Rooming With Ash

Bonus Chapter #2

Keira's POV - 5 months before Hawaii, Riley's house

I stared at Riley with disbelieving eyes and a dropped jaw. I wondered why I was acting so surprised when in reality, I had seen this news coming from a mile away (Riley, after all, was not the furtive type. When something notable happened concerning her, everyone knew). I didn't have an answer for myself though. Maybe part of me hoped she would see the threat I'd woven into my narrowed eyes and take it to heart – that she'd put our friendship first. Maybe I hoped that if I acted shocked enough, I would somehow actually convince myself that all of this had come as a surprise. That I had no personal interests at stake here.

Riley knew better than to fall for any bluff of mine. Narrowed eyes and all I could never intimidate her, we both knew this. If I wanted her not to go through with this I would have to say the words out loud, but to say them would mean she had won. That I had admitted she had the ability to take anything I wanted straight from my palms. I didn't know if it was worth it, because there was also the possibility that I would tell her how I felt and she would just laugh and dismiss me. I didn't know how to proceed in situations such as this.

The two of us were never like this with each other – hostile and calculating. We were best friends! I had shared all my funniest laughs and most heartbreaking cries with her. What was happening right now was new territory for me and it only seemed to happen whenever our conversations wandered to the topic of Ash. That didn't use to be the case, but about two months ago, when they started talking, the hostility began. Ash had approached Riley out of nowhere, and even though she knew how I felt about him, she took the bait. I knew that Ash and I hadn't spoken in years but that didn't make my feelings invalid. She had absolutely no prior connections to him. In fact, the only things she knew about him were things she'd learned through me! All because I had never been able to keep my mouth shut regarding how I felt about him, and part of me wondered if that was what had made all of this so appealing to Riley. Was she really that manipulative? Even if I'd never revealed the real reason as to why I felt how I did, she still knew that my feelings were strong, and far from dead.

Two months ago in mid-November, when I'd first learned something was going on between them, was when I began to hold my tongue. I'd learnt the news right in the very place I sat now – on Riley's bed. We were having a sleepover, just like today, and I did some snooping while she was gone to the bathroom. It wasn't on purpose, but the two of us had been stalking various people's Facebook profiles when the message popped up out of nowhere. Riley and I didn't really hide things from each other (or so I thought), and so I wasn't really interested in seeing her messages. The only reason I opened this one was because Ash had sent it.

I hadn't known that the two of them talked and wondered what he could have possibly been contacting her for. I thought this was a random message, but when I opened the chat, I saw that there were many messages above it. They'd been speaking for quite some time by then – almost two weeks. And not only had they been speaking, they had been hanging out as well! His message confirmed all of that, and I wondered why Riley would hide something like that from me. Or more importantly, why she would even do something like that in the first place! She wasn't dumb and I knew she hadn't just 'forgotten' how I felt. No, she had known. She had been well aware and just not cared enough to hold herself back.

And I could have said something that day. I could have let her known what I'd seen and maybe stopped it before it went too far, but I hated confrontation. Even with my best friend, I couldn't handle it. I knew that Riley could out-talk me any day. She had a way with words and I feared she could turn the situation around and turn me into believing I was the one in the wrong there. I also knew that she was aware of what I'd done though, that I'd read their messages. When I ran out of the room I had left the chat open after all, but when I came back she didn't mention it. She wasn't going to mention it because then that may have meant she'd have to give him up. She was waiting for me to speak, and we both knew I didn't have the heart to.