Riley Wyler

I woke up to my cell phone buzzing off the hook. I reached out to grab it just as it buzzed off the corner of my nightstand.
“Ah crap!” I croaked, and rolled over to pick it up off the floor. I examined it for any cracks but couldn’t find any when it buzzed again startling me so bad I almost throw it across the room. Sliding my phone open I caught a glimpse of enough messages from Ashlynn to fill the entire screen.

Hey u have 2 come 2 school early today cuz I have somethin 2 tell u!

R u up yet? Y aren’t u here?

R u dead, should I b worried?

U better hurry school starts in 10!

Oop the bell went, u r screwed =P

WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >=\

“Oh Snap!” I yelled and hopped out of bed. My foot got snagged on the mess of blankets and I fell to the hard wood floor. Ignoring the new bruise on my knee I got up and ran over to my closet, swaying back and forth from the sudden rush of blood to my head and my vision blanked for a second. When it came back I rummaged through all the clothes and snatched a few off the hangers and got dressed. Then I went over to my necklace hanger and picked off my favorite choker while shoving my bare feet into my green converse. Snatching my shoulder bag, I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and throw a comb in my hair. To my surprise it didn’t get stuck.
“Dad!” I yelled, but no one replied. “Great,” I mumbled with a tooth brush in my mouth. I assumed that Mom and Dad left early for work. I quickly applied dark eyeliner and black lipstick to my face and then I was off.
No one was home as I had expected; just my luck. So I was forced to ride my bike to school. I jammed my earphones into my head and cranked my music loud enough for a deaf person to say “turn it down” and started my hour ride to school.
҉
“You’re late,” came Ashlynn’s voice in my ear. I jumped, startled, as I tried unsuccessfully to get my locker open. “Let me try,” she offered, and I moved out of the way. Ahslynn and I were best friends for as long as I could remember, and each year we always swapped lock numbers for our lockers in case of an emergency. However, my lock was always stubborn and never budged to open when I needed it to. When I heard the sure click of it giving in I knew Ashlynn had won the battle, again.
“My lock hates me,” I said with sarcasm, although I meant it to sound sincere.
“And so does your alarm clock. Have you any idea what time it is? You’ve missed second period by a long shot and lunch is going to end in fifteen minutes.” I shoved my bag into my locker and then looked at Ashlynn for the first time since I arrived. Her brown and red hair was teased back and her bangs hung in her eyes. Her lips were pursed, as if she had just tasted a very bitter lemon which made her lip ring jut out. Her arms were folded stiffly in a way that made her chest look awkward in her band shirt. She had the “I’m pretty ticked with you” stance nearly perfect. All that was missing was the tapping foot.
“I must have forgotten to set it,” I shrugged; hoping that she wouldn’t stay mad too much longer. She raised her pierced brow at me.
“Well, I have something to tell you and I was HOPING we could skip the rest of the day, but you already missed two periods and-” I held up my hand to cut her off.
“And I’ll get a detention, so what,” I laughed, and shut my locker door, clicking the lock back into place and then turning to lean on my locker. “Besides what am I going to possibly miss in Mr. Bartlett’s online Career class and Mr. Silvers’ Art class? I basically have the project, that’s due in two weeks, finished already and how hard could it possibly be to make a resume?” I exaggerated. I really haven’t even started thinking about my Art project let alone knowing how to make a resume, but Ashlynn didn’t know that, and friends come first in my world so I wasn’t too worried about all the other minor things in my life.
She glared at me for a moment and then her features softened when she finally said, “Alright, fine, but Jayson has been asking about you all day long, and it’s kind of getting annoying so... we should probably find him before I’m forced to beat him with a night stick,” she joked, and I mimicked her grin.
҉
“Baby, did you sleep in or something?” His familiar deep voice spoke with concern. “I’ve missed you all day.” He smiled and showered my cheek with kisses. Then he grabbed a flower from behind my ear – my favorite of his tricks. I mean where on earth did a full length flower come from? Like it just materialized in a second – and I felt my heart flutter. Plucking the red carnation from his strong hands and smelling it. The hum of all the other kids in the lunchroom vanished for a moment.
“Thanks hun,” I said happily. My happiness was short lived, however, when Ash’s face went grave and she said,
“Get a room you two. Oh and just for the books, Zee, she’s a feisty one.” The hum came back, about as loud as my stereo gets on full blast. My face got hot, instantly embarrassed that Ash would say something like that. She is always edgy when she has big news to tell me, and judging by the way she’d been acting lately, it was colossal!
