Work Text:
frac·ture:
[the design of glass directly before it breaks apart, a collection of smaller; shallower imperfections which make up the whole]
Riley is forged smiles and broken glass and kisses being blown to people she wishes were dead.
In her dreams, she’s already killed them. They are gone in the perfect world she sees. The one where no one can hurt her, where everyone loves her, where it’s fine to live and breathe and be herself. Occasionally, the cheerleader forgets it’s not real. When everyone’s yelling at each other, it’s easy to pinch herself and understand where she is. When they’re gone, it’s harder for the redhead to separate between reality and her future.
There’s so much blood on her hands in her fantasy world that sometimes its absence shocks her when she opens her eyes.
It’s these dreams that fracture her soul into all these sharp edges and broken pieces, the redhead thinks. It must have been. There’s so many cracks now that it’s hard to tell that she could once pass for a perfect pane of glass. It was never good enough, though. If it had been, then they wouldn’t have felt that they could hurt her like they had.
Riley Williams is a wallflower.
Did you know that roses have to have thorns for protection? Isn’t that sad? Riley thinks it’s sad. No one ever asks the flowers how they feel about being picked. No one ever leaves them alone. If they could just… ( leavemeal one ) … maybe there wouldn’t be a need for thorns or knives or glass shards in the first place.
Riley dreams about death and when she wakes up, the blood on her skin (the blood that’s not there, it’s not—) makes her dizzy. The redhead barely makes it to the bathroom to catch herself on the counter before she nearly collapses. In her head, there’s always someone lying dead in the shower. It makes her flinch entering the room.
Do you want to settle?
The body of Chess or Farrah or maybe Kate (it’s hard to remember who died each night when everything blurs together) asks her from the corner of her mind.
“Stop it.” Riley whirls around, but there’s no one in there except the echo of something that hasn’t happened yet. “P-pl… please…” The stutter still comes out. It takes a lot of work to speak perfectly, and sometimes the weight of that is too much. “Please, just l-leave me… a-alone… stop…. I don’t want…”
Do you want to settle?
Whoever it is who has died in her dreams always asks her this when she awakens. It’s the only thing the ghosts (not ghosts, no one has died yet, no one has to die) seem to know how to say. With her hands pale clutching the bathroom counter, Riley doesn’t even know what they’re talking about.
“Go… away…!” The redhead hurls the nearest object at the empty shower. It hits the porcelain tile and shatters into a million pieces.
Or do you want to win?
She’ll have to clean that up. Someone at the sleepover tomorrow night might need to use Riley’s bathroom, and it wouldn’t do for someone to cut themselves on shards of what might have been a soap dish, what might have been her soul, just at the start of the season.
Sometimes, it feels as if the redhead is haunted by ghosts who aren’t yet dead.
splin·ter:
[a miniscule piece of glass which is chipped away from larger fragment; pieces lost that are unnoticed until attempting to put the whole back together]
Chess is forced smiles and empty pill bottles and the sun that the clouds block out too easily.
The door doesn’t slam as Kate runs out with her bag, which is at least something of a relief. Her friend is quick to follow her, hoping to placate the headstrong girl. In a way, Riley is grateful (for more time) for this. Mattie is already shaking so badly from the fight that a loud noise is the last thing any of them need right now. From across the room, Cairo is attempting to make eye contact with her, but Riley refuses to turn in that direction. Looking towards the door feels like a failure, and it’s too soon for her to be told that she’s messed up again.
Even if no one actually says it, the redhead knows. She always knows what they’re thinking about her. She always knows who they’re going to turn on when things turn nasty, who they’re going to blame. No one ever listens to her when she speaks because they’re too busy talking over her to care about what she has to say.
No one ever listens to Riley Williams.
The redhead’s shaking as badly as the freshman is under her own clothes, but she knows how to hide it better by now.
Is she a bad person for hoping that neither of them come back…? Riley doesn’t know anymore. It’s probably better to hope they drive off than to think about…
… no. Enough. Not yet.
Chess and Kate are talented, too. That’s what hurts Riley the most. If they would just get their acts together… but they’re both so fucking annoying to be around right now. The two of them are too destructive around each other. They’re fools for not seeing it, or maybe for seeing it and still choosing to pretend they’re innocent anyway.
