whisper | rilaya

twenty six

"Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked. Squeezing Riley's hand.

She frowned when she noticed my hesitation. "If they'll leave us alone after this, then I'll do anything." Riley said bravely.

Standing up on the cafeteria table to make herself seen, the brunette girl waved her arms frantically in the air. "Everybody listen up!

As soon as all eyes fell on her, Riley froze up. I looked up at her encouragingly and mouthed 'you can do this'. She smiled at me in appreciation and turned back to the crowd with confidence.

"Hi everyone, my name is Riley Matthews if you didn't know that already. I'm here to set the record straight on all the rumours that have been going around about me. I know that a lot of you guys think that I 'killed' Mason because he couldn't accept the fact that I didn't love him anymore but that isn't the case. Mason and I never loved each other in that way. The truth is, that I was gay and so was he and the reason we pretended to date was so that we wouldn't be judged by other people. I'm more open about my sexuality now and I know that Mason would be too if he was still here. Mason was one of my closest friends and I would never ever hurt him. Please believe me when I tell you that there was no motive for me to kill him. At all. Thank you."

The crowd was silent for a couple seconds before the entire cafeteria burst out in applause. They believed her.

She stepped down from the table and sat on the bench beside me. "I'm so proud of you." I grinned, pulling her in for a tight hug.

~

Riley was shocked, to say the least when her she saw Farkle climbing into her bay window.

She immediately got up from her desk chair where she was doing homework and went to greet him. It had been a long time, and she missed her best friend. "Hey." Riley spoke tentatively, trying not to scare him away once again.

As soon as she spoke, Riley knew it was a mistake. Farkle's eyes were so dark and held an element of anger in it that she had never seen before. "What's wrong?"

Farkle approached her with two quick steps. "What's wrong? You just outed my dead boyfriend to the entire school. That's what's wrong." He growled.

"It's not like that Farkle-" she tried to defend herself, reaching out a hand to comfort him, only to have him flinch and back away.

The tall boy ruffled his hair in frustration. "You can't out somebody that's dead, Riley! Did you even consider how fucked up that was?"

"I did, but I needed to prove that I had no motive Farkle." Riley said, her heart breaking as she tried to defend herself. Why is everything that's bad in the world her fault?

He laughed sarcastically and turned his back to her, before pacing around the purple room. If the two of them were in this exact room 6 months ago, they would be giggling and telling secrets to each other while laying on the hardwood floor and staring up at the peeling glow in the dark stars that Riley plastered to her ceiling.

Now they were arguing about the death of someone they both cared about more than life itself. I could feel the same pain that Riley did when she thought about what happened to their friendship. What would Riley and I be like in 6 months?

"Of course you did," he said, taking a deep breath. "because it's always about you. All you care about is saving yourself Riley. First, you wouldn't let Mason 'break up' with you because you didn't want anybody to think you were a lesbian"

Riley flinched at the word.

"And now, you're bringing up something that Mason never wanted the world to know." He quickly wiped a tear from his cheek. "You couldn't even let the poor boy rest in peace, could you?"

Riley was crying now too. "Farkle, you have to understand that I want justice just as much as you do. This was the first step. If the authorities hopped off me for a second, maybe they would be able to actually find who the culprit was. I did this so that the both of us could gain some closure." She was practically begging for him to try to see her perspective at this point but none of it was working.

"Don't you dare manipulate the facts to make it seem like you did this for me Riley." He pointed a finger at her in a patronizing manner "You did it for yourself. You do everything for yourself!"

I had been sitting in the back of the conversation the whole time on Riley's bed where Farkle couldn't see me. I doubt he even knew I was here. But this was getting too much for me, I wanted to stay out of it but I couldn't watch Farkle attacking my girl for another second. "Don't blame her for any of this Farkle. It was my idea." I admitted, gaining his attention.

He turned to look at me and I could see the brief shock in his eyes when he realized I had been sitting here the whole time. "Your idea? Of COURSE it was, I should have known. Because the new girl who has never met Mason in her life gets to be the ultimate deciding factor in his coming out."

"This is all YOUR FAULT MAYA." With each word, Farkle was getting more and more aggressive. Fear started to creep up my spine when I noticed that he was advancing towards me in a rather hostile manner.

Riley ran in between the two of us and placed two hands on his chest and pushed him back before he could get too close. "Don't raise your voice at her okay? Mason loved me too, Farkle. He just loved me in a different way than he loved you. He would have wanted me to do this if it meant that I was able to clear my name. Even if it was at his own expense."

Farkle's face was turning red and he was shaking with the amount of anger he had. "Stop putting words into his mouth! He was MY boyfriend and you do NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO STAND HERE IN FRONT OF ME AND TELL ME THAT YOU KNEW HIM BETTER THAN I DID."

Riley stood there and took each word of Farkle's verbal attack. She took a deep breath and tried to utilize her usual soft, calm voice. Except this time it was shakier than usual. "That's not what I'm saying-"

"I never want to see you again Riley." He cut her off.

"Farkle!"

Before another word could be spoken, the bay window was slammed shut and Riley's childhood best friend was no where to be seen.