Girl Meets the Mind of a Genius

Genius Meets Bullies

Farkle (con)

Riley starts shaking her head and looks down.

I've been with Riley through a lot of hard situations. But I've never seen her so destroyed.

I wipe a tear off of her cheek, "Riley, you can tell me."

She doesn't look up, "Do you remember Evan from the ski lodge?"

"Yeah?"

That insignificant character who told us that communication was important and everyone listened even though I had been saying that for years.

But I'm not mad about it, I promise.

"He reached out to me after New Years. He wanted to reconnect since it had been so long."

Riley takes a deep breath, "We talked a lot. I told him a lot. I thought I found someone else to confide in."

I feel my heart start breaking, "Riley...."

"I know I have you and Maya. But everything with you was so...complicated."

She looks at me nervously before continuing, "And Maya was distracted by Josh. I didn't want to bother anyone."

I can't believe I pushed her into someone else. Someone who wanted to hurt her.

I move my arm out from her back and grab both of her hands, "Riley, I'll always be your friend. It doesn't matter what else is happening."

Riley's eyes go back and forth between mine. I can tell she's scared to keep going. There's a million things running through her head.

"Out of nowhere he snapped," She squeezes my hands, "He started saying things to me to hurt me. He started using what I told him against me."

"What does he say to you?"

"It doesn't matter."

Riley doesn't sound like Riley. She's lost her spirit. She's lost herself.

"Listen," I wipe a tear off of her cheek and hold it so she can't look away, "You can't shut me out now. We have to figure this out together."

She takes my hand off and looks away, "This is my battle, not yours."

"And look how that's been going." I snap. Far too harshly than I should.

She whips her head back to face me, "Farkle."

"I'm sorry but you need to accept that you need help, Riley."

I can see her thinking it through.

"Now, what is he saying to you?"

"I'm not showing you." She states.

Her phone buzzes and, before she can react, I grab it.

She's gotten nine texts since I came here. She hasn't looked at them yet.

The texts are from Evan.

"I could make you lose everything"

What is this?

"Have you realized how many people have rejected you?"

I look up at her. She looks defeated. It's like she knows what they say.

"I could make them all leave"

"Riley what is this?" I whisper.

"What do they say?" She tries to look at the phone upside down.

I turn away and keep reading.

"If you weren't hurting yourself, I would hurt you"

My body is starting to go numb.

How could he even suggest hurting her? Hurting someone I love.

"Who would take care of you? Lucas who's blind to everything?"

He has a point about Lucas.

"Maya who'd rather talk to a boy than you?"

That's not true. She just doesn't know.

"Farkle who has rejected you more times than you can count?"

I'll kill him. How dare he even bring me up.

"You have no one except me"

I look up at her over the phone, "Riley...you aren't alone."

She just stares at me without saying anything.

"I'll make you see who you truly are"

"I'm going to kill him."

I can't breathe I'm so angry.

I've never been so angry.

"Farkle, stop, no you won't." Riley takes her phone from me and puts it off to the side.

I start shaking my head, "He's putting this stuff into your head that isn't true. He's using us to hurt you. He thinks I wouldn't take care of you? He's wrong. I'm going to show him that he's wrong."

"Farkle please don't sink to his level."

"Riley, he's not going to stop!" I raise my voice. I shouldn't raise my voice but he has me fired up.

My hands curl into fists and I start squeezing them really hard, "Not until I show him he's wrong. I'm going to show him he's wrong."

"You don't have to save me," Riley looks down at my fists, "You can't feed into him."

I throw up my arms in frustration, "And you're not feeding into him by self-harming?"

Everything goes still.

I know what I said was intense, but it's true. And Riley knows it.

She stares right into my eyes, "I'm sorry."

I take a deep breath and feel my body start to relax.

I need to be calm for her.

"You don't need to be sorry, Riley. You need to let me help you."

She nods, "But you help me on my terms."

"Fine," my fists unclench, "What can I do?"

Riley looks at her door and then back to her hands.

You can tell that she was crying, but now she just looks nervous.

"Stay."