Chapter Three: ten-thousand minds on fire
"Who says paper worlds
Are an escape from what is real?
As though the lives trapped in their binding
Are not ones that make you feel.
For sometimes our greatest lessons
Come from those with ink for skin,
Who reach beyond the page
To take our hand and pull us in."
― Erin Hanson
The drive to her grandparent's house was filled with worried glances as Riley looked out the winder viewing her parent's hometown.
"Riley?" Her grandpa said breaking the spell that was in the car. She looked at them. "Kiddo, is something going on at home? What's with the sudden magic trick to visit us?" He tried to joke but Riley could hear something else.
They hate you. She said to herself. Already she couldn't escape the hurtful words she threw herself under. She had gotten texts from her friends and one from Shawn who was asking her about her day. He had no idea what she did.
"Just wanted to visit," She said in her "Smiley-Riley" tone of voice. Her grandpa raised an eyebrow through the rearview mirror at her. "In the middle of the week?" He questioned her.
Riley didn't say anything just shrug.
The house that her dad grew up in looked the same, on the inside and outside to be exact. Grandma leads her to the first guest room, Uncle Eric's old room. It was cozy and looked nothing like any teenager from the '90s would put in there. Riley jumped on the blue comforter of the bed letting her bag flop next to her.
She still couldn't believe she ran away from home all the way to Philadelphia. It was a miracle that her grandparents haven't taken her back yet. She hoped they didn't, she didn't want to go back to New York where questions will be asked and her answers won't make any sense to them. To her, they did.
Her grandmother called her down to have some lunch. It was still early, probably around afternoon. Which meant her friends must be wondering where she could be, Riley did get some texts from Farkle, Lucas, Maya, and Zay asking for her whereabouts. All Riley said was that she was sick at home.
That was a lie, one that would break later on as the day progressed back at school. But Riley was here, away from everyone. It was enough to give her some peace as her mind kept up its storm.
They danced around the obvious question: Why did you run away from home Riley?
She did not know how to tell them because it would be the exact same thing with her parents. That nothing was going on and that she was fine, she just missed her grandparents very much.
Her mind wouldn't shut up. The criticism kept coming as her day continued, as she ate dinner with her grandparents and forced smiles as they asked about her friends.
"Lucas is dating Maya now." Maybe it's for the better.
"Maya and I are still friends, yes." Not after what she did, founding the committee.
It wasn't all talk about Riley. Apparently, her grandparents were renting a room for a family friend's kid of her parents. She was starting her third year in college having graduated a year early in High School a few years back. "She is the daughter of your parent's old friend, Rachel's daughter."
She was renting her dad's old room while working to get her BA at Drexel University. Her name was Reagan and she sounded so much cooler than Riley.
It felt like the sea just kept going, dragging her out to sea and drown her only to release her and start again. She still couldn't sleep, staring at the walls of the guest room she slept in. When she went to bed after being fed so much food and a good bowl of ice cream, Riley opened her laptop.
"Fuck me gently with a chainsaw, do I look like Mother Teresa?" were the words that Heather Chandler spoke to Veronica Swayer as Riley watched Heathers for the first time far away from New York. She could see why this was called a cult-classic, the Heathers seemed to be a dark vision of high school intertwined in a dark humor movie. Out of all of the good lines (and there were a lot of memorable ones), the one that Heather Chandler said was one that Riley couldn't stop quoting in her head.
If she could, she would probably have picked it for her Senior quote.
She fell asleep dreaming of the Heathers, her home and the mysterious daughter of Rachel McGuire.
When she woke up, Riley was greeted by a young woman who she realized was Courtney.
She was a few inches taller than Riley, her hair was done in a fishtail braid. She wore a red t-shirt with blue jeans and black heeled boots and was watching CNN on her laptop when she spotted Riley.
"Hi, you must be Riley. Mrs. Matthews told me you were visiting," She said giving Riley a warm smile. Riley could only nod her head. "Well, your grandparents left me in charge of you, so whatever you wanna do we can do it."
