Girl Meets Season 4

11. Girl Meets Insecurities

Riley didn't know when it started, she hadn't realized anything was happening at all because she had always been a clumsy, klutzy, girl. Except after all of that time with Coach Kelly in middle school she had found balance in her body. Yet in the last few weeks she had found herself on the floor more often, or small accidents happening like a few days ago she somehow found her favorite pair of jeans covered in red paint. More and more often she was getting phone calls from unknown numbers, of blocked numbers. She hadn't understood what was happening until the first set of messages began to pop up.

Each message was as bad as the others, they told her that she didn't deserve her friends, they told her that she was stupid, that she didn't look pretty, and that Lucas would finally leave her for someone better. Riley didn't want to bother her friends with this because she needed to fight this battle by herself. So she deactivated her account on the school social network, she stopped posting on Instagram and reported the messages, but the accounts were fake and new accounts came back so she deactivated that account as well.

She wanted to be strong enough to handle it all but as the days went by more and more messages found their way towards her. Through her school email, through notes slipped into her locker, until they started showing up on her phone. Text message after text message, she blocked the number but new ones came and they began to break through her self-confidence. It was worse than when she was in middle school but she didn't know why, she was nice to everyone and most of the school liked her so she couldn't understand who would do this.

Instead of asking for help she just ignored it all, she tried to rise above it not showing her friends that someone was hurting her because they all had to study for the regents exams at the end of January and failing them meant you had to retake a class entirely. She decided that after the exams she would talk to them about it and ask for help. Except she couldn't sleep anymore, as the thoughts of these people were in her mind muddling her thoughts.

She was sitting in class when she fell asleep and knocked her head against her desk.

"Riley are you okay?" her teacher asked looking at her worried.

Riley gave her a smile before yawning. "Sorry I was up late studying so I didn't get enough sleep," she said trying to concentrate but it wasn't working. "Can I be excused, maybe if I splash some cold water on my face it will wake me up."

The teacher agreed but told her to take her stuff with her since the bell would ring soon. Riley nodded before walking away to the bathroom, instead of washing her face she went into a stall and cried. She hadn't slept in the last two days, only little naps here and there, her body felt heavy but she had to get through the rest of the day. As she wiped her face a group of girls came into the bathroom, she decided to wait until they were gone so that they wouldn't see her face.

"Can you believe that girl?" one of them said. "She gets away with everything just because her father is a teacher here."

"I know I remember in middle school that she did so many things and never got in trouble," another said. Riley tried to listen to the voice to see if it was familiar but middle school felt like an eternity. "I just wish that she wasn't so uppity about herself, she's so klutzy and stupid half the time."

"Why does she even have friends?" the third girl said. "They always have to deal with her random moods, it's so stupid. I wouldn't be surprised if they all leave her one day."

"Oh what about her boyfriend?" the first girl said. "He's so hot but he's stuck with her, I would look better with him. Hell that girl Maya would look better with him."

"They almost got together in middle school and of course Riley got in their way, those two make a much better couple too," the second girl said. "I remember that time, she had been so quiet it was nice."