The seasons have slowly been changing and today was the first snowfall of the year. I sipped my bitter coffee and stared out the window into our backyard from my kitchen.
"Hey mom?" I called over my shoulder, keeping my gaze on the view outside.
The sizzling of bacon on the stove that she was cooking over made my stomach grumble. "Yes baby girl?" She replied.
"Is true love real?" I asked. This was the first genuine question I had asked since the incident that left us on poor terms. I still haven't told Shawn or Katy much about the situation yet. The only detail they know that the public didn't is that I was in love with Riley. Emphasis on the word was.
As soon as they found out, they wanted me to cut off all forms of communication with her because they thought she was a bad influence. Of course, that didn't even come close to keeping me away from my girl. But as far as they know, I am now out of love with Riley Matthews. What they don't know won't kill them.
My mom placed a plate with toast, bacon and scrambled eggs on it- my favourite. She smiled warmly as she set it down, letting her blonde curls bounce on her shoulders. Shawn was already off to work at this time, we never saw him at breakfast unless it was the weekend. "Of course it is. Sometimes it just takes us a while to find our true love, that's all. All that matters is that you and Shawn are now the centre of my universe. Life works in funny ways sometimes Maya."
I nodded, blindly agreeing to her optimistic words and holding on to them desperately. What Riley and I had was real and I knew it. We both knew it. But lately everything has been too quiet. The rumours about Riley have died down and I heard that the police even moved on to investigating another suspect; one of Mason's jealous football teammates. It was strange for everything to be so calm, it just gave me an unsettling feeling that screamed something big was about to happen.
I shoved a big spoon of scrambled eggs into my mouth and moaned in appreciation. "Thanks mom." I said, referring to both the advice and the food.
"Anytime, Maya." She turned her attention to the newspaper and flipped through pages mindlessly.
After a few moments of silence, she looked up again. "You think that you've found it?"
"Found what?" I asked, slightly confused.
"True love." She smiled. "That's why you asked me about it, wasn't it?"
I blushed and took a bite of my toast to avoid having to answer. I continued to shove food into my mouth until I looked like a chipmunk.
The woman put her elbow on the table upright and rested her face in her palm teasingly. "Soo.." she cocked an eyebrow. "Tell me about this pretty girl that's stolen your heart." She urged.
I shook my head in embarrassment. "No! We are not talking about my love life at the dinner table mom. Not in front of your salad!" I gestured to the bowl in front of her.
"Alright" she chuckled and allowed me to drop the subject. "I'm just glad that you're finally over that Riley girl, that's all. I'm telling you Maya, she was no good."
My teeth grinded together in anger but I tried my best to subdue the emotions. "Yeah, whatever." I shrugged, pretending not to care.
From seeing how quickly my shoulders tensed and my posture was no longer relaxed, my mom quickly understood that I didn't want to talk about this anymore. Thankfully, she changed the subject. "How have things been with you and Shawn lately? I know he's been trying his best to get to you. I told him you were stubborn when he comes to change, but he never listens." She chuckled.
"He's fine." I shrugged. "It's just that I haven't had a father figure in my life since I was 5 and then all of a sudden I do. It's new, but that doesn't mean that I don't like it. I don't know, I'm probably just rambling at this point-"
"No, I get it. I'll tell Shawn that you don't actually hate him, maybe that will get him off your back for a bit." She offered.
I shook my head in disagreement, drinking the last bit of my coffee before I placed the cup into the dishwasher. "Don't bother. Besides, I like feeling like I'm wanted for once." I admitted and slung my backpack over my shoulder before heading out the door.
"See you tonight mom!" I waved and shut the door, heading off for school.
~
"Hey." Riley greeted me softly, leaning over to peck my cheek. We've been "together" for months and I still feel butterflies in my stomach whenever she does so much as look at me affectionately. It killed me that I still haven't been able to call her mine yet. Sometimes I hate the fact that I promised her we would wait until her name was cleared and we were in a safe place before we made things official.
I shut the metal door of my locker and turned to face the pretty girl in front of me. "Hi sunshine." I smiled, with a dopey expression.
Riley frowned for a split second before reaching over to grab my hand. "That skirt looks cute on you." She noted, eyes scanning hungrily over my outfit.
"What's wrong?" I questioned, ignoring her complement completely.
"Nothing?" She said, feigning innocence. "You just looked hot today and I wanted to let you know."
My cheeks tinted red momentarily before I got myself back together again. "I know that look on your face Riley, something's wrong. Now tell me what it is so I can fix it."
Her hands released mine and quickly reached for her phone, frowning at the black screen once again before tucking it in her back pocket.
"Give me that!" I tickled her sides and she m giggled, reminding me that her laugh was enough to brighten my entire word.
"Maya!" She laughed uncontrollably in between tickles. "Stop it!"
In the midst of all the tickling, I slyly reached my hand into Riley's back pocket and grabbed her phone. "Aha." I grinned and went to unlock it.
Riley didn't bother trying to get it back, she just stood still with her arms cross as the frown came back onto her face. This was a new phone that her parents had gotten her recently seeing as Riley still couldn't remember the password to her old one.
By now, Riley seemed to have just about her entire memory back except for minor discrepancies here and there. The only major event she can't seem to recall no matter how hard we try at therapy is the night of the murder. The doctor said it made the most sense that Riley can't remember that because our brain will block out traumatic events completely. He says that hopefully her entire memory will be recovered with a few more months of therapy.
When I unlocked he phone to see what Riley had saw, I was shocked.
It was an Instagram post from an anonymous account that featured a blurry picture of Riley and Mason. In the picture, Riley's face was bright red and her hands were clearly gesturing out of frustration while she yelled. Mason was backed up against a wall, biting his tongue in silence. I recognized that hallway. That's the hallway that Riley and I made up in the other day.
"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.