Rebels, Royals and the Reader

Chapter 4

'Seriously, is this going to happen everyday?' I wondered.

I valued my hearing and I wasn't particularly interested in the insults being thrown around so instead of hanging around I headed to first period.

However, my journey was halted when I heard a particularly bitchy comment.

"You think you're so cool, such a badass but actually you're just a poor, ugly, stupid girl with a severe case of daddy issues and  abandonment problems."

Everything was quiet after that, and then it was as if everyone processed the words and all of them, almost simultaneously, took a step back and gasps filled the room.

We all knew Riley could be mean, it was human nature, and most of the time her popularity excused it. Also the fact that she was a pretty nice person 99% of the time, made her rare moments of being mean easy to forgive and easier to forget.

Lucas too, Lucas was one of the nicest people in the school - except when it came to Brandon, nobody understood why though.

But this, this was something else.

This was pure bitchy, everybody knew about Maya (and Brandon's) not-so-great-lives but nobody dared to talk about it.

It was sort of an unspoken rule.

Riley didn't just break the rule, she destroyed it and the thought alone baffled me.

People had started to circle the girls, probably preparing for a fight, and from the way Maya was advancing towards Riley it seemed as if they'd get what they wanted.

Maya pulled her arm back, her hand balled in a fist and launched it at Riley's face.

Just as it was about to probably give Riley a concussion, Maya pulled her hand back.

"You're not even worth it," she spat and walked off.

The crowd dissipated when they realised she wasn't coming back and that left Riley standing there, alone.

For some reason, maybe because of the fight Zay and I joined in on, I felt the need to have Maya's back.

"That was a low blow."

"I know," she affirmed, sniffling.

"Then why'd you do it?"

"Because she sa- because it's tru- I don't know okay, I don't know why I said it."

"She's probably going to come after you," I commented.

"I know and I'll deserve it, what I said was horrible I was just so mad and I didn't know how to .. argghh."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why were you mad?"

"She told me I was fake, that I wasn't this confident cheerleader I pretended to be - just a scared little girl. She told me I was sheltered and protected from everything and I wouldn't survive a day in the real world. She told me my insecurities."

I looked at her, really looked at her and I could see Maya's words really wrecked her.

I felt bad for her, but her words were harsh and I expected her to know better. Instead of voicing my thoughts I asked her how it started.

Apparently Riley had tripped, big shocker (she was extremely clumsy, how she got on the cheerleading team I didn't know), and one of her friends had said it was Maya -who she had passed- who tripped her.

Riley wanted to wave it off but her friends insisted that she confront Maya and then she did and then somehow confrontation led to insults and in the duration of the time Riley used to tell the story I could clearly see the regret on her face.

She had flaws, she could be mean but Riley Matthews was not a heartless bitch.

And that realisation kinda set off a weird tingly feeling in my stomach. I didn't know whether it was a feeling I liked or really, really despised.

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- cassidy ➶