kenopsia | the society

8. kinda hot though

Riley had left not long after Will and Allie, not sure exactly of what to do. She didn't really want to check on the food and make an inventory with them and interrupt their much needed alone time; Riley knew how badly the two needed to talk things over. 

The breeze blew against her skin softly and the teen walked around town, not really sure of where she was going, she just was. After a few minutes of aimless wandering Luke came into view, and in front of him, Emily's grave. 

A deep sigh left her mouth, feelings of guilt and sadness welling up inside of her, making it hard to breathe and think. She still would check her phone every now and then, expecting a funny meme to have been sent to her from Emily, but there was nothing. Riley wasn't sure if she should go to comfort Luke or leave him to think on his own, and in the end, she decided to leave him alone. He probably needed time to think too, and Riley didn't want to interrupt his own grieving process. 

. . . 

Some odd part of Riley found peace in the fact that there were no adults around, no one to ask questions that she didn't have answers to. In a philosophical sense, maybe her soul belonged in this world, but her heart ached. She wanted to go back to the world where Grizz would poke fun at her in the hallway of the school. The world where she was leaving for university after her last summer in West Ham. But no one new where they were, why they were there, or if this was all some fucked up trip. 

The teen watched as clouds passed by in the sky, the grass poking against the exposed skin of her legs. Some of them had shapes, but most of them were just nothing, and Riley found some comfort in that. 

In a daze, Riley's mind drifted to the past, to spending time looking at clouds with Emily, making up shapes for them. The two would pick a cloud, and on the count of three, say what they thought it looked like. Most of the time, they had different answers, but on the times that they were the same, it was like magic. 

The two had an odd connection, having been raised in very different situations, but they got each other on a deeper level. Riley had always known she wasn't straight, heck, Grizz's nickname for her at times was 'Biley' because of her attraction to both genders. Emily on the other hand, for her it was a slow burn, one that started with a certain ballet dancer in middle school and reached a blazing flame with a certain brown haired orphan. Maybe the two were destined to be together, but Riley couldn't dwell on that now. Her chance was over. 

Wiping the tears that had formed in her eyes away, the teen pulled her knees close to her chest before standing up and walking out of the park. Putting her earbuds in, thanking whatever higher power there was that she had downloaded her music, she shuffled her playlist, volume up nearly all the way. 

Humming along to a song, Riley wandered through the streets of West Ham, not wanting to admit that she was, indeed, lost. She may have gone to school here, but there were some neighborhoods she had barely ever been in before. 

Movement a few feet away caught her attention as she saw blue jeans and a red cropped sweatshirt run to a bush. Riley pulled out her earbuds, the music still loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to drown out the sound of vomiting. It took the teen a few seconds to realize who it was, Becca.

"Oh my god, Becca, are you okay?" Riley questioned, rushing over to her side and pulling back the other teen's hair. 

Becca coughed in response, spitting out what was left in her mouth before straightening up from her bent over position. "Yeah, uh, I'm just not feeling well." She told Riley softly, feeling embarrassed that the other girl saw her like that. 

"Are you sure? You should drink tea, uh, lemon ginger is really good for settling stomachs. Oh and take emergen-c if you have it in case you're coming down with something, it usually helps me get better quicker." Riley responded, running a hand through her own hair as her nose crinkled at the smell of vomit. 

The raised brow on Becca's face and small laugh that she let out told Riley that she had clearly said too much. "Wow, you sure know a lot about how to make someone feel better." 

"I had to learn, ya know?" A small smile was on her own face, her eyes still slightly red and puffy from her cry session earlier. 

A concerned look passed over Becca's face before she realized that Riley meant she had to learn how to take care of herself since she didn't have parents to. "Are you okay?" Becca asked her softly, genuinely curious as to how Riley was doing. 

Riley bit her lip, smile fading, "physically speaking, yes. Other than that, I don't really know." She told Becca, eyes drifting towards the ground. 

Becca nodded in agreement, "I get what you mean. Do you want to talk about it?" 

Riley shook her head no, "thanks though, it's just hard. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it all." It was true, her ex-girlfriend was dead, her best friend was part of some weird football cult called 'The Guard' that seemingly only had one collective brain cell that belonged to Grizz, the smell was gone (which she was thankful for), and all the parents and younger kids were gone. It was weird and scary and made Riley want to cry at times. She did cry at times. 

Becca nodded okay, and the two fell into a rhythm walking together, "Campbell is kinda hot though. It scares me that I think that, especially after having seen him with a gun pointed at Cassandra, but damn, he's got something going for him." Riley blurted after a quick moment, earning a full hearty laugh in response from Becca. 

a/n: hey guys! thanks so so much for reading my story! please vote and comment and tell me what you'd like to see, who you think would be good paired up together, etc. I have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen, but if there seems to be something super common that a bunch of you want, I'll try to make it happen!