One doesn’t realize how scared the other is of losing her. The other doesn’t realize how scared one is that she’s already gone.
All Riley thinks is that it’s ridiculous.
The two of them are so… codependent... (some people say that about Cairo and—) that it makes her stomach turn. She’s tired of it. Her team is being poisoned because Kate refuses to admit that you can love someone while recognizing their flaws. Her team is being hurt because Chess acts like everything is fine instead of trying to talk about what’s wrong. Why don’t the two of them understand each other? If they would just… would just talk… would just fix it, then the captain wouldn’t have to intervene in such a way. They should be able to solve their own problems, but they can’t, they can’t, they can’t.
So Riley will have to do it for them, as she has everything else on this god forsaken team.
No one can fault her for this. Surely, the captain has to make choices. Chess and Kate will tear the Tigers and themselves apart. No matter what happens between them, it will only alienate themselves further from the rest of the squad. It’s a shame about the pills, it’s a shame about the accident, Riley thinks. Her brain plays through her plan like it’s something akin to a children’s rhyme. The redhead finds herself in the kitchen humming, her hand shoving the knife into her jacket before she realizes it. It’s a shame, it’s a shame, it’s a shame…
Does it have to be like this?
Yes. Because if she doesn’t… if it isn’t… if she doesn’t— well, Riley will continue being blamed for them. So yes, yes, yes, already. It has to be like this. It has to be today. The captain knows that if she freezes now, today, she may never be able to get herself back. The feeling when she panics is like drowning. Sometimes Cairo is there and she helps, but sometimes her friend doesn’t see, doesn’t understand, and she won’t let these girls be the death of her.
Riley Williams is a wallflower.
You are supposed to water flowers, but not so much that they drown. You water them to keep them alive. You water them, you water them, you water—
The knife in her hand glints in the dim moonlight. It feels right in her hands, it feels wrong in her heart. The dogs next door start barking as she passes. The redhead hears Chess get up from the bench to scope out the source of the noise. Riley steps out from her vantage point, the knife held just out of sight behind her. She’s quiet in the way only someone familiar with the location is for a few steps closer, before she trips up and cracks a twing beneath her shoes. The shorter girl whirls around in an instant, but her face momentarily relaxes when she sees Riley.
Chess thinks that her captain is her friend.
(I’ll give you someone to blame if you want one so badly. I’ll give you someone to hate if that’s what it takes.)
Then the gymnast sees the knife.
(If this is what winning costs, I’ll pay it. I’ll make you pay it.)
There's terror in Chess's eyes. Huh. Riley hadn’t realized that she was a person you could be afraid of.
In another world, the cheer captain doesn’t have the knife at all. In another world, she drops it and kicks it behind her before the other girl spots her. Another, Kate comes back in and convinces Chess to leave before Riley can pull the knife out. Another, they’d never come here in the first place.
It’s not this world. It’s not this time.
The girl by the bench doesn’t respond like she should. It seems as if the moment has frozen. Chess hasn’t even screamed yet. She’s just standing there, with this confused sort of fear in her face. Riley hates it. In this moment, Riley hates Chess, too.
(Stop looking at me like that. Stop looking at me like you’re worried about me. Stop it, stop it, stop it. )
“R-Riley…?” There’s so much emotion in the girl with the braid’s voice that Riley thinks she somehow hurts her more than the knife would have. “What are you…? Why are you—”
(Stop it. Stop talking, stop asking questions, stop telling lies. Stop it, stop it, stopitstopit .)
The redhead lunges forward, hurling herself towards the cornered girl. Chess is dazed, stoned, and Riley has the advantage of being unexpected. No one in the house would be able to hear or see them. The other girl, who her attacker can’t decide whether she’s stupid or brave or maybe just dazed from medication, doesn’t run away. The knife connects with the girl’s chest. As it pierces her, Chess screams. The sound is not nearly as loud as Riley had expected, and there’s only one little gasp when she takes the knife out. The knife makes a few more plunges, just in case. Riley isn’t aiming. Her eyes are closed.
