Nick watched Riley ran as he felt somewhat frozen to the ground he was standing on, until senses came back to him and followed the same trail that Riley took, only to find her walking out of the front door of the house. “Riley, wait!” he called out as he ran after her.

He managed to catch up to her at the front of the lawn while quickly grabbing her arm as to not let her take another step. “Will you wait for just one second?” he said, somewhat out of breath.

“You want to know a little thing about reality, Nick?” Riley burst out as the pain in her voice could be felt in more ways than one. “In reality, guys like you don’t go for girls like me. In reality, girls like me only dream of lifestyle like this. Prior to today, I felt like I left that unfair reality and moved into this fantasy where people, such as yourself, saw people like me by their inner beauty. But today, I felt like someone aggressively snatched me out of this fantasy back to reality. Your mom made me feel extremely small, unimportant, undeserving. And for you to now have seen that, for you to have not even noticed a diminutive part of it, makes me think I don’t deserve to continue on living in this fantasy and just go back to my reality”

“She probably didn’t even notice what she was doing,” Nick reasoned, still not letting go of Riley’s arm. “She’s…I told you how my mom is. She’s very…she’s like that to everyone, even to me! Imagine that, her own son! It’s nothing new, please don’t take it personal!”

Riley wanted to believe Nick’s words but she knew as well as Nick new that his words were nothing but pure lies. “I just need to be alone for a while, now please let go of my arm,” she tugged free and turned her back on Nick and began to walk away.

“You know what your problem is?” Nick called out to her. “Your problem is that because of one misfortune in your life, you think that everyone is out to get you. You think that every person out there all root for you to fall on the ground face flat! Above all, you choose not to trust, and if you can’t do that then this will never work out!”

“One misfortune?” Riley turned back to face Nick, with her face covered in tears; some were tears of pain, while some were tears of anger. “If that’s how you think things are in my life then you don’t really know me at all. For you to believe that, that just goes to show how you have absolutely no business talking to me like you know me because you don’t!”

“Fine, then just…then just fucking go!” Nick screamed out and saw it as his turn to turn his back on RiRiley couldn’t believe how messed things suddenly have become. The pain in her heart seemed to have been banging throughout her entire body. Her heart wanted to run to Nick and begged him never to leave her, but her head wanted to run away and never look back. Between the battle of the head and the heart, Riley listened to her head and began to walk away.

Nick slammed the door behind him as he flopped his entire body weight against the door and closed his eyes in disbelief of the situation he found himself in. He was angry, not at Riley but at himself. He was hurt, not because of Riley but because of the pain he inflicted on his self.

The sound that passed by and by Nick’s ears seemed to have diminished and all he could hear was the deep beating of his own heart and a sudden jerk of uncommon sound that came from outside. “Riley!” he whispered to himself, as he retreated back outside and saw something that made his entire world stopped. ley and began walking back to the house.