So Riley faces her bully in this chapter. Just a fair warning, there is slight physical abuse. It's very minor, but it's there. Also there is some foul language. But I'm sure you expected these things in a T-rated fic.

The Art of Letting Go

Chapter Five

Riley's eyes grew wide. It couldn't be. Missy Bradford couldn't be the one sending the text messages. There was no way. Though Riley had last seen Missy at graduation, her first and only interaction with her was in the seventh grade when Missy had a thing for Lucas.

"You," Riley said sternly, squinting her eyes.

"Yes, me," Missy nodded as she walked closer to Riley.

"I haven't seen you around here, Missy," Riley tried to be cordial. Her heart was racing and her body was shaking, but not enough for Missy to notice.

"Oh, I just transferred here," Missy informed Riley. That explained it.

"Welcome," Riley said, forcing a friendly smile.

"Stop your bullshit, sunshine," Missy demanded, inches away from Riley's face. Riley gulped. She hadn't seen this coming. "People have told me everything about you and Lucas."

"That's none of your business," Riley replied.

"It totally is my business," Missy argued. "I care about people. And when I see people settling for less than what they deserve, then I do something about it."

Riley didn't respond. Her anger was quietly boiling up inside of her. Her adrenaline was pumping. Her breathing got heavy.

"You're a piece of shit, you know that?" Missy stepped back and started pacing. "I really don't understand what Lucas sees in you. I would've thought that he would've gotten smarter over the years. It's because of you. You're holding him back, Riley. He has so much potential. He just needs you out of the picture to realize that."

It was one thing for Missy to say bad things about Riley, but when it came to her insulting the people close to her, she got furious.

"You have no right to talk about Lucas like that," Riley stated, her voice getting louder. "You don't even know him."

"And you do?" Missy shot back. "Remember when he didn't tell you he got expelled in Texas?"

"How do you know about that?" Riley's voice softened.

"Like I said, sunshine, people talk," Missy replied. "And it's only going to be a matter of time before Lucas hears about what people have been saying about you two. Then he'll dump your sorry ass. You guys aren't the perfect couple. Hell, you're not even perfect for each other."

"You're pathetic," Riley spat. Who was Missy to tell her about her own relationship?

Missy quickly reacted to the insult and grabbed Riley's right wrist and twisted it. Riley pursed her lips together to resist the pain.

"I'm pathetic?" Missy echoed, tightening her grip on Riley's wrist. "You're the one who accepts affection from someone who doesn't even care about you. You need to grow up. Lucas doesn't want to be with you."

"You need to stop talking," Riley said through gritted teeth.

"Oh yeah?" Missy's face inched closer to hers. "Or else what? What are you gonna do about it?"

Tears started to well in Riley's eyes. Missy laughed when she noticed. She tightened her grip even more. Who knew Missy was so strong? Riley could almost swear that she was losing blood circulation in her arm. She stayed silent and tried to blink her tears away.

"Oh right, you can't do anything about it," Missy taunted.

Riley still didn't speak up. Missy knew she had done her job. She released Riley's wrist from her grasp.

"See ya around, sunshine," she said. "Be on the lookout for my texts!"

Missy strutted down the hallway with a satisfied look on her face.

When Missy left, Riley allowed her tears to escape and trickle down her cheeks. Her breathing got uneven and she looked at her wrist, discovering a fresh bruise. She was crying partly because of Missy's words, and partly because of how much her wrist had hurt.

She took Missy's words home with her. She was able to ignore the texts from her, but when she was insulted in person, it hurt twice as much. Riley's previous bully in middle school had never confronted her and just bullied her from behind a screen, but now she's getting bullied in a more serious way. And Riley didn't know how to handle it.

Riley was glad that her family wasn't home when she arrived. She remembered them telling her that they would all be at Topanga's that afternoon. Riley had a small snack before going into her room. She changed her clothes and put on pajama bottoms and a long sleeve shirt to cover the painful bruise. She turned off her phone and left it on the dresser. She went into her walk-in closet to retrieve a box. She looked through the box until she found what she was looking for.

Her eighth grade yearbook. She removed it from the box and flipped through the pages until she landed on the superlatives pages. She found her photo and the caption written under it. She was voted most likely to smile herself to death. Riley scoffed. It was a title that made fun of who Riley was as a person. She turned the page. She saw a photo of Lucas and Maya, who was voted favorite couple back then. Riley groaned. She remembered a time when her classmates thought Lucas made a better couple with Maya than her. She always found this odd because they were the same classmates that pressured them into becoming boyfriend and girlfriend the first time.

The yearbook led her thinking about the triangle that had developed after their trip to Texas. All those glances that Lucas sent Maya's way. The dates where Maya would end up pouring a smoothie all over him. Lucas had to make a choice between Riley and Maya. Maya's beautiful, she's strong and independent. Riley couldn't help but wonder why Lucas hadn't chosen Maya instead of her.

Why did Lucas choose her? Did he just choose her because he knew she wouldn't be able to handle it if she didn't? Because Maya was more emotionally stable than Riley and handled rejection better? What if he only chose her to keep the entire group together? Riley had never doubted her relationship with Lucas before. But now that's all she could think about.

Riley broke down into tears for what she thought was the tenth time that day. She didn't feel like she was enough. She didn't think she was pretty, she still couldn't control her freakishly long legs, she wasn't good at anything. She was horrible at cheerleading and couldn't speak French or Spanish to save her life. She could think of a million reasons of why she didn't like herself.

Her insecurities were resurfacing and was getting the best of her. Over the years, she had gained confidence. She had grown into a wonderful, young lady, but she never got rid of her insecurities completely. She had learned to suppress them in the back of her mind, but she knew they were still there.

Missy was a horrible person. Riley always saw the good in everybody, and once in her life, she couldn't see the good in Missy. She didn't understand why Missy would do this to anybody, to hurt someone else purposely even when it didn't concern her. She also didn't understand why she was the target. It was so long since they had seen each other. So long, that Riley honestly forgot about her.

Riley cried hard. She so badly wanted to tell someone of her predicament, but she didn't know how to come about it. But at the same time, she didn't want to go to her friends with this, because she hated having them think less of her. Her friends knew her as the cheerful, bubbly one, not the easily hurt one who cared too much about what other people thought of her.

For the next couple of hours Riley just sat there, staring into nothing. She had stopped crying, but her cheeks were stained where her tears used to fall. She had to get herself together. It was almost dinner time and her family would be home any second. She needed to make it seem like nothing was going on with her, and that everything was okay.

She practiced her smile in the mirror, making sure it didn't look too forced. She heard the front door open. She took a deep breath and let out another smile before going to face her family.

Next: someone finds out Riley's getting bullied. Can you guess who?