“So?” Nick asked curiously as he and Riley entered the house and walked straight to the living room, as Riley flopped on couch, looking at Nick in wonderment of what his “so?” meant

“What did you think?” Nick said enthusiastically as he leaned on the side of the door of the living room, eyeing Riley. “Did you like them? What? SAY SOMETHING!” he chuckled

“They’re nice,” Riley sighed while lying on the couch

“That’s it? Just ‘nice’?”

“Yeah, what do you want me to say?” Riley got up walking over to the other corner of the room where Uriel’s cage had been hung, close to the glass door that led to the backyard. “Did you put some food on Uriel’s cage before we left?”

“Yeah…would you forget about Uriel for one second and talk to me?” Nick said somewhat irritated while flopping on the couch himself.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“About my family!”

“What about your family?” Riley stopped fidgeting with Uriel that happily flittered around in his cage singing songs and directly looked at Nick, somewhat baffled.

“Well I went through all the trouble of letting you meet them to show you how much I like you and here you are, keeping your true thoughts on them from me!”

“I told you, they’re nice!”

Nick quickly got up and threw his arms out in the air, “You know what? Forget it! I’m trying to have a simple conversation to my girlfriend about my family and she’s too fucking busy fidgeting with her stupid bird!” and walked out of the room, straight to the kitchen.

Riley followed suit to where Nick headed while retorting out, “What is wrong with you?”

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you the question?” Nick retorted as he stared at Riley coldly yet lovingly. How can one person love someone so much and at the same time, despise them? Nick didn’t know the answer to this and during that time, he couldn’t care any less than he already did.

Riley blankly stared at Nick, as she felt exposed and embarrassed and judged all at the same time. “How could he have been so gullible as to not see what happened?” she asked herself as her heart began to ache immensely. She tried to hold back the tears that she felt dwelling up through the ducts of her eyes. She didn’t want to show weakness in front of him. She didn’t want to give him any more reasons as to think she was and never will be good enough for him.

But the pain wanted to burst out of her and tears wanted to desperately run down her face. Riley closed her eyes and bowed her head as teardrops flowed out of her eyes, followed by the shift of her body running out of the room and out of the house. She needed to get away, though she didn’t know where, all she knew was that she needed to leave.