It's happening too slowly, it’s all going too fast. Why doesn’t she die, already? Why didn’t she die then, when she dropped Farrah? Why didn’t someone else take care of her so it doesn’t always have to be Riley, Riley, Riley…?
After a minute, the cheerleader opens her eyes. As quickly as she can, she backs away from the bench. Her stomach is turning more cartwheels than the team does in their routine. The brunette has fallen onto her side, soaking the bench with a red color.
Riley thinks she’s going to be sick. She thinks she’s going to cry or maybe burst into song. It feels like her dream, and for a moment, the girl is so disconnected from reality that she barely remembers the need to hide. The stickiness of the knife brings her back to reality. She wraps it in a kitchen towel that she brought and then shoves it as far down in her jacket pocket as it can go. As the redhead backs away from the bench, she focuses on the rungs. Chess’s blood has covered the wooden seat.
That’s going to be hard to wash out.
The thought doesn't seem to be quite right, after everything, but Riley doesn't dwell on it. She thinks she's going to be sick.
crack:
[the most noticeable sign of imperfection in a pane of glass; the first idea called to mind when picturing a fault line]
Farrah is red solo cups and breaking curfew and messages that everyone leaves on read.
Killing her won’t be as hard as killing Chess. No one likes Farrah. No one likes the poor girl, who’s too drunk to notice she’s throwing her life away.
The sophomore is dying, but she thinks no one notices.
Riley notices.
The knife is cold in the captain’s hand, but not as frigid as it was before. It pulses, familiar, as if it took the beat of Chess’s heart when it cut her down. This one won’t be as hard, the redhead consoles herself. Everyone had liked Chess enough, herself included. If she could have, Riley would have taken Kate out first, if only to stop the younger girl’s know-it-all attitude. Unfortunately, as insufferable as the junior could be, she wasn’t the one that dropped someone. Chess had to go first. Riley expected Kate to see herself off the team, though, soon enough.
(I didn’t want this, okay? I didn’t want her to die. I didn’t want anyone to die. But no one’s listening to me, no one’s listening, you have to listen to me—)
There’s no Kate to be mad at her for Farrah’s fate. Sure, Annleigh might put on a show and cry, but it wouldn’t be real. If it was real, Farrah wouldn’t be drunk in the bathroom right now and the redhead wouldn’t have to kill her flier. If it was real, there would be no need for this. If people could just solve their problems on their own without Riley, Riley, Riley…
For just a moment, the girl pauses outside the bathroom door. Perhaps Farrah’s already dead in there. Perhaps she drank so much that she just laid down and gave up, right there on the bathroom floor. Riley couldn’t say she’d blame the younger girl for it. It’s not as if the thought of wanting to drown doesn’t get to the cheer captain, too. Riley’s wasted years of her life being sad, being pathetic, being a wallflower. It didn’t get her anything except blame.
Now, the redhead wants to be angry.
The sophomore, unlike Riley, has wasted years of her life pretending to be angry when everyone knows that she’s simply sad. Farrah and Riley are the same in a way, except one of them has fallen already and the other is learning how to fly.
The child in the bathroom is the chime of a clock that everyone can hear but no one pays attention to. She is the tick-tocking of each minute passing by, slowly moving forward in time as no one in particular bothers to notice. Farrah is the idea that things stop growing, stop changing, stop thriving without being nurtured.
Farrah would drink herself to death soon, anyway. It’s not worth trying to save her. Her blood will wash out of the shower in a way the alcohol wouldn’t. Anger, Farrah’s anger, will stain and soil everything the team has worked for. This has to be done. Riley has to do it, too, because she has to do everything to keep this team thriving, apparently.
Poor, little Farrah. Riley feels sorry for her in a way that almost sends her spiraling. The world didn’t have to be like this. The world is cruel, but it could have been kind. There are worlds where it was, worlds where it will be.
This is not that world, however, and Riley did not make Farrah what she is now. The captain has a duty to purge failure, doesn’t she? Surely, this is only logical.
Chess should have dropped her harder, spared her this fate. If she’d died there, no one would have made fun of them. Right? Sure, it would have been sad… but it would have been better, too. Wouldn’t it, wouldn’t it, wouldn’t it? Surely, the brunette would have rather died a martyr. If Riley kills her now, she’ll just be poor, little Farrah. The girl who no one bothered to come save.
