I barged into my house, the shock had already turned into anger. In retrospect, I shouldn't have approached a possible murderer so aggressively but I was too blindsided by my own emotions to be logical.
Storming down the stairs, I tossed my backpack somewhere, trying to get rid of the extra weight.
"How come you never told me you fucking killed someone?!" I yelled, raising my voice at Riley for the first time ever.
Riley stood up from where she was sitting, desperately hiding something behind her back. "What?" She whimpered.
I laughed sarcastically, shaking my head. "I can't believe you have the nerve to try and hide even more things from me." My words felt like they didn't belong to me, like some else had taken over my voice.
In a swift motion, I moved my hand past her body and grabbed the papers that she was hiding behind her back. "Are these your murder plans for me? Am I your next victim?" I spat before looking at them.
Tears filled the brim of Riley's eyes. The idea that I was the reason for Riley's sadness physically hurt me, but I was too in shock to care.
"Maya..." She began, trying to grab the papers back from me before I could look at them.
Quickly, I pulled them back when they were just centimetres away from her reach.
Riley wiped her tears and attempted to appear brave by standing tall and looking me in the eye. Her attempts were useless. Anyone could see through her and the fear she tried to mask.
"Peaches, you have to listen to me." The brunette pleaded. "You're in shock right now, this isn't you. Calm down before you do something you regret."
Peaches? When did Riley start calling me that?
I shook my head back and forth, waving my index finger at her. "No, no, no. I know what you're doing. This is all a part of your sick game where you trick me into trusting you and then you use it against me."
I was being absolutely hysterical, this is definitely a new low. I was never the type of person that thought about my actions and the possible consequences before before I did them. Now, Riley is discovering this fact about me.
My hands gripped the papers so tightly that the knuckles on my fingers were turning white. It wasn't until Riley placed her hands over my own, rubbing my knuckles that I realized what I was doing.
Her touch was so soft and loving, even despite the fact that I was just yelling at her. It was almost impossible to be upset with this girl, no matter what she did.
Riley's eyes widened when she saw me begin to look down. She winced, but didn't try to hide it anymore. Instead, she held her breath as I looked down to read it.
Plastered all over the front page of this newspaper was a picture of Riley, grinning with all of her front teeth showing. It was most likely a school picture, but definitely not menacing whatsoever.
The title was impossible to miss.
Written in large, bold, capital letters, was:
MISSING TEEN RILEY MATTHEWS IS WANTED FOR MURDER
I gasped aloud when I read the words. This confirmed that I wasn't going crazy, that I had a right to be upset, even if it was at the girl I had fallen head over heels for.
"Maya-" Riley took a step forward, trying to soothe me.
"GET AWAY FROM ME" I raised my arms up to my face to protect myself in case she did anything.
Riley took three steps back, heartbreak written all across her face. "Do you really think I would hurt you?" Her voice cracked while a pair of innocent doe eyes stared wistfully into my own.
Riley Matthews would never lay a finger on anybody.
That was a fact, yet I still couldn't bring myself to look her in the eyes. I was too scared of finding something there that I wouldn't want to know about.
Keeping my voice stern, I crumpled up the newspaper in my hands. "If you're not going to hurt me, why would you lie to me this whole time? I trusted you so much, Riley. I let you live in my house for crying out loud!" I raised my voice without thinking twice, knowing that my mom and Shawn will still at work since I and home from school early.1
The heat in my vision seemed to cool when I finally looked up at her. Riley was shaking, looking for someone that would hold her and care for her. Right now, that wasn't me. She was innocent. Sometimes you can tell a person's entire story just by looking at their face.
"I just found out, Maya. Seconds before you came home, through the newspaper. I really did lose my memory, you have to believe me." She was being so patient with me, I didn't understand why.
I ripped up the newspaper into smaller pieces and tossed it into the fireplace, watching it burn to ashes. "This isn't true." I muttered, pacing up and down the width of the basement, waiting for the newspaper to burn completely.
