So I start preliminary exams in a week, and finals almost immediately after that, and I've been itching to write something but I had an awful case of writer's block. Eventually, I was rewatching Girl Meets the Real World and thinking about Rowan Blanchard, and then I saw a tumblr post and was inspired to write this. I hope everyone enjoys it.
Whipped Cream & Other Delights,
TheHarleyQueen

P.S. This work has like fifty different names on the document. Each chapter was a naming option at some point in time.

She had never been the type to lie, and Riley Matthews wasn't gonna start now. She'd been hurt at her discovery of The Riley Matthews Committee. She had never thought of herself as particularly weak or unable to handle things. That wasn't to say that she wasn't sometimes a little bit ditzy, but she had long ago decided that ditzy wasn't the worst thing to be- she'd far rather be called ditzy than cruel or boring or shallow. That was the word that was sticking in her mind tonight. She didn't believe that she was shallow, not to any extent, but the events of the past days had thrown her for a loop. Not necessarily finding out what it was like to be on "the Other Side", but more to find out what her friends thought of her. She understood that maybe she was seen as a little more immature than the others- because she'd grown up as a good girl in a good household- but she didn't think that her inherent nature warranted this idea that Maya had come up with. The Riley Matthews Committee may have, once upon a time, been a sweet gesture on behalf of her best friend and her overprotective dad, but she was fourteen now and she deserved to know something about the world!

That Lucas had been part of it hurt her too- he hadn't ever known her as a naive little girl, he didn't have the excuse of still feeling overprotective of the little girl she'd once been! And sure, He had known her as a naive slightly taller girl, but that still didn't give him the right to censor what she knew!

But, truly, it wasn't Maya or her dad or Lucas that she was most mad at. No, that special position was reserved for one Farkle Minkus.

Farkle was all about pursuing the unknown. Farkle was the one who had explained to her why the only way to understand things was to hold them in front of a microscope. He'd always told her to push herself, had worked with her after the Science Class Debacle (that definitely deserved capital letters). He'd started bringing her over after school and explaining things like celestial coordinates and the Doppler shift and spectroscopic parallax. He was the one encouraging her to go out and learn more and change the world, more than any of them, and he'd set her on this track with safe search on. It broke her heart more than she really knew how to explain, because Farkle, of all her friends and family, was supposed to be the one who always wanted her to get better, instead of just wanting better for her.

She wondered how many slip ups she'd made over the years that people had laughed at her for behind her back. As a general rule, she believed she handled her mistakes with a certain gracefulness (that maybe couldn't be found in her actions, but so what?). But how could that be the truth if she didn't know she was making them. She thought back over the last year alone, and she found plenty of incidents that left her cheeks burning a hideous bright red. Overhearing a conversation between Maya and Farkle about something called Black Lives Matter and having it immediately shut down when she walked in to join them. The thing with the fish. Letting Maya go out to that party- who knows what could have happened to them there, and Riley had only just scratched the surface of everything she needed to know.

And so, after the debate, after Zay had forgiven her (and she hadn't let the public apology and the song be her only apology. Maybe that was what was expected of her, but she expected more of herself. She'd sat down with Zay, after school, privately, and talked through it with him. Zay was actually really funny, and he called her 'sugar' and 'gumdrop' and 'cotton candy face', which she thought was hilarious) she had done something she hadn't done (to her mother's dismay) since Maya crawled in through her window. She locked it.

She would forgive Maya and Farkle, eventually. She wasn't mean, and she knew her best friends had only had her best interests at heart. She'd already forgiven Lucas and her father, and her best friends meant so much more to her than she could put into words, so of course she'd forgive them. But this weekend would be for her. Tonight, she'd take for herself, before the next drama started (and one would). Because that was what she needed.

Her mother called her down for dinner before she could start trawling through the depths of the internet, through. Maybe for the best. Her stomach was growling like nobody's business, and she didn't think she was strong enough to be in her room when Maya came down to say goodnight only to find the windows locked. Because if that happened- well, Riley knew she'd unlock the windows, and lie and say that she'd done it unthinkingly, and she'd let the whole Riley Matthews Committee thing go, and she didn't want to do that. As she walked down the staircase she trailed her hand over the frames on the wall- newspaper articles from some of her mom's biggest court cases. There were several from the beginning of her career that were just divorces, but as the dates grew more recent, Riley realised what kind of person her mother was. Protection Orders Against Domestic Violence and Termination of Parental Rights and Adoptions were her most common cases. Her mom was the one removing the kids from abusive households and making sure the women were kept safe, and here was Riley, stealing a cookie and smiling at people and thinking she was changing the world.