Chess would have done her a favor, finishing it then. Who cares about Far- (I do. I’m her friend.)
The redhead wants to scream that she cares, she cares about Farrah, alone and afraid… but she wants to win more. She needs to win more , because winning is like breathing to her. Riley has been condemned for so much that she feels guilty for taking in air, for staying alive. If she can win here with the Tigers, maybe it won’t feel so bad. If she can win here, maybe it will feel like she deserves to continue existing.
When she enters the bathroom, Farrah looks sad. This is unexpected. The smaller girl is never openly sad, only angry. The alcohol makes her that way. Farrah seems surprised at Riley’s presence even before she notices the knife. Almost as if she was expecting, or maybe hoping, for someone else. Another thing that the captain has gotten wrong. Doesn’t anyone want Riley’s help anymore? Doesn’t anyone see how hard she works to help? Why doesn’t Farrah beg with her like she does pointlessly with her step-sister?
“I’m sorry, I messed up—” The words die in the younger girl’s throat as the redhead brings out the knife. It’s still bloody. Why bother to wash it when this girl’s blood was just going to stain it again? Why bother to separate between the two? Neither Chess nor Farrah are clean. Neither Chess nor Farrah deserved to be saved, deserved to be spared.
(Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you and maybe I won’t. Tell me I need you. Tell me why the world needs you and maybe it will, god damn it, Farrah. Tell me, tell me, tell me tellmetell metellmete llmetellme— )
The smaller figure backs towards the shower, screaming. Stupid girl. Why doesn’t she run to the door? Why doesn’t she try to fight back? Why doesn’t she do something besides scream for help that she knows isn’t coming?
(Tell me you’re worth something. Anything. Please .)
Unlike Chess, who was always so reasonable, Farrah doesn’t speak at all. She just screams. Riley lunges, stabbing somewhere that might be near the heart. There was no time to aim. The redhead just wanted the screaming to stop. It’s not enough, though. Farrah’s clearly still alive enough to yell. The captain lunges again (let’s practice it one more time, guys! Again, again, again!).
In another world, Riley had put the knife away and collapsed before anything happened. In another world, Farrah grabbed it from her and calmed her down. In another, Riley is the one stabbed in the shower. Another, Farrah was dead before Riley entered the bathroom. The redhead sees them all, all the possibilities, just as she had before. All the things that might have been. No one else seems to see them. Perhaps that is why no one else needs to win like Riley does. She knows what happens if they let the tumor grow.
It’s not this world. It’s not this time.
(Stop screaming and say something, god dammit . Say something. )
Farrah keeps crying for help and Riley yells, too, though the sound doesn’t leave her head. It’s pointless, doesn’t she know? No one is listening to either of them. They’re too busy in their own little world to care about poor, little Farrah, who will die alone on this bathroom floor.
Eventually, the child (she is barely more than that, barely more than a child although she tries to pretend she’s older) collapses backwards into the shower, staining the tile a red color that matches Riley’s hair. The thud of her body shakes the cheerleader back into reality. That’s enough (good work, team, that’s enough for today!). There’s muffled noises from the injured girl as the cheer captain washes off the blood on her knife in the sink next to the shower. The curtain rustles. Does she stab her again? Riley turns to do so, but catches sight of herself in the mirror. The redhead is surprised at how little blood is on her.
She’s been careful, so very careful.
(I can feel it, though. It isn’t washing off, it isn’t going away, it isn’t—)
When Riley pulls back the curtain again, there’s even more blood covering the walls and floor, but Farrah no longer seems to be breathing. That’s good. The captain gags, almost vomiting. She hadn’t stayed to see what Chess looked like. She hadn’t wanted to know.
Farrah looks smaller in death. Riley turns back to wash the knife off and wipes her fingerprints off. Is it insensitive to be doing this in front of Farrah’s corpse? The cheerleader doesn’t really know the etiquette of murders.
She makes the mistake of looking in the mirror again. (oh god, oh god, oh god, there’s so much blood…)
Do you want to settle or do you want to win?
Riley Williams wants to win, but no one had told her what that would cost her.
