“Riley,” I say in a chuckle.
“Friends also make friends half-laugh.” She smiles brighter than the moon above us, mimicking the sun that’s asleep. Who needs sunlight when you have this girl on your porch, making jokes about pain?
“I did laugh.”
“Mmm, yeah, right. You half-laughed, but no worries. I’ve made it my life mission to get a real laugh out of you.”
“And what’s a real laugh then?”
She puts her cup on the side wooden table. “You know, folded over, hands on tummy, slapping your knee, whichever is yours, I can’t quite tell yet, or cover your eyes, and you know, cry, scream, throw up, all that.”
“Riley.”
“I’m telling you. It’s gonna happen, and then the Earth will be in trouble, and all the panties in a ten mile radius will be on the floor at a real laugh from Mr. Grump Diaz.” She gasps. “Oh my God! Please ignore that.”
I chuckle again, this time letting the corner of my mouth stretch upwards. Even if I didn’t want to smile, I can’t help it when I’m around her.
“Let’s forget about that. What were we talking about before? Oh yeah, my inability to stick with anything and change the course because I get bored.”
“What?”
“Communications, Dom, communications.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I went into it trying to figure out if I could put all the verbal skills to good use. A girl loves to talk, you know? And maybe channel some of that into work, except my personality is too volatile for it. So I tried to change it all.” She tosses herself back on the chair, bringing her legs up and wrapping her arms around them. “I tried to change all the things that make me too much to see if I could finally find some guidance. Everyone in my life has their shit together, and then there’s me.”
Did she not hear me the first time? Who has hurt her this badly that all she thinks about are the negatives? I don't mind being the one to remind her again.
“Nothing about you is too much.”
“You say that, but imagine living around me twenty-four-seven, chaos unfolding at every turn. And I wanted to fix it so badly. I wanted to fix myself, but there was nothing I could do, because I’m me, and there’s that. So now, I’m on the quest of figuring out how to not leavemeagain as I move forward.”
Riley and I are more alike than I care to admit. Her because of circumstances, me because of my choices, but in the end, we’re both lost souls in the quest to find us again.
“Why do you think there’s anything to fix?” Can’t she tell her joy is a gift to the world?
“After you hear the same thing all your life, it becomes a truth you hold, even if it might not be a fact.”
“Riley,” I whisper, her name leaving my lips as a plea for her to see herself how I see her, how I’m sure her other people see her too.
“No, it’s okay. I’ve wanted to be someone else all my life to the point where I’ve bent myself to fit molds not meant for me, and I’m done doing it.” The sky cracks in sorrow as soon as she finishes that sentence. We both look up with nothing to see, moonlight hidden behind the storm-filled clouds. “I want to be true to myself, and if I’m too much to keep, then at least I’ll be free.”
The undeniable feeling of being closer to her will win over my self-control. She sounds so hurt, so broken, and all I want is to take it all away from her. I was right; she’s hiding so much under the smile she paints on herself every day, like the artist she is.
“You know how you said you wanted it so bad, but it didn’t work out?”
“Yeah.”
“Because not everything you work hard for, that you want badly, is meant to be. In your case, you shouldn’t want to conform to someone you are not just to make others happy.”
She blinks those impossibly long, dark eyelashes at me, her cheeks gaining a rose tint. I feel like I owe it to her to share a bit of me. No, I don’t owe it to her. I want to tell her. I want to let her see the edges of my soul nobody has seen yet, even if it’s selfish for me to do so.
“And sometimes, like in my case, no matter how much you want something, it isn’t enough to keep it. Or fix it.”
She sits straighter.
“Yes, I was married before. I know you heard some of the conversation, and I’m just going to assume you heard it all.”
