@fullbrightness asked: it’s not okay! you’re not fine! - riley matthews ! misc angst starters | accepting
its the first time someone’s ever really called him out on it, and of all people it’s someone in his little brothers class. he sighs, almost dramatically, as he tries to think about what to say. it’s not as if she’s a total kid, only a few years younger than he is, but she’s the same age as frankie. and all he ever seems to want to do when talking to frankie and his friends is pretend things are good. as if kids in their early teens need everything to be fine.
“you wouldn’t get it.” it’s not personal, he’s pretty sure no one would get it. not entirely. they’d understand, they’d have ideas of what it’s like, but no one would really get it. not the way he gets it. “i lost important people in the roller-coaster crash.” everyone knows that, it’s become pretty common knowledge at this point. “my girlfriend was one of them but... the other was...” he doesn’t know how to describe jason. best friend didn’t seem to show how much he meant, never felt like enough, but it wasn’t as if he was his boyfriend. they’d both had girlfriends, even if they really acted as if they didn’t.
“he was.. my best friend. more than my best friend.” he shrugs lightly, deciding that it would have to do. he sure wasn’t about to try to explain every detail to someone that probably didn’t really care that much. “it’s just hard not having either of them anymore, you know?” but he’s sure she doesn’t. sure she has no idea. and he’s genuinely glad that she doesn’t know what it’s like. he doesn’t want anyone to know what it’s like. “and i probably could’ve saved them if i tried.. but i didn’t realize they were in danger until it was over..”
head shakes as he realizes just how much he’s telling the girl, puts on a smile as if that’d negate everything that he’d just said. “it’s a long story. it’s just- it’s easier to say it’s okay and i’m fine. it’s better to say it, even.” because the wrong person seeing his emotions would only cause problems. he certainly couldn’t open up like this around his father, and he knows that if he keeps it inside himself twenty four hours a day it’s easier, knows that letting it out for even a second could make it impossible to ever reel it back in. “maybe it’s just a grown up thing.” even if he’s not really a grown up yet, he’s certainly older than her. and to him that’s more than enough. “maybe it’s just how the adult world works.”