“I-I-I…” Once again, the redhead is paralyzed with the weight of the world. “I need to…” Call someone. Go. Give herself an alibi. Go. Go. Go. The body that had been Farrah doesn’t answer.
The cheerleader doesn’t know why she was expecting her to.
fis·sure:
[a long, narrow crack from which other imperfections branch off of; particularly a rupture which divides the glass into two separate wholes]
Cairo is too loud music and cracked phone screens and makeup that never slips out of place.
Mattie is an innocent girl.
The redhead hears herself say it as if it’s a stranger. “So are you, Riley.” Her friend is ready with a response as quickly as Riley was to object to the plan. The captain doesn’t understand. Why is her friend being like this? The way she’s acting is only drawing suspicion onto her, suspicion that Riley doesn’t want there. Cairo isn’t supposed to take the blame for her. Cairo isn’t supposed to get in trouble. Cairo is supposed to be better than her.
(There’s a knife in my pocket, Cai.)
It’s almost too easy to frame the freshman for it all. Cairo suggests what they have to do before anyone has even processed it. Dimly, Riley wonders if Cairo was afraid that she’d be suspected of the crime out of the people here. Her best friend certainly has the most enemies. Kate and Annleigh are probably blaming her already, and it wouldn’t take much to convince Reese of the prom princess’s guilt.
(I wouldn’t have let that happen, Cairo. I wouldn’t have let them—)
But in her head, the knife in her pocket is still dripping with blood, and dream Riley doesn’t draw the line at friendship when she’s making a better team. It makes her head spin. As awful as… she is… now, because she must be with two murders under her belt and a framing in the process, she wouldn’t hurt Cairo. … but she guesses she is, anyway. If Cairo knew, if Cairo found out… maybe Riley shouldn’t have done this.
(I swear, Cairo, I never meant for you to be involved here. I never meant for you to be hurt. I never meant, please, I never meant…)
Nausea threatens to overtake the girl, but there’s too many corpses occupying the bathroom at the moment, so Riley chokes the bile down.
flash·point:
[the exact moment in which glass shatters; the application of the specific pressure needed in order to ignite the air]
Riley is action. Action instead of hesitation. She is a plan being carried out, a war being fought, and a battle being won. She is the undeniable thirst for movement, for change, that humans have. A verb in a sea full of nouns.
They are going to hate her when they find out, but frankly, Riley isn’t sure she cares anymore. In the months that have passed, she’s not sure she cares about anything. What good is one person, really? What good were Chess and Farrah, broken as they were? They didn’t matter. They didn’t . Matter . Alright?!
Riley Williams is the one who matters.
Behind the thinly-veiled contempt, behind the forced cheer, behind the smiles she grants them when they do what she wants, Riley cares nothing for the other Tigers. (That’s not true, that’s not true, that’s not true.) They are all replaceable to her. (There’s a knife in my pocket.)
If they were supposed to mean more to her than they do, more to her than Nationals, more to her than winning … they don’t anymore. The redhead won’t scream and cry and pretend she’s sorry. (I’m sorry, Cairo.) She did what she had to do to fix the team. That’s what captains do, alright? That’s what they’re for. Sometimes, they have to make sacrifices.
That night, Kate clutched Chess’s corpse like she hadn’t just screamed at her. That night, Annleigh held onto Farrah’s bloodied hands and pretended that she loved her. It was a joke, it was a scam, it was a lie, and Riley was the only one who seemed to notice. She is still the only one who seems to care in the way that they’re supposed to. Even now, with the blood and the glass and the shattered dreams, everyone is still thinking about themselves and not the team.
It’s not fair.
It’s not fair that Riley is the one who will be stared at, scrutinized, blamed if she cracks because of this. Cairo was quick to remind her of that. People can pretend it’s the Tigers as a whole, but they know who’s in charge. Riley knows who they will be looking at, who they will be mocking, if this fails. She is trying to make them better, and no one fucking cares. Why doesn’t anyone besides her care ?!
The redhead refuses to spend her life tearing herself apart because no one else around her is bothering to keep themselves together.
…
“Can… can I have the key?”
…
Riley will make them care, if she has to. She’ll do it, or so help her, she’ll kill them one by one. This is what they deserve for failing her. This is what they deserve for shoving their faults onto her again.
