whisper | rilaya

twenty three

"What is this?" I asked.

Riley bit her lip in embarrassment. "Read the caption."

My eyes scanned the caption beneath the picture. It read:

This photo of Riley Matthews angrily screaming at her dead boyfriend sure does make her look extra innocent! I'm sure she had no motive whatsoever to kill him. @ nypd , you might want to cancel your search on Thomas and refocus your effort on her.
Sincerely,
- a VERY worried teenager :)

"Oh my god." I said under my breath when I finished reading the caption. I looked up at the brunette who was visibly holding back tears.

I tilted her chin up so that she would look at me again. "Riles, I swear we'll find whoever did this. I can ask Farkle tonight to find the IP address of whoever posted this and then we can confront them and-"

Riley stepped back and wiped her tears away; smudging her mascara. "And then what Maya? What would we do then? Kill them to shut up them up? Because I'm already being accused of something just as bad." She exclaimed, close to yelling but not loud enough to draw any attention towards us.

"Stop it! We can't let whoever that's doing this get away with it."

Riley softened for a moment, offering me a solemn expression. "Farkle won't even look at me in the eyes anymore, Maya. He says I remind him too much of Mason. He wouldn't help me."

"Riley-"

I was cut off by the school bell ringing to start classes for the day. Riley walked away without hesitation, leaving me all alone in the crowded hallway.

~

Throughout the entire period, I couldn't keep my eyes off of Riley. She looked so, so tired. She refused to talk to anybody and didn't even answer a single question. This was the most out of character for her because she's been trying to get her grades back up after she went missing for the first couple months and missed so much school.

When class is finally over, I ran over to Riley and directed her into a tight corner.

"We need to talk about this." I said sternly.

"I know." She said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry for freaking out in you earlier. It's just so hard, Maya. It never seems to end. But please, let's leave this alone. It's probably some stupid kid who has nothing better to do anyways. If we don't acknowledge it, it'll go away."

"No!" I argued, not wanting her to accept defeat. "Nobody has a right to say those kinds of things to you honey."

The brunette girl shook her head and smiled falsely, standing up straight."It's fine, I'm a big girl, Maya. I can handle it. Don't worry about me."

I frowned and moved closer to her. "How could I not worry about you? The girl I'm in love with is being harassed on every platform possible and I thought it would stop when the police decided to postpone your charges but it hasn't! Do you know how much it kills me inside to see this happen to you?"

*beep*

Another picture was posted.

Riley and I both reached for our phones as soon as we heard the familiar noise. We got the same notification.

It was a picture of Riley and I kissing in the hallway the day we made up. I frowned, seeing the image of her arms wrapped around my waist tightly while I stood up on my tippy toes to kiss her.
We thought the hallways were empty when we kissed, it was lunch so everyone was supposed to be in the cafeteria.

This caption was worse than the first one.

Looks like we were all right and Matthews was gay after all! Is it possible that Riley killed Mason to get him out of her hair so that she could move on to a pretty blonde like Maya? She got over him pretty quick if you ask me...
Sincerely,
-the same VERY worried teenager :)

We both looked around in paranoia, someone had been following us and taking these pictures. "We need to go peaches." Riley warned and reached for my hand, leading me to our next class.

~

At the end of the school day, I followed Riley home. We walked beside each other in a comfortable silence, these walks had been routine since my mom and Shawn said I wasn't allowed to be around her anymore.

When we were finally alone in her bedroom, Riley sat down at her bay window and gestured for me to sit on her lap. I sat their comfortably, enjoying the way my small frame molded into hers.

She reached her arms around my waist from behind and place her chin on my shoulder. "I'm guessing you have a lot of questions." Riley said, kissing my ear lightly.

"Yeah." I chuckled, enjoying this soft side of her that she rarely showed.

"Well then, ask away princess."

I gulped and moved my hand onto the ones she had resting around my waist. "Why were you and Mason fighting in that picture?"

My (girlfriend?) took a deep breath and sighed. "We were arguing."

"I could see that." I replied sarcastically.

Riley chuckled, her breath tickled my ear as she let out he gentle laugh. "We were arguing because Mason wanted us to end our fake relationship. He kept on saying something about how he wanted me to be able to accept myself and that putting this front up was taking a toll on my mental health with all the stress it caused me."

"Oh." I replied. "What did you do then?"

She shook her head; remembering how foolish she used to be. "I refused, of course. I was terrified to come out. When he kept pushing, I got mad. I said things that I didn't mean like calling him selfish because he just wanted to be with Farkle in the public eye. Which in retrospect, he deserved that, and I took it away from him."

Hot tears flowed down Riley's face and onto my shoulder where she was resting her chin. I didn't mind.

"I miss him so much." She admitted. "I yelled at him that day and called him so many stupid things that I never meant and I can never take them back."

She sobbed uncontrollably while I tried to soothe her by rubbing her arm. Something that I never understood was how lightly Riley took the news of Mason's death when she first found out. She was upset, but not the kind of upset that you get when it realize you had just lost a close friend. It just dawned on me now that Riley has been holding in all of her emotions in an effort to stay strong. And now, they're all unravelling.

"I'm sorry." The taller girl apologized. "I didn't even finish the story."

"It's okay." I assured her. "Take your time, we don't need to rush." I said softly, wiping the tears off her cheek with my thumb.

Riley nodded in appreciation before continuing her story. "Mason obliged, because that was the kind of person he was. He always put others before him. So we left that conversation behind and pretended like it never happened."

"Except now he's gone and people are using that photo of us arguing to make me look like I had a motive to kill him." Riley sighed sadly, playing with my fingers.

"I'm sorry things turned out this way." I replied.

Keeping her gaze focused on our intertwined fingers, she corners of her lips twitches upwards. "I know you are. Thank you. I love you."

We stayed in that position for a few more moments before my phone buzzed. Thankfully it was just another text and not a post for hat anonymous Instagram user. I squinted to focus on the bright light in the dark room.

Come over.

I immediately shut off my phone before Riley even noticed I had it out and headed for her window. "I gotta go, my mom wants me home early today." I lied through my teeth and kissed her in the cheek.

"Alright." She smiled warmly and watched me leave.