The Back of my Truck

Chapter 13

James didn't come to school the next few days. Riley was spending most of her time thinking about why he wasn't there.

Maybe it was because of the pills.

Maybe because of the whole situation with Marquez.

Maybe both.

Riley was sitting in her next class; French. They were waiting for their teacher, who just entered the room.

"Guys, we are having a surprise test today." Her French teacher said, handing them sheets out, on which the test was printed out.

Riley didn't really care much about them. She just stared blankly at the paper, as the others started to fill the test out.

She snapped out of her thoughts as she noticed that the girl next to her switched to the next side, and finally tried to fill out the test herself.

But the problem was that Riley could not put enough focus onto her mind to write the test.

Her thoughts were racing on about James.

Was he avoiding her? Did he not want to deal with her and just stayed home because of that? Was she the reason he wasn't here the last few days?

The bell rang, and Riley only filled out a third of the questions, and she wasn't even sure if they were filled out correctly. Everyone got up from their chairs and handed their papers over, Riley being the last one to do so.

She could tell that her teacher knew there was something wrong, but neither one of them said anything about it.

Instead, Riley just shot her a sour smile.

"Hey, Ri." Riley heard Marquez's voice, as she stepped out onto the hallway. It made her flinch a little. James was the only one who called her that, and it somehow felt wrong to have someone else other than him use that nickname for her.

"Hi." She replied, not bothering to look at him much.

"Is it really going to be okay if I come to your dance audition today?" He wondered.

In the last few days, Riley got a message from the Julliard try outs, that she could audition for a spot in their freshman program. She would normally be pumped about it, if the whole thing with James wouldn't have had happened, but now she just didn't want to even do it.

And her father happened to invite Marquez to come with them, as he had noticed that Riley was rather happy lately when she came back from the Brick, apparently. Little did they know that she never went there, and spent her nights with a almost-stranger in his truck, driving around town, following him around, because of whatever reason there was.

Of course she couldn't tell her parents about it, which was why she chose to tell them that she has been with Marquez instead. They liked him.

In a way they would probably never like James. He was pretty much a huge no for her parents, at least everything about him was, Riley knew so for a fact.

The smudgy smirk that was on his face at all times, the way he would constantly flirt with Riley, just his whole persona was intriguing and of a bad boy image, and let alone the fact that he was driving a bleached out truck that he was obsessed with.

Yeah, no, her parents would never approve of him.

But strangely those were the things Riley liked about him. They just made her feel special, in some way. It was probably really girly and childish to have a crush on someone like him, for Riley, but at least it was real. And she didn't have to force a fake connection with him, like she had done with all her previous boyfriends.

"Uh, yeah, it's fine." Riley replied, nodding a little at his question. "Look, I gotta go deal with something, but we will meet later at mine, okay?"

She didn't really have anything to do, but Riley just didn't really want to deal with Marquez.

Instead she went into the library and sat down at the end of one of the aisles.

Taking a deep breath, she thought about what she could do.

She needed to do something to get to talk to James. At least to find out what was happening with him.

Those pills could surely not be in his pocket and under his name for no reason.

Riley kept sitting in the aisle, thinking about what she could do to find out about what was wrong with James, as it started to ring again for the last time tonight.

Getting up, Riley left the library to go to her car, where she met up with Marquez, and the both of them drove to Riley's house.

A few hours later, Riley was preparing for the dance audition. She was sitting in a chair backstage, waiting for her turn to come on, as she was staring at herself in the mirror.

Good thing that her mascara was waterproof, because Riley has been crying for the last ten minutes.

Mainly because she had no idea what to do right now.

She didn't want to dance, she wanted to just head out and spend time on her own. Thinking.

But she also did not want to let her parents down who were sitting in the audience. Though she also did not want to do something she didn't believe in.

"Riley Anderson." A voice called out, and Riley got up from her chair and headed out onto the stage.

She waited until the song she choreographed for came on, a cover from Jesse McCartney called Just so you Know, before she started her routine.

It didn't end up being anything like she imagined it to be. She messed up a few times, as her mind wasn't fully into it.

There was a time when she loved to dance, but as the years passed, and as she got older, it became a bother to her.

Riley could see her parents faces in the audience. They were disappointed, that was for sure, and Marquez didn't really look as impressed either.

She wanted to dance, she did love it, somewhere deep down, but she didn't want to be forced to do it.

Three minutes later, the song stopped and Riley headed off stage, a slight amount of applause was heard at the back of the stage.

She knew it was just to pity her. Or out of sympathy.

"Sweetheart, what's wrong? Are you sick?" Her mother came rushing to her, placing her hands on her daughters shoulders, being followed by her dad and Marquez.

"No- No. I just-" Riley started off.

"We will do better next time. There's another audition next week." Her father cut in. "You can do it, you are going to live your dream."

Riley couldn't take it any longer.

She did want to dance, but this whole thing was just too much for her to handle.

She clenched her fists. It made her think of how James always did that, which made her feel a stiff pain in her chest, but Riley tried to ignore that as she spoke up.

"It's not my dream. It's yours. It stopped being my dream a long time ago." Riley almost yelled out, as she got up from her chair, picking up her bag, and left the studio where the dance competition was located at.

She just wanted to find out where James was. That was the only thing she cared about right now. As she got into her car, she could feel tears run down her face.

Her vision was getting blurry, and she wiped her tears away from her face, as her eyes caught the sight of the same red VW car that pulled up next to them, only a few days ago.

Riley widened her eyes, as she pulled to the side, and followed the red car.

She just had to talk to that guy. If he really was a family friend of James's he would know what was going on with him.