“You jealous, Ash?” Jayson teased, and then gave me a wink.
“Not much to be jealous of, but whatever,” she replied with a sting in her tone and then pulled a chair out at our lunch table to sit down. Jayson pulled a chair out for me to sit and then gave me a quick kiss before disappearing into the cafeteria. He soon appeared again with a tray of food.
“Better late than never I always say.” He smiled and placed the tray between the three of us. “You eat yet?” He asked Ash.
“Nope,” she simply replied and snagged a fry from the foam plate and chomped it down.
“Sorry,” Jayson started. “But I have to know. Are you like, P.M.S –ing or something?” Ash glared at him through her hair. I could tell she wanted to say something extremely rude, but instead she just replied with,
“No, I just got a lot on my mind is all.” And then grabbed a fist full of fries and ate them. I grabbed one of the three cheeseburgers and started eating it to avoid any unnecessary conversation between the three of us.
Ash didn’t really like Zee all that much, but I never really cared enough to know why. Zee is Ash’s nick name for Jayson because he often tends to fall asleep during important lectures. What’s beyond me is that he’s one of the very few straight ‘A students here even though with a first glance you would think anything but that. How he does it, I’ll never know.
I managed to get down a full cheeseburger and a few fries before the bell rang. Jayson stood up and collected the garbage onto the tray. I walked with him to the waste bin and when his hands were free from the tray I put my hands around his neck to look into his eyes. They always amazed me with how light they were with so much depth in them. If he could be any mythical creature, he would be a siren.
“So...” he whispered, smiling all the while. I could tell he was so in love with me, and I liked it that way.
“You won’t see me until after school,” I frowned, knowing I’d miss him at break. His smile didn’t waver though. He understood so well. “Ash and I are probably gonna go hang out in the park or whatever.”
“Alright, baby.” He said and kissed my forehead. “Just make sure you’re back at 2:15 so we can ride the bus home together.” I laughed a little and he looked at me with concern.
“I rode my bike today... So do you mind walking home with me?” I asked and put on my best puppy face knowing I’d rather walk home with him than all alone.
“Sure I can,” he started. “But I’ll have to tell that little rat Devin to stay away from our seat so he doesn’t contaminate it with his ungodly stench.” We both cracked up, and when the second bell went Jayson kissed me and left me with his butterflies.
Ash was still sitting at the lunch table and the room was completely quiet now; so quiet I could hear the tumbleweeds rolling by. She turned her head around when she heard the door shut. “You ready, or do you wanna stay here with Jayson for the rest of the day?” she spat. Her mood was really beginning to upset me.
“Why are you so hostile today?” I asked, even though my gut was screaming not to... I knew I shouldn’t have asked, but I had to know. Like when someone’s keeping a secret from you and all you want to do is tie them down and play brain surgeon to pry into their thoughts.
“Why am I hostile? Why am I HOSTILE!” she wheezed and stood up abruptly from her chair; knocking it over in the process. Her hair had moved out of her face and I could tell she’d been crying.
“I’m sorry Ash, I didn’t mean-” she held up her hand this time and shook her head to move her bangs back over her eyes.
“No, you have a right to ask, I’m the one who should be sorry for lashing out. I’m just pissed that you missed all my messages this morning to come early. I had to sit through two whole periods with this load on my mind that I couldn’t get out. And then you finally get here and all your interested in is Zee’s charms, not about what I have to tell you. I may be selfish but I need you right now, Riley.” She leaned forward as if she were defeated so I quickly moved to her side so she could lean on me. She started crying again, this time just loud enough for us to hear.
I lifted her head up and wiped away the black eyeliner trails. “I’m sorry, Ash. You have my full attention.” She sniffled.
“Come on lets go,” she said as the third bell rang, indicating that classes had started. We exited through the side door in the lunchroom.
҉
We chewed on our stolen bag of nibs from the dollar store since neither of us had cash. We usually did stupid little rebellious things like that together. We made our way to the St. Clair River and sat down near the base of the bridge leading from Windsor to Detroit. The water looked very musty today, but still people were fishing in it. I would never eat a fish that swam here, only because the water looks completely rancid and the fish probably had an uncanny disease or something just as raunchy.
I shifted my thoughts back to Ash. She still looked rather sad and I still didn’t know why. She barely spoke on our walk here besides the thank you she gave me when I swiped the bag of nibs; her favorite snack...
