𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐒 | 𝕧𝕖𝕟𝕠𝕞

01.

Oh, and her slippers.

And then she heads out of her room for chores galore, not giving a damn about her hair.

"Oh look at that, you got all ready. Actually, that's really good. Grab what you need and we're going to a coffee house," Hanna, Riley's mother, says, which confuses her daughter.

"Huh?" Riley's still groggy.

"Get some shoes on and grab your phone and lets go, we're going to a coffee house," Hanna seemed genuinely excited about it, which did bring a small smile and some excitement to Riley's face.

"Okay then," Riley's mood increased greatly over the past few seconds.

Yes, she did just curse coffee off the face of the Earth seconds earlier, but that was before she knew she would be getting to skip her chores.

Her mother walks away into her own room, and Riley doesn't know whether to be anxious or suspicious.

Her mother, well she seemed overly excited about coffee. Or, Riley could be overthinking it, and believe her mother when she gets excited about coffee.

So, sighing, she trudges back to her room. Her brain can barely put together a sentence, so everything takes her a bit longer.

Maybe some fucking coffee will help, she jokes.

Just shaking her head, the teen puts on some socks from the floor -which don't match but who cares - and high top converses', which she had thrown against the wall the previous night before. Her slippers unfortunately had to come off.

Hearing her mom's footsteps down the hall, she leads herself back out into the living room, following and closing the door behind her mom, after taming her hair slightly.

But by tame I mean she just pulled her fingers through it, and shoved it into a low ponytail, not really giving a shit.

She gets that from her father, the not giving a shit part. He really fell apart after the divorce, as Riley noticed but never spoke a word. It rubbed off on her -- no, he rubbed off on her. Hanna seemed overjoyed at his falling, but kept that private, to protect her daughter's feelings. Riley pretended to not notice that too.

It's a common theme with the Johnson-Brock family. Pretending everything is fine for someone, and when they leave and you go back to the piece of shit life you dug up.

Real healthy, obviously.

☢︎︎☢︎︎☢︎︎

EDDIE was panicking. He'd called Hanna and Riley each a couple of times, and neither were answering (hence, Riley forgot her phone at the apartment and Hanna's is on silent... and, maybe she just doesn't want to answer her ex-husband). But he wasn't panicking about them, no. He was panicking about something else.

Someone else.

It was Saturday, which was the switching day for him. For Riley, it was just chores day. For Hanna, it was the most dreaded day.

Every summer, one week after school ends for Riley, the Johnson-Brock crew gets together and has dinner at some restaurant in San Francisco.

It's customary that after dinner, Riley goes home with Eddie and stays with him for the summer, while her mother goes back to Queens. Then, when school starts up again, her mother flies all the way back to San Fran, grabs Riley, and brings her to Queens for the school year.