"Where are my grandparents?" She asked her. "Grocery store run and they went to go get flowers to fix up the backyard more."
Riley moved to make herself a bowl of cereal as the girl continued to talk. "I'm going to the bookstore to sell old textbooks, I wanted to know if you'd want to come with me? Find something you like at the store while I sell my shit."
She did have nothing to do, so she agreed.
"Oh, god!" She shook her head. "I almost forgot to give you my name!"
"My name is Reagan."
Riley found out a few things from Reagan Monroe-McGuire.
Her dad had passed away in a battle about two years ago. She was studying to join the FBI, she loves cats and loved reading. Other stuff Riley didn't know about the older girl and she was surprised about not knowing about her. Apparently, her mom was an old classmate of her parents and was stationed in Ukraine, Reagan was adopted by her parents when she was thirteen.
"Did you live in Ukraine or here?" Riley asked her. "I lived in Ukraine but I was born in California, my mom couldn't keep me anymore when she moved here so she gave me up. A few years later, my parents adopted me when they came back to the states and then moved to Ukraine once the paperwork was filed and I was officially part of their family," It made Riley smile at the story even though her thoughts weren't all that to smile about.
Typical that mom and dad never told you this.
She drove them to a bookstore called, Thirty-two thousand minds on fire. It was a small looking store on the outside only for when Riley opened, it was huge, spacious place. Reagan told Riley to go pick out whatever books she wanted, "Two is the limit. If you don't find me here still selling, I'll be in the true-crime or psychology section."
With that, Reagan hauled her textbooks to the front to sell. So many books to see and find for her as she flickered through the Young Adult section only to wander to the Non-Fiction section. There was one that caught her eye in the Presidential Section, a blue and white book.
On the spine, there were only three names.
Jackie, Ethel, and Joan: The Women of Camelot by J. Randall Tamborelli the book said. She took it, seeing the three most famous women of the era called Camelot. Riley then wandered back to the YA section once again, and as she looked a yellow spine caught her eye. On it said Pretty Little Liars.
"Hey," Reagan's voice startled her as she read the summary of the yellow book on the side. On the front, it had a doll with the title of the book in pink cursive letters and on the back it had the actual girl that looked exactly like the doll. "You find anything?"
Riley noticed the older girl had her wallet stuff with cash and she seemed to find a huge book. The Cases That Haunt Us, was what Riley could see in Reagan's arms. She followed Reagan to the Psychology section as the older girl tried to find another book.
"What grade are you in?" She felt stupid saying it out loud. Stupid questions asked by a stupid girl. Reagan's merely smiled, "I'm in my third year but I should actually be in my second year because of my age." She was merely nineteen but had skipped a grade. "So you are smart?"
Reagan's laughed. "Yeah, you could say that. Damn, I can't find it." She said out loud with a frown. "Alright, to the fiction aisle! I need to find one more book."
The older girl ran her fingers through each spine of the book, her hazel eyes searching meticulously for something until she squatted down. "Ah-ha! Found it!" She grinned as she plucked a thick looking book. Riley could see that the book had the same author as the other books next to it. "A Storm of Swords," Riley said out loud. "I'm guessing its a series?"
Reagan nodded. "It is, I haven't finished the first one but I like to be ahead. I ordered the last two books on Amazon but the third one would have cost a lot for my poor credit card, so this is pretty cheap."
Riley looked at the order of the books and found the first one. It looked pretty, grey color and when Riley took it from the shelf, it had a sword on the front with the title reading, A Game of Thrones.
"Take it," Reagan said as she slowly got up. She groaned, "I'm getting old!" Which made Riley giggle.
She was uncertain considering she had two books and remembering Reagan saying that two was the max of books she could get. "Hey, I break my book-limit rule all the time. Its no problem, I have enough cash to buy us this and I never turn away from my fellow bookworms." That eased Riley's mind and she balanced the three books in her arms.
