They laugh at one another totally consumed by happiness; I stare at them because they are completely unaware of the absence of my laughing. I look at their faces, mortified as their dark humor grows into cruelty. I turn my head in the direction of the victim, she stands there still except for the slight wavering of her eyes. Tears drip from her chin to the floor; they leave trails from her eyes down her face leaving streaks of red. Her makeup is ruined and her hair falls, covering her right eye. She shakes her head violently as she runs off, hands clenched into fists that cover her eyes. I follow after her only knowing where she is because her flip-flops beat against the ground nosily. She climbs into her car and begins to speed off but a stop light restricts her get away. I jump onto my motorcycle and peel out after her; she reaches Main Street before she stops. Her car dies and she hops out, slamming the door. I quickly cut my engine and run up the stairs after her. She screams startled by my presence; she drops her keys fumbling for pepper spray. I raise my hands in the air. “No, don’t.” She stares at me like I had just asked to steal her car. “I…I followed you here…from the party.” She still stared at me with the same look, I pulled off my sunglasses and hood. “Are you okay?” She seemed to settle down but she still held the pepper spray at arms length, I put my sunglasses back on in case she decided to use it. “Yes.” She answered quickly. “Who…who are you?” She asked lowering her arm slightly. “Just some girl.” I say not wanting to get into names and backgrounds. Her arm drops to her side and she wipes away her tears. “You’re that girl from the party, the one that didn’t laugh at me.” I nod. “How come you didn’t laugh at me?” She looked like she was about to cry again. “Because I know the difference.” She shook her head, confused. “What difference?” I look at her through my sunglasses. “The difference between jokes and cruelty.” She looks down before returning her eyes to my sunglasses. “So you followed me to make sure I was okay?” I nod.
“Actually, I followed you to make sure you weren’t going to blow your brains out or drive off a cliff.” She laughs slightly at the joke and I smile. “I’m Riley.” She reaches out to shake my hand. “McKenna.” I say as we shake hands. “Would you like to come in?” She asks and I see the hope in her eyes, but I decline and return to my bike. She gives me her number and she enters her house. I drive off heading south; it felt good to make sure she was alright. When I drop into my bed I have 15 massages asking the same thing. Why did I leave the party? I call each person back and just say I got sick before I drift off into sleep. My dreams are scorched with the image of Riley pointing the pepper spray at me, but sometimes it wasn’t pepper spray but a gun. The dreams don’t scare me, or bother me. My dreams are always too screwed up to affect me much when I wake. But they felt so real this time, even the parts that never happened. Like I get shot, I could actually feel the pain and see the hurt faces of my friends and family. I could see myself through their eyes like always, something I liked to do a lot. But I felt their emotions too. Strange. Riley affected me in ways that were rare to come across. I would have to learn more about this Riley character, I’m sure she’d make a great friend. More civilized than all my other friends. Maybe this would be good for her too, it didn’t seem like her friends were at the party. This would be good for the both of us, I could just feel it.