She said friends.
I guess that’s all we were really for him too. The realization settles, bitter in my chest. This whole thing is so fucked up.
“Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?” Willa asks, her voice cautious now, eyes flicking between us.
I seethe between my teeth, anger simmering just beneath the surface.Cool, calm, and collected, Riley. Breathe in and out.So you don’t murder your older sister.
What in the actual fuck?
“Because Lilly not only has made me feel unwelcome here all summer,” I say, my voice low as I stare at my sister, who looks afraid of me.
She should be!
“But then you had to interfere with the only person who’s been able to see me since our parents died. Sad Riley, happy Riley, wild Riley, upset Riley—he had seen all of me. For the first time ever, I showed someone the ugly parts of me. I thought he was running away from me because I was too much, but it turned out that it wasyou?”
“Riley,” Lilly gasps, eyes opening wide.
“You’ve taken everything from me, Lilly,” I press on, “in the name of protecting me, and that’s not what love is.”
“Take it easy,” Willa adds gently, stepping in but not quite between us.
“No, no, I won’t,” I snap, shaking my head, the dam fully broken now. “She needs to hear this. You’ve hurt me with your words and your actions, but this,” I gesture sharply between us, breath uneven, “this is a low blow, even for you.”
“I can see that I hurt you, and I’m sorry,” Lilly says, her voice softening, regret clear on her face, “but I didn’t think it would be a big deal. I just told him to be careful, but it’s a simple friendship, not li?—”
“I love him!” I shout, the confession tearing out of me before I can stop it. Lilly flinches, her eyes widening. “It’s more than a friendship, or at least I thought it was, but then he said he was done with me, and I truly thought it was me.”
My voice wavers, but I push through, the words spilling fastand raw now. “I’ve been miserable, spiraling into the not being enough mentality when, in reality, Iamenough and not too much. I’m the perfect amount, and I can do hard things. I’m smart, funny, and chaotic, but all those things make me who I am.” My chest rises and falls with each breath. “If not, I wouldn’t have been able to pull this off, or get more kids enrolled, or balance a bazillion things while keeping a relationship with Dom fromyou.”
She gasps as I point at her, the accusation hanging heavy in the air.
“But now—now,” I continue, my voice breaking at the edges, uncertainty creeping in beneath the anger, “I don’t know what was real and what was made up. I don’t know whether he was interested in me or if it was because you told him to be.” I shake my head, tears threatening but not falling. “What was a lie, and what is the truth? And it was all because you couldn’t trust me or even talk to me about it.”
Lilly stares at me, stunned, her voice cracking when she finally speaks. “You love him?”
I throw my hands in the air. She’s impossible sometimes. “That’s what you heard? Not the fact thatyoucan’t trust me, no matter how much I show you I can handle harder things? Or that maybe, just maybe, I’m wild but not reckless. That I want what’s best for this place too? That I want to belong here? For once in my life, I want to feel like this place is mine too. But you keep making me feel like an outsider, and I hate it.”
A tear trickles down my cheek. Damn it, I hate crying when I’m mad. It makes me feel weak and childish; neither are things that I am or that I want to portray myself as anymore. I need to walk away from her before I lose it even more.
“I didn’t know you and Dominic were, um, more than friends. Oh my gosh, he’s so much older than you are, Riley!”
“I fucking know! Don’t you think I know? He knows it too, which was already a barrier, and now you're telling him to leave me alone, which adds another one. But don’t sweat it, because even though I didn’t want my heart to fall for him, it did, and,sadly for me, his didn’t. So if you’ll excuse me, I would like to go for a run!”
I leave the shed, not looking back, and run.
The only way I know how.
Far and fast.
Until my lungs burn and my tears have dried up.
Until I don’t have anything left to give. The night only has the desolate, persistent hum of my heart and the last of the bugs as I throw myself on the damp pasture, where I close my eyes and drift to sleep.
38DUMB ASS
Dom
“Que estoy bien,mami, ya te lo dije.”
