Riley
"“It was really something out of a movie,” she told me, describing the sunset and the music and the kissing. I thought about killing him with my mom’s pocket knife. I could slit his throat open or stab him clean through the heart."
by 
by Riley’s boyfriend, Mac, was two years older than us. He worked at his dad’s gas station in the front of our neighborhood and gave us free packs of gum and strawberry Cow Tales. His hair was long, down to his mid-back, and he had a big gap between his two front teeth like Michael Strahan. Riley and I had known him since elementary school, when he stuck a pencil so far up his nose that the ambulance had to come, but we’d never really talked to him.
They started hanging out in February of our sophomore year. Riley didn’t tell me until April, when they’d already had sex in her pool.
“It was really something out of a movie,” she told me, describing the sunset and the music and the kissing. I thought about killing him with my mom’s pocket knife. I could slit his throat open or stab him clean through the heart.
Our last day of classes was the 30th of May. The air was dense and hot. It was raining. I drove Riley home in my mom’s Honda Accord.
“Have you seen Lolita?” she asked. She put her feet up on the dashboard. Her toenails were painted bright red. I remembered an article I’d read in a magazine about how red nail polish meant you were easy and black meant you weren’t looking to date. I think blue meant you were a virgin. My nails were always blue.
“No,” I told her. “Why?”
“I’ve always thought that house looked like Lo’s,” she said. She pointed to a colonial-looking home with big oak trees out front. I nodded even though I didn’t know what she was talking about and pulled into her driveway. We ran through the side gate and dove into her pool with our clothes on.
“I feel older,” she told me. She was struggling to keep her head above the water, and I thought the weight of her jeans might make her drown. She swam to the side.
“Really?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “I feel like a woman now.” She looked up at the clouds, and I splashed her in the face.
“Oh, shut up,” I said. We were laughing, but I was angry. I didn’t want to be a woman, not now or ever. I wanted to be barely sixteen and pretty and small.
Riley got a job at the gas station in June, so we couldn’t spend full days together anymore. Instead, we had sleepovers and drank gas-station beer in her closet and kissed each other on the mouth.
“This isn’t weird,” she said to me once. “We’re drunk.”
“Yeah, I know,” I told her. The room was spinning even though I was sitting down. I thought about the beach, about swimming and waves. I thought about riptides.
“Don’t tell Mac,” she said. “He’ll hate me.”
“I won’t,” I said.
“And my parents won’t know,” she told me. “About the beer, I mean. They won’t even notice.”
When they did notice the crushed up cans in the trash and the yeasty smell of Riley’s bedroom, she denied it. She said it must have been her brother because he is sleazy and gross and doesn’t have a job and hangs out with nineteen-year-olds even though he’s twenty-four. She got her phone taken away for three days.
“You’re lucky, Riley,” I told her. I was wearing one of her dresses. Her clothes were so much better than mine. “My mom would have locked me in my room for months. I probably wouldn’t have been able to leave ‘til school started.”
She told me it was stupid regardless and that she didn’t understand why her parents cared so much because she was a grown adult and her brain was almost totally developed.
I didn’t agree with her. I didn’t think her brain was close to developed because if it was, she wouldn’t have been fucking Mac in her backyard pool.
Sometimes, when I knew Riley would be working alone, I’d make up a reason to visit her. I would buy a can of soda or Funyuns or fruit-flavored Mentos. I’d stay until another customer came in and then walk back home. One time, I asked Riley to sell me a box of condoms from the wall behind her.
“What are you gonna use these for?” she asked. I felt embarrassed. I had no use for them, and I knew that.
“Same as you,” I said. I stared at my shoes.
“Okay,” she told me. “Cash or card?”
On July 7th, Riley called me and said that she needed my help with something. Her voice was shaky and low. I thought really hard about what it could be.
“Do you have any plans?” she asked.
“No,” I told her.
“Thank God,” she said.
When I got to her house, she gave me an address and told me to drive. Her eyes were really red, and her face looked taut and swollen. She was almost slurring her words. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me she was pregnant. I didn’t say anything, but I remember feeling hot.
“Obviously it’s Mac’s, but I can’t tell him,” she said. She sounded like a baby.
