Riley

1.

Song: Heartbeat - Childish Gambino

The alarm clock screamed at 6:00 a.m., but it had no real power in this house.

Riley Morgan stared at the ceiling from her bed, blinking slowly through a haze of nothingness. Her room was cold even though it was early September, cold because the windows wouldn't shut all the way and the central heating had been broken since she was fourteen. The walls were covered in band posters she didn't like anymore. One of them had peeled halfway off, curling at the corners like it was trying to escape.

She didn't blame it.

Her phone vibrated once under her pillow. No one was texting her. It was just her daily screen-time reminder, the one she always ignored. She hadn't posted on Instagram in six months. No one had noticed.

No one ever noticed.

Outside her bedroom door, the familiar sounds began, the shuffling of feet, a bottle clinking on the kitchen counter, her dad's gravelly cough followed by the scrape of a lighter wheel. Then came the music, some crappy old rock track from the '80s blaring through his busted Bluetooth speaker, and her mom's laughter, shrill and broken like shattered glass.

They'd probably been up all night again.

Riley rolled onto her side, curling her knees up to her chest. She hadn't done her homework. She hadn't studied for the math test. She hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon, and that had only been half a nut bar she found in the bottom of her bag. The only thing she had done was finish the last of the vodka from the bottle under her bed.

Her stomach turned at the thought of it.

She sat up slowly, the room spinning for a second before steadying. Her throat felt dry and raw, like she'd been breathing sand. She reached under the bed for the plastic water bottle she kept there, but it was empty. Of course.

"Riley!" her mom called, voice already slurred. "Aren't you late for that school thing?"

School thing. Like it was a playdate or a doctor's appointment. Like it was optional.

Riley forced herself to her feet. She didn't bother with makeup anymore. Her eyes were red and dark, her cheekbones a little too sharp now. There were days she forgot to eat and days she remembered but just didn't care. Her hair hung loose around her face, unwashed and dull. She pulled on a hoodie and jeans from the pile on the floor and left the room, stepping carefully to avoid the broken tile in the hallway.

The kitchen was thick with the stench of stale beer and cigarettes.

Her dad was slouched in the corner, a can of VB in his hand and a cigarette hanging from his lips. He didn't look up. Her mom was at the table, laughing at something on her phone, smeared mascara under her eyes from last night. There were three empty bottles of wine on the counter and a pizza box half-open on the floor.

"Look who's alive," her mom muttered without looking at her.

Riley grabbed a bruised banana from the table and stuffed it in her hoodie pocket.

"Gotta go," she said, her voice hoarse.

"You need money for lunch?" her dad asked, eyes still glued to whatever was on the TV. It was a game show or something. Something bright and loud and meaningless.

"No."

She didn't eat lunch at school anyway. She couldn't stomach the idea of sitting in the cafeteria surrounded by noise and laughter and people who had someone to sit with. People who didn't look like ghosts.

The walk to school was fifteen minutes. She cut across a parking lot, climbed a fence she wasn't supposed to, and walked along the creek path to avoid being seen by anyone. A couple of seniors were lighting up near the skatepark. One of them looked at her and nodded like he knew her. She didn't nod back.