They returned back to the psychology section one more time and then to the True Crime section, after a few minutes Reagan came out victorious as she held up a book. "Found it! Just had to look harder in the True Crime section."
Serial Killers was written on the shelf, miles of books on different killers. Riley wondered what section of the FBI, Courtney was wanting to join.
They went to the register and placed the six books on for Reagan to pay. Before the lady could ring up, Reagan plucked a bookmark with a whale splashing. It read, Books are a Whale-of a Time!
Reagan paid for it and handed Riley her bag of books and Reagan grabbed hers. They walked out, as they did she gave Riley the bookmark. "Here ya go, that way you won't lose your page."
As she was placing her credit card back in her wallet, Riley saw her drivers license. It had her picture and her full name. Reagan Sydney Monroe-McGuire.
"Now how about we get back and I can introduce you to Game of Thrones unless you have another show you watch?"
"I'm watching American Horror Story," Riley said somewhat shyly to the older woman. Her eyes brightened up. "I love that show! What season are you on?"
That's how they chatted about both shows, and how the newest season of the show was crazier. Reagan unlocked the door and saw that Riley's grandparents were home. Her grandmother was in the kitchen on the phone, she waved at both girls who waved back. Once putting her new books on the shelf, she noticed Reagan had her textbook out, a thick psychology book and the one about serial killers. Highlighter in hand, she was dragging the yellow tip on the words.
She didn't want to disturb the older girl in her work, but when Reagan spotted her, she beckoned Riley over. "Just getting ahead of my class, psychology is an interesting subject if you want to go into that field when you get to college."
Riley nodded. "What part of the FBI do you want to work in?"
"BAU, that means I'll be an FBI profiler. Hence why I'm studying psychology."
"But why the crime books?"
"I'm also getting a minor in Criminology. It'll look good and it's interesting to learn if you can stomach it." Reagan said. "Now, how about we watch some AHS. What season are you on?"
For a moment, Riley almost forgot why she was here and she wished it could stay that way. But it was just like that, for only a moment before the waves drowned her once more.
"Riley ran away to Philly."
Shawn almost thought it was a stupid joke until he got to Corey's apartment and noticed that his friends face when he walked in. It was just a day after she ran and it was a deathly silence in the Matthews household.
They knew where she was, she was in Philly with her grandparents but why she did it? They had no clue. Her friends didn't know, coming by for any information on their friend, letting her parents know that Riley hadn't answered their text messages today. Shawn hadn't texted her, only messages he received were ones from Angela.
She was in town and they were going to catch up but now he had Riley on his mind, worried about the poor kid. Ever since that day she came over crying about her problems, Shawn was worried about her. Corey's parents were keeping an eye on her and Eric, once he got wind had told them something.
"Rachel will be in town, she's visiting her kid for a few days. I'll let her know and see if she can keep an eye on Riles for us."
Corey argued that he should go down there but Eric said that he has a job. "You and Topanga can head down on the weekend, if it makes you feel any better, Shawn and I can go there Thursday. Rachel should be there tomorrow morning, I'll let her know what's going on."
Shawn agreed and texted Angela what was going on. She asked if she could be of any help.
Do you want to come to Philadelphia? Was his question and her quick reply was, Yes.
The first book that Riley read was the small yellow one.
HOW IT ALL STARTED-the title of the first chapter read. It hooked her in instantly in this fictional town called Rosewood in Pennsylvania, close to Philadelphia. The irony for her as she was in Philly at the moment but Rosewood seemed much more interesting with its secrets these girls held. She felt an escape, mentally into this vastly different world like when she watched her shows. The way the author described the scene was captivating and Riley couldn't put it down.
Just like Riley who had her secrets-that, she knew about that committee and that something wasn't right with her. But with all secrets-both good and bad-they are kept away until they are brought back up for all to see it.
NOTES: I got the title of this chapter from a bookstore that I visited in Berkely California last month. Thought that it was a cool title for this chapter. Hope you guys enjoy it, and Reagan is my OC, she has a small but important part. Next chapter, we meet Rachel and Angela.