“I found out last week and made the appointment three days ago.” She was spitting, and snot was spilling out of her nose. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. I thought about how she had only just called me this morning. I wondered what she would have done if I was busy and why she assumed I wouldn’t be.
The air in the waiting room was thick. They had fans in all the windows, and the doors were propped open. I read three trashy magazines while I waited and learned about a reboot of a TV show my mom used to watch. I texted her about it.
Riley and I didn’t spend much time alone after that. She was always with Mac, even when she worked. Sometimes I would go over to her house and just sit there while they made out on her bed. Mac would bring us stolen beer, and I would pretend to drink it.
“Hey, Mac,” I said once. I was sitting on Riley’s floor, and they were laying on top of one another on her bed. I remember thinking that it was the first time I’d ever actually said his name. Jaws was playing.
“Yeah?” he asked, pulling away from Riley’s face.
“Where are you going to college?” I asked, popping my gum. I knew the answer, but I wanted him to say it, and I wanted Riley to hear.
“Oh,” he said. “I’m not going. I’m just gonna keep working for a little while. College feels too grown-up.”
“Oh,” I said. Riley looked pissed.
“Yeah, but you might go next year,” she said.
“Right?” she asked when he didn’t respond.
“Yeah, sure,” he said, kissing her again. I wanted to throw them both out of Riley’s window. I thought that I could do it. I imagined them sinking deep down, into the bottom of her pool.
“Thank God you don’t have a baby to take care of,” I said, staring at the wall.
“What?” he asked.
“Oh,” I said. “Nothing. I’m gonna go.” I picked up my things and threw my can in the trash. Riley’s face was sour and pale. I shut the door hard and walked back home.
Two weeks before school started, I decided to go to the gas station. I hadn’t seen Riley since the Jaws incident, and I hadn’t visited her at work in weeks.
When I walked in, I headed straight for the refrigerators. There was music playing over the speakers, some man singing about flowers or sun or something. His voice was scratchy, and I didn’t like it. I picked up a can of bright green ginger ale and walked to the front to pay.
Mac was at the counter when I got there. I remember feeling surprised and then angry with myself for assuming he’d be Riley. His right hand was clenched into a fist.
“This all?” he asked. He wasn’t looking at me. The song skipped a bit and then changed altogether. I realized that, had Riley been working, I would have recognized the music.
“Yeah,” I told him. I handed him a five-dollar bill. He laughed.
“Just take it,” he said.
“It’s not your company,” I told him. “That’s stealing.”
“I don’t care. Just take the can,” he said. His hair was tied back into a bun and his hat was on backwards. I thought that he looked crazy.
“I don’t want things from you, Mac. I don’t want anything from you,” I told him. I was angry. It felt sudden. I shoved the bill into his hand and reached for the drink. He moved around the counter and grabbed my arm.
“You’re such a fucking bitch, you know that?” he screamed. I was crying now and everything was blurry and wet. I looked out the window at the street. I wanted someone to kick in the door. I wanted Riley to see. I wanted Riley to save me. Mac grabbed my face with his hand and jerked it up.
“Take your money and your fucking drink and leave,” he yelled. A bit of saliva flew from his mouth onto mine.
“Get off me,” I said. I sounded like I was choking and realized that I was. Mac’s grip was tight around my throat. He pushed me hard against the wall.
“Fucking leave, then,” he yelled. I pushed him off me and ran out the door. The air smelled like bug spray, and there was an old wine bottle on the ground. I thought about smashing it over Mac’s head and stabbing him with a broken piece. I walked home instead.
The next day, I brought a bag of Riley’s clothes to her house. She wasn’t there, so I dumped them out onto a porch chair and went through the side gate to her pool. The whole bottom was green, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t been in since May. I took off my clothes and slipped in. I swam around in circles until I was bored and then imagined having sex with Riley in the far right corner. I imagined kissing her like I used to in the closet with the beer. In my mind, Riley tasted minty, like gum.
Abby Henry is a writer based in North Carolina. She is currently pursuing an MA in Literary Studies at Appalachian State University. You can find her @abbyhenryy on Instagram.
