parenthood | c. evans [✓]

06 | REAL LIFE

She hadn't said a single word once her help had arrived, just staring at a random spot in her room as they watched her with raised brows, occasionally exchanging a worried glance. Her first points of call were Chris and her best friend Hannah, both of whom have witnessed every one of he emotions over the past couple of years and this state of nothingness was something they had never seen before.

"Okay, Riles, you're worrying us," Chris spoke up, moving with the wheelie chair he was seated on until he was by her side. "We've been here for twenty minutes and you haven't said a word."

She took a deep breath then looked at him, a small smile breaking onto her face as she laughed tiredly. "Sorry, I'm just.. I'm kind of in shock." She told him then robotically took Sebastian's laptop and opened it, opening up the page of emails then turning it around to face Chris. Hannah had gotten up from her space on the couch that was beside where Chris was seated before then she took a seat on the bed where she too could see the laptop. "The first email. It's been replied to but I don't want to read it."

"Okay," Chris nodded his head slowly, his eyes scanning over the page and he lips moved as he quietly read the email, his look of confusion slowly forming into disgust. He glanced up at the pale faced Riley then looked at Hannah who was equally as disgusted as him. "You don't want to read the reply."

"Are you sure it's not just a one time thing?" Hannah asked, making an effort of searching for alternative situations to calm both her best friend and herself.

"There's emails that date to three years back, Han," Riley answered her question. "Those ones were far worse than this one. Then I looked at his iMessages whilst I waited for you guys even though I shouldn't have and..." She trailed off, looking down at her hands, her watery eyes glancing over her ringed finger, blinking once and letting a tear drop down her face. "I just don't get it. What did I do wrong? Am I not pretty enough? Do I not make enough time for him? Is it the sex, am I sucking at the sex part?" She started asking, her voice breaking as she tried to find a flaw in anything she did that may have turned him to another woman. "Or was it just me, Riley Parkinson?"

"No, don't do that to yourself," Chris sat up, shaking his head at her as Hannah took the laptop and proceeded to continue reading the emails. "Have you spoken to him about it?"

"No. I don't want to just yet." She answered, wiping her eyes and sighing softly. "I wanna ask him when he comes back, I wanna see for myself whatever the hell this is."

"Ew, there's nudes," Hannah gasped, making a gagging sound and then closing every tab and had opened, passing the laptop back to Riley. "Did he not think you'd find them?"

"He knew I trusted him enough to never question anything or look through his things," Riley answered. "Clearly it was a stupid mistake, and you know what he told me not too long ago? He said that I was the most important thing in his life and that he loved me more than anything. Is that what you do to the people you love? You sleep around with a 99% silicone Barbie doll who doesn't even know how to form a decent sentence whilst you're engaged to your girlfriend of 8 years?"

She breathed heavily, looking down at the laptop as if it were some kind of disease. She then took a hold of it and threw it across the room, silence falling once it hit the wall. She didn't want to check if it was broken, she hoped it was, though. Broken like her heart right now, and every dream she had believed was coming true.

Chris was the first to move, taking a seat on the bed then wrapping her arms around her and pulling her into his lap. For some reason the action unlocked the door for all the emotion she had been feeling over the past hour, and she started crying over his shoulder. Hannah was next to move, crawling over and wrapping her arms around the two so that it was Riley in the middle, resting her cheek on the top of her back and then rocking them slightly.

Neither of them needed to say a word, neither of them needed to move for a while. They just let her cry herself out, and then when she grew silent, they didn't let her go until she started dozing off from how tired she was.