"Honey?" Her mother startled her from her thoughts, "Are you feeling okay? Normally you're chowing down by now."

Her mom smiled at her and Riley felt her heart melt. Topanga Matthews was truly one of a kind. Both her parents were, actually, she thought, catching a glimpse of her dad, tucking a napkin into Auggie's shirt so it wouldn't get stained- "...is Maya coming over?"

Riley hadn't followed her mother's train of thought, but the question brought her back to a screeching halt. She loved her parents so much, she really did, but she was also angry. And it was her mom who had told her that she always had the right to be angry, wasn't it? They'd kept stuff from her, important stuff, stuff about the world that she should know. Both of them had, even if her mom wasn't on The Riley Matthews Committee. So Riley was angry, but she choked it down because her mom was smiling at her and dishing up spaghetti, and her dad was talking about the debate at school today (sometimes, to herself, she wished that she didn't have to rehash the entire day's events at home during dinner. Sometimes she wanted her life to be just her life, not hers and her dad's. But she'd never say that, because she was Riley Matthews with the good financial status and the good home life and what more could she ask for).

So Riley spouted off some excuse about how Maya was at the diner tonight, that she and her mother were trying to make up for the time they missed and how Maya had promised to bring her the leftover tuna melt (she tried to ignore how her mom sent her that look that meant 'don't take it because Maya has less money than us and can't afford to give up food'). And so that was how the night went.

It was like any other family dinner, Riley thought, except for the fact that she could feel her laptop burning her from nearly a floor away, her startup tabs (Google Drive and Youtube) open next to current affairs. And the fact that she couldn't draw her mind from Maya, who'd probably figured out what Riley was doing by now, and had since crawled back to her own apartment, heartbroken. And that image was the one that left her dawdling downstairs long after she would normally have retreated to her bedroom. She stayed for two whole episodes of Impossible! even though Auggie knew more of the answers than she did and watching the game show with her family always made her feel more insecure. She even stayed until her parents broke out the port, and then still longer, talking with them until they chased her off to her bedroom, citing a needing a break from drama.

It wasn't that Riley didn't want to learn more about the world without The Riley Committee sponsored safe search, because she did, more than anything. But she wasn't stupid (no matter what the people in her class believed). She knew doing this would change the dynamics of her friendships forever, and even though they were growing up, and she knew the dynamics of her friendships would change a million times more before she was done with high school, she liked this phase.

But still, this was something she ~had to~ wanted to do for herself. So she put on her pyjamas and shut off the lights and threw the knitted blanket her Gramma Rhiannon had knitted for her and she opened her laptop. Paris Accords to go Through said the first article. The EU Rebuffs Greece's Demand for Austerity Relief said the next. Refugee Crisis in Europe Growing Worse- Why Won't America Help? Racial Profiling in the US Hits All-Time High Donald Trump to Run for President in 2016 with Republican Party. So Riley did the only thing she was still sure she knew- she started to read.

The real estate mogul and TV reality star launched his presidential campaign Tuesday, ending more than two decades of persistent flirtation with the idea of running for the Oval Office.

"So, ladies and gentlemen, I am officially running for president of the United States, and we are going to make our country great again," Trump told the crowd in a lengthy and meandering 45-minute speech that hit on his signature issues like currency manipulation from China and job creation, while also taking shots at the president and his competitors on the Republican side.

"Sadly the American dream is dead," Trump said at the end of his speech. "But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before."

Riley hadn't ever really liked what she heard about Donald Trump, and this just proved her point. She read on, booking marking sites and exploring links. She even developed a tumblr (daughterofhistory) and hit 'follow' on nearly a hundred blogs about activism and feminism and Black Lives Matter.

When the light broke through the bay window curtains, she squinted and rolled out of bed. It was a Saturday, and she had work to do. Downstairs her mom was already making pancakes, and her dad had gone to see Uncle Shawn. She plopped down next to Auggie and continued reading on her tablet (she'd also started a subscription to the New York Times and Mary Review).

All through breakfast, she spoke to no one. She continued her reading spree until she felt like she had run out of resources. And then she turned to historical articles, to summaries of the Assault Weapons Ban and the Watts riots and Stonewall. She ate without speaking, her reading monopolising her time.

Eventually, once Auggie had finished his breakfast (and even washed his own dishes!) and she'd cleaned up (half-heartedly, still reading about Tamir Rice and Malala) she turned to her mother, eyes wide and tablet nearly flat.

"Mom, can we go out?"