Riley and Farkle. It should have been that way.

But then again, who was she to say so?

Isadora Smackle was Farkle's girlfriend. It'd been this way for awhile now. And she should have expected that. She should have expected it the second that his head popped through her window, the second he was on the verge of asking her to be his date.

How did he know that she was without a date? 

Maybe he didn't. Maybe he was hopeful that she'd accept, that he wouldn't be with someone who he didn't want to on this awful, horrible, no good day.

She was hopeful, too. 

Before she came back into the picture.

Maybe she was always in the picture.

Riley held a pillow up to her face and screamed. 

She hates today. And that's something rare for her. Valentine's Day use to be happy. Until these even more confusing feelings forced their way into her happy, calm mind. But now her mind is scattered. It's scattered and her heart is torn.

Torn by someone who doesn't even realize it.

Riley stood herself up, tossing her pillow back to near where it belonged. 

Now her bed was messy just like she was.

Standing now by her window, the brunette looked out it, as if expecting for Farkle to just appear back into her vision, for him to be here with her today. 

But he didn't.

Instead, it was just a lonely Riley who slid her window open, who slipped outside. It was a lonely girl who sat on the metal stairs of the escape, tapping her feet against the one below, making taps like gloomy raindrops prickling against her window. And yet she had still smiled. She smiled because she knew she still had light. She liked the rain.

So why couldn't she like being alone? Why couldn't she remember that there was still light in the world, even within being lonely? 

Laying on the uncomfortable ground, Riley looked up at the bright clouds floating through an otherwise lonely sky. She nearly smiled at the way there was always something to complete something else. 

The sky was complete with it's clouds. Riley was incomplete without Farkle.

It'd always been her and Farkle. Since she was just a little girl, it was her and Maya and Farkle. Now it's Maya and Lucas. Now it's just Riley.

It's just Riley by herself, without someone pulling her shoulders and lifting her head out of the water. She wished, desperately, for someone to help her see clearly again. But at this moment, it seemed impossible.