“Dad got a transfer,” she said while looking out into the distance. She seemed so far away, but I hadn’t fully registered what she was saying.
“So what does that mean?” I asked, clueless. Taking a handful of nibs, I shoved them in my mouth and chewed unnecessarily hard. My gut was trying to tell me something but I didn’t want to hear it.
Ash looked at me, the wind blowing her hair out of her face. I hadn’t noticed before that she had dark circles under her eyes hinting on her sleepless night. “I’m moving, Riley.” Her lips looked parched when she said this, but still my heart was unwilling to hear it. Deep down I knew what was happening, but I was in denial. Nothing could happen to us, we were inseparable, joined at the hip, one soul in two different bodies. But all the odds were pointing against me; against us.
“I’m sure it’s not going to be too far away. We can still see each other, right?” I asked, hoping she’d smile and say yes, but she didn’t do that. In fact, she did the exact opposite. Ash shook her head, bit her lip to stop the tears from flowing and looked away. She tried to stay strong for me, but her mask was smudged and I saw right through her.
A lump grew in my throat when I asked my next question; I had to know no matter how much I knew it was going to hurt. “Where?” it was all I could say to keep my tears halted in my tear-ducts.
“Paris.” She answered, still looking away. I let the depth of her answer flow though me, feeling all the stabbing pain as it did.
“Paris, France?” I asked, although it was obvious. I held back from asking why, how, when, WHY! and just stayed silent.
“Someone there loves Dad’s work, thinks he’d make a perfect designer in their business. They think he’ll make them more prosperous. And of course he was too quick to say yes before talking to me about it first. I have to go with him. I wish it were any other way but I have nowhere else to stay; you understand don’t you?”
“You can stay with me!” I said in a scratchy, helpless voice. The world was moving on and making changes before my eyes. Changes that I didn’t want to face alone.
“Yeah, that’s a swell idea,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “Then in a week or so when your family gets sick of me free loading all your food and shower time,” she shook her head at the mere thought. “Let’s face it Riley, even you would wish you had more privacy. I can’t do that to you guys.”
I felt like I was begging when I said, “You can’t leave me here alone. You’re my only friend. I can’t talk to Jayson the way I can talk with you. My parents’ won’t mind, honest, they love you! You could get a job and then when you have enough money you could rent an apartment or something. Please don’t go, Ash. Please.” My heart felt like it was being ripped in half for when I looked into her eyes I knew I was going to have to deal with it on my own. “No,” I whispered.
“Yes,” she replied through her tears. I couldn’t hold mine in any longer and began bawling like a baby in her arms. She was comforting me when I should have been the one making her feel better. I should have been the one saying, “We’ll still talk all the time and it will feel like you’ve never left.” But those words came from her, not me; words that I hardly believed to be true.
҉
I hardly remember the walk home with Jayson accept that he was so deep into the story he was telling me about watching the drama class perform their skit and totally mess up, and how funny it was, and that I should have been there. I know he asked me a few times if I was alright, that I looked sick, but I just faked a smile so he wouldn’t worry about me.
The hour walk felt less than ten minutes, and before I knew it I was on my front porch kissing Jayson goodbye.
“I’ll bring your bike back to the shed for you. You should probably take a nap cause you aren’t looking so fresh,” he said while moving my hair back with his hands. I nodded, only because I couldn’t talk. My mouth was too dry from crying. I’m sure he noticed my red eyes and eyeliner stained face, but he didn’t say anything to hint that he did. I have the best boyfriend. “I’ll call you tomorrow to make sure you’re alright, babe.” He kissed my forehead. I turned to open the door but his deep voice stopped me when he said, “Riley.”
“Ya?” I said and turned back. My voice sounded so alien and unlike me.
“I Love you,” he whispered, so sincerely. I managed to smile and then gave him a hug. “I’ll call you alright?” He asked, as if I didn’t want him to bother.
“Please do,” I assured, so that he didn’t think I was upset with him. I hadn’t told him about Ashlynn moving yet, but I wasn’t ready for that conversation; especially not on a walk home from school. This time the butterflies numbed my thoughts instead of leaving me with a tickling sensation, and when I shut the door, I leaned my back against it and slid down to the floor.
No one was home so I let out all the tears I’d been holding back on the way home. I don’t remember going to bed, I don’t even remember what my mother said when she saw me a basket case. It was all a blur. Just one big mess of paint that was blended all together and called art. I was completely and utterly broken.