The next day riley decided to take her aunts advice and slipped a note into Lucas's locker. It was cliché she knew but she couldn't ask him face to face. So due to that fact she was sat in bleachers at school, hoping he'd received her note. After a half hour he finally showed up and she felt the bench dip when he sat down.
"I didn't think you'd come" she said.
He shuffled slightly and replied "Me neither" she didn't say anything for a moment, letting the uncomftable silence settle like a plague.
"I ran away, in a manner of speaking" she stopped and weighed what she would say next.
"As you probably know I left to go to my grandparents' house, there was a reason for that but I can't tell you yet, only a select few know. The reason I left you was because I knew, I knew that you had cheated on me with her, she told me and I didn't love you after I left, I fell for Farkle as you can probably guess we happened. So I was hurt and broke and I didn't want anyone to catch the backlash."
Lucas slumped down slightly, he understood that she might not want to say everything but he felt he deserved to know, she's the one that left.
"Why does my best friend get to know?"
"I can't tell you yet Lucas" he stood up, a slight bit of Texas Lucas running through his veins.
"You can't tell me Riley or you won't. Everyone I love has been lying to be about you and you won't tell me, you left and everything fell apart how could you? Maya thought she'd been left again! And I thought I'd lost you again!" she shrunk back as Lucas continued to yell at her. Her thoughts all turned negative again and she didn't even hear Zay slowly creep up and yell at Lucas to calm down. She didn't hear her own footsteps as she turned away and ran, she didn't see Maya who had just come out of detention. She could only feel her heart pounding and the blood rushing to her ears. As she got to the toilet she threw up and groaned. When her vision cleared she could see Maya hovering nervously.
"Riley?" When she didn't answer Maya rang Farkle. Since he wasn't at school he could only get there as quickly as possible. Maya handed Riley a bottle of water and made her rinse her mouth out but grabbed her arms and pulled her sleeve down. Maya's heart stopped, down Riley's arm lay a few almost healed scars. Maya didn't need to say it aloud, Riley had been broken and due to the fact that they were healing it was obvious she was getting better.
"Now you know my secret" Riley thought out loud.
"I left because I was too messed up in the head to stay" Maya began to cry as Riley retold her story. She had begun after the bullying had started and had stopped two weeks after she left. Zay had found her attempting to do it and made her talk to someone, so she talked to her uncle Josh who had sat down with her and her parents. At first she began talking to Shawn because he had a dangerous game with alcohol and knew how to cope but when that wasn't enough Riley found a clinic near her dad's old home and had moved down there to get better. She had just finished telling her story when Zay ran in, breathless.
"Riley?" she looked up, her bambi eyes shining with tears.
"It's okay, she knows Zay" Zay didn't do anything. He couldn't hold back his own tears and the three of them sat in the bathroom stall till Farkle showed up and brought Riley into a hug.
"You ok Riley?" she nodded.
"Ok let's go home" and together the four of them stumbled out of school and walked home.