(Again! Again! Again!)
“...Riley…” Cairo is the only one meeting her eyes. She must have known, then. She must have figured it out at some point over the past few weeks and put on the little show of blaming everyone else to take the blame off of Riley. Maybe she feels guilty for suspecting her friend or maybe she’s simply pretending not to believe it. The redhead doesn’t know. She was never good at understanding what her friend thought.
(There’s still a knife in my pocket, Cai. I know you know it’s there. Just… just ask me about it. Tell them you know. Don’t make me do it this way. D-Don’t make me hurt you, too…)
Cairo has always deserved better than her.
(Don’t ask for the keys. Ask for the knife. Take it away, take it away, I don’t want to do this anymore, pl-please…)
“We’ll… come right back, Riley… just…” Their voices are soft, soothing. It takes the cheerleader a second to realize that they’re trying to appease her. Trick her? Or is that genuine concern? They’re afraid for her, or maybe because of her. Riley can’t tell. Certainly, they suspect she’s having a breakdown. It’s not as if anyone can blame her. She lives in the house where three of her peers were slaughtered, after all. It’s not too late to fix this. It’s not too late to relax and let them go. It’s not too late to try to put the pieces back together. They don’t know yet.
It feels like the end, but it can’t be. The captain still hasn’t won. She hasn’t won because they still want the key, they still want to leave the team, they still want to leave her .
Riley is forced smiles again, meeting her best friend’s blank eyes with her own. Cairo is looking at her as if she’s never seen her before. This isn’t what the captain wanted. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Everything she did was supposed to make things better. This was supposed to fix the team. Why are they looking at her like she’s crazy? Riley Williams is not crazy. She’s a Phoenix, she’s a Tiger, she’s a winner.
But it’s checkmate, it's party's end, it’s game over. She was supposed to win, god d amnit this isn’t right this wasn’t supposed to happen this isn’t—
…
Riley should really give them the key.
..........................
This can all be fine if she hands it over now. She can just pretend she hadn’t realized it was locked, claim that all the exhaustion got to her. No one would know anything else. They’ve wasted countless minutes debating whether Kate or Cairo was the most likely, but no one’s ever turned on the redhead. Her best friend made sure of that, the captain knows. No one’s ever blamed shy, harmless Riley, despite the fact that she is the only one without a god damn alibi if they just stopped and thought about it. This is perhaps the only thing that Riley really has done wrong, and it’s the only thing they haven’t yet begun to blame her for.
How ironic.
She worked so hard to become someone who mattered to the team, to prove herself as captain, and most don’t even consider her capable enough to be a suspect. It’s almost insulting. More than anything, it hurts. It hurts like an overdose, a hangover, a stab wound, all at once. What’s worse is the way Cairo looks at her without expression. (You know, don’t you? How long have you known?) Why doesn’t Cai tell everyone? Riley doesn’t understand and that hurts the most. She doesn’t understand what’s wrong here, why Cairo’s looking at her this way. She did what she had to do, what no one else was willing to do.
It’s not the doctor’s job to placate the cancer. It’s their job to cut it out. It was Riley’s job to cut them out, alright? Alright?!
If Riley does not confess, Cairo will continue pinning the blame on the others. If she doesn’t confess, Cairo will look away and continue lying for a murderer. That’s what she’s always done. Protect her, even if it meant doing something wrong. There’s a part of her best friend that will never truly face the facts, that will keep running from the truth, as long as the redhead continues to hide it herself. If she takes out the key, everything will be fine. They’ll continue on, they’ll win Regionals…
… and Riley will have to live with the fact that she ruined the only person here she loves…
(No one said it would be like this. You lied, god damn it, you said I lied, you said, said, said. You said I would you said do this and mak e yourself matter you said you said yousaidyousaidyousaidyou saidyousaidyousaIDYOUSAID YOULIED— )
This is the end, but it isn’t the end Riley wanted. She tried so hard to matter to everyone that she had forgotten about the only person who she was important to.
You got what you wanted, didn’t you? Now you know who cared.
(I’m sor—, I… Cairo. I’m so, so s—)
Riley Williams takes her hand out of her jacket pocket. There’s a knife where the keys should be.