As if repeating that same statement would somehow make it true, I said it aloud again and again, implanting it into my mind.
Eventually my paranoid mind wandered onto other topics. "You've been taking advantage of me his whole time, haven't you? You never liked me. You used my feelings as leverage to make me drop my guard." It was a severe thing to accuse someone of, but so was murder.
Riley watched helplessly, as I mumbled nonsense. She had a guilty look on her face, she knew that my breakdown was completely her fault.
When I was about to finish my fifty third lap of pacing, Riley stopped me dead in my tracks and cradled my face.
Rubbing her thumb smoothly along my cheek, she looked down at me. "I like you a lot, Maya. You're the first girl I've been with-" She paused, trying to decide if her memory served her right.
"I think."
"Don't think for a second that every second we spent together hasn't meant the world to me, because it has. I would never manipulate you like that. You know how I feel about you, Maya. Please believe me." She whispered.
"That's the problem? Isn't it?" I asked.
Riley's eyebrows furrowed together in confusion.
"We're hopelessly infatuated with each other. It's puppy love really, and we both know that. But that still won't change the fact that I won't have the willpower to stop this. Whatever sick thing it is that we have going on." I explained.
It comes out as a faint whisper l. However the two of us can hear it loud and clear. "I believe you." I choked out.
Hot tears ran down my face while Riley stayed silent. "This wasn't supposed to happen. Not to me. You were supposed to be normal, Riley. You were my calm away from the storm with everything going on with my mom and Shawn." I sobbed, hiccuping between each word.
I stared into those dark brown eyes that I've grown so fond of. "But now, you're the tornado."
Riley didn't move. She just held me close, continuing to cup my face and stared back at me. Eventually, the girl let go and backed away, running a hand through her hair.
"What if I did kill someone?" She whimpered, tears brimming her own eyes. The idea had just begun to sink into her thoughts. "I want to say that I didn't but, I- I don't remember what happened that night, Maya."
I wasn't sure if I was in denial because I loved her or if I genuinely believed that she was innocent. Nevertheless, I didn't want to believe anything else. Something inside of me clicked and all of the emotions I was previously feeling washed away. Only to be replaced with sympathy for the girl whose world was crashing all around her.
"No." I assured her. "No way you did, Riley. I don't believe it, and Lucas doesn't either. Something isn't adding up."
"Lucas Friar?" Her eyes lit up like a lightbulb.
I nodded in response.
Riley smiled, feeling her memories of him flood back. "I remember now." She paused. "I remember Farkle too. What does he think about all this?"
I shuddered, thinking back to how he was acting about the situation at lunch. Riley and Farkle used to be best friends, how could I break the news to her that he despised her now? "That doesn't matter." I shook my head. "He probably doesn't even have an opinion."
Riley saw straight through my blatant lie. Her face fell, sadness taking over. "Oh, okay." She answered.
"Wait." I said, putting my finger up as I tried to think. "Do you not remember Danielle? I thought you two were friends before the incident as well."
"Shit." Riley replied, face palming in defeat. "How could I have been so stupid? I knew she looked familiar..."
This didn't make sense. Danielle was a part of Riley's life before everything happened. Why was she pretending to be a complete stranger?
"Why did you tell her that you lost your memory and that I took you in? What if she uses that against you? Against me? Oh my god, that makes me an accessory after the fact in the murder that you didn't commit." I thought aloud, beginning to grow anxious that I've dug myself too deep in this situation to get out.
"Maya what are you talking about? I didn't tell her anything." Riley claimed.
I scratched my head, confused. "But she told me you did? I lied to her about why you were staying here and then she corrected me. She had everything spot on. So I agreed with her."
I thought back to the day she asked me about Riley. The conversation was still vaguely in my mind.
"She's a family friend from California. Riley is only visiting for a couple weeks."
Dani frowned and tilted her head in confusion. "She told me that she lost her memory and you found her one night and took her in."
"She tricked me." I muttered.