Riley Matthews did not like to focus on herself.
Instead, she would dive head first into the problems that her friends were having. Maya's in trouble? Riley's there first. Farkle's sad? Riley has the shoulder to lean on. Lucas? She wanted to be there for him all the time. Riley was a helper. Riley helped. Riley fixed. And sure, sometimes she could be a little bit goofy, or go too far, or spread herself too thin, but Riley loved to help. Because if Riley was helping someone else, she did not have to think about herself.
Farkle once told Riley that she was the sun. Warm. Bright. Happy. But sometimes Riley found it hard to want to act that way. She found it especially hard lately, now that the texts would not stop. Every day, there'd be a video of Riley doing something especially ridiculous, or a mean text, or an ugly picture.
"How are you so happy when you look like this?"
"Look at how lame your dancing is, look at your friend's faces. How do they even want to be your friend?"
"No wonder you and Lucas didn't last, look at you."
The words twisted and stabbed inside Riley's mind. She wanted to react, but everyone told her that it didn't matter what other people thought of you. So, she tried to brush it off, ignore the texts, ignore the videos. That just made them get worse. The texts became vicious, and Riley just didn't understand why she was being targeted like this. What was so wrong about being happy? What was so wrong about wanting to spread joy? What was so wrong about wanting to help others? She didn't understand. She couldn't understand. This wasn't fair. But she figured she could handle it. She handled everyone else's problems; how could this be any different anyway?
Now when one of her friends had a problem, Riley welcomed the chance to fix it with open arms. If she was fixing somebody else, she didn't have to worry about fixing herself. If she was helping someone else, she didn't have to think about the ten million things that were wrong with her. But how had she never noticed how many things were wrong with her? Why hadn't anyone ever told her how ridiculous she looked? Why was anybody friends with her? How could Lucas have liked her when he looks and acts like a prince? How could talented, beautiful Maya be her best friend? How could genius, future president Farkle ever want to be her friend?
Riley tried to shake off her insecurities. She needed to be happy, happy, happy Riley. She needed to be the sun for everyone else. She couldn't be sad, she couldn't look weak. Because what if she was sad, and someone else needed her help? Then she would've been failing them. And Riley could never fail her friends. She had to be there. She had to be the sun and believe in all of her friends wholeheartedly, even though she didn't believe in herself. Riley didn't believe she was anything special. Riley didn't see herself as beautiful. But god, if she heard any of her friends say any such things, her heart would just break. So, she had to be there for them. Her problems would always come in second place.
Still, she tried to drop little hints. She wrote "insecure" across her forehead in class as being her number one flaw. Nobody questioned her for it. She tried to change into a dark personality, and instead, most people found it laughable. And when Maya pretended to be Riley, the whole class said that they didn't care who was Riley. Nobody cared about anything Riley did as long as somebody was doing it. So, if Riley stopped being sunshine, then nobody would care about her at all. She couldn't be anything but happy. Happy Riley. Goofy Riley. Sunshine Riley. And yet, that's what she was being bullied for, for the thing everyone always wanted her to be.
Who was she supposed to be? What did they want from her? Did they want her to be sad?
Well, fine, they got it.
