"Max, I leave tomorrow morning."
"I'm proud of you, you did it. You're getting out." Max smiled but it didn't have it's notorious glow, she could tell it was a façade.
"We only have tonight …"
"I don't trust the world out there, I don't want it to hurt you." Max admitted.
"I'm a little scared, Max. I don't know if I want to leave anymore."
Max asked, "Do you want treatment?"
"No, not really I just don't want to go back to Greenwich and live my real life. They're gonna be up my ass checking my arms, my weight, me in general. I wanted them to notice a long time ago, no one did. I stopped looking for someone to care when they stopped caring about me. It's like I was standing on the edge of a well ready to jump down and everyone walked by and said nothing but now that I fell in everyone is reaching down trying to help but I'm trapped and they can't reach me anymore. I can hear their words and see their hands but they ignored me then why won't they ignore me now. I want to be alone in my well. I want to feel my pain."
"Riley, you can stay here. You just have to say you don't think you're ready to leave yet."
Riley admitted, "I think the only reason I'd stay is because of you…"
"Don't stay because of me, I want you to do what you want to do." He wanted her to stay so desperately but she would always come before him, what she wanted came first.
"I want to be out I think. My sadness has become a part of me and I sound like an asshole when I say it but I almost love it, the depressing music, shutting people out, the pain. Maybe it's a coping method because it wasn't going away so maybe I learned to love the hand I was dealt. I'm numb to all things but I don't want to romanticize my depression because it really fucks with me. I can brush off the sad situations with a swipe of my blade but then I remember those rare moments when Maya would let down her walls and she would sing in front of me. It was my favorite sound and now it's just a dismal hum in the background. I can't listen and love it the way that I used to, something about me can't grasp it. I just feel dead."
"Do you want to feel alive?" Max asked
"No, I guess not"
"Riley," Max started "are you going to kill yourself?"
Riley thought about it, "I honestly don't know anymore."
He looked into her eyes, hoping they would say something that he couldn't.
"Max, I want to thank you for everything you've done for me. I don't know what would have happened to me if you didn't come talk to me that Tuesday in lunch. I might have overdosed in my room, I might not be getting out tomorrow. You're just a really beautiful person and I hope you get out soon. Don't change too much more I l-like this Max."
"I l-like this Riley Matthews but I could do without having to worry about having to see your obituary."
And just like that Riley fell asleep in Max's arms for the last time.
Max was woken up early by the nighttime nurse and Riley woke up alone. A nurse came into her room to warn her that her mother would be here within the hour and to pack up her belongings. She put her clothes into the duffle bag and then her journal and then hid Max's blade. It might be risky but she wants it with her, a part of him with her.
It had been 10 days since Riley swung through those doors. She had a hollowing feeling, knowing once she left the hospital, she'd be worse than when she came in. Max was her sanity, her anchor and now she would drown again. Odds are the two would never see each other again, she didn't know where to find him and he didn't know where to find her. He might be in that psych ward for a long time and she might not live to see tomorrow. But she had some hope, hope is for suckers but she couldn't help it.
Riley greeted her mother and hugged her, said some bullshit like she's happy to be going home. Topanga told her Maya was waiting in their car and that she had some pastries from Topanga's in there too. And so Riley faced those fateful doors, a limited freedom on one side and a long desolate hallway on the other, an easy choice right? Until she looked down that hallway one last time, and there he was, sitting on the floor back to the wall, hair falling everywhere, blood in his eyes and a brokenness she thought she only possessed.
If this were a movie she'd run back and kiss him for everyone to see but this wasn't. It was real life in a very real psych ward with two fucked up kids. So she broke their eye contact, his big blue eyes never leaving her thin frame. And she left, never turning back.
When Max watched Riley leave and those doors swing behind her, he stood, nothing in his mind. He walked back into his room feeling as empty as a person can get and took out his journal from so long ago and wrote:
Watching Riley Matthews was like watching a storm, I watched her loom over us all. I watched because there's something so beautiful about when lighting strikes and thunder roars. But then the rain came and I didn't want her to fall apart like that. She wanted to fall apart and wreak havoc upon herself. I wanted her all together but there is some higher power that controls her, not me and it broke my heart. I think that every time I see the rain fall or hear the thunder roar or see the beauty in anything, I'll think of her. I'll think of how mind-numbingly gorgeous she was. She couldn't look into the mirror and see what I saw. She couldn't hear a marvelous song or watch a sun set with sincere appreciation. So I will. I will appreciate beauty because Riley Matthews couldn't.
I love her, I don't know what that entails or what will happen next but I want whatever it is. I want her if I ever see her again. She was like a maze and I'm the line running through it, alone we are complicated and insane but together, we fit in the oddest way possible.
Sorry it's short and I don't know if I'll do anything else with this story, might just end it here. Thanks for reading!