#sunshineisms

You’re not good enough. the thought that she pushed into her own mind continued to flood her thoughts. you’ll never be good enough. all of her friends are talented. talented at everything artistic or academic or anything to do with sports, they were all good at something. riley was never enough, no matter how many times she was told so, even by herself. deep down inside she knew she was a clumsy, talentless nothing, who sat around all day doing what? smiling herself to death? it that the most talented she got?

her hands covered her face, as she knelt beside her bed, her fingers just lightly tugging at her hair, as if to tell herself to stop thinking like this. to be happy, like always. she made sure that if someone were to open her door, they wouldn’t be able to see her, because the last thing she needed was someone finding her crying for a foolish reason.

but what she hadn’t considered was her window.

catching sight of her best friend, she instantly stopped herself from shaking, wiping at her eyes and sniffling. “M– Maya–! You’re here.. Wh– what are you doing here?” she weakly smiled, scratching at her arms, before clenching her fists behind her back.

“Hey chickadee!” Contrastingly, catching Riley in the window had a smile painted to Maya’s face.  "Decided to come over! Shawn’s in town and my mom has the day off, so you know what that means.”  Maya rolled her eyes.  It was a date day.  Normal couples had date nights, but since her mother and Shawn didn’t see each other incredibly often because of Shawn’s line of work, they had fallen into the habit of taking date days, hanging out whenever they could.  It wasn’t a huge thing - Maya was always invited along, in the rare case that she wanted to go.  But it was a rare case.  As supportive as Maya was for the two of them, both to Shawn for picking her mother, and to her mother for taking an interest in Shawn, she had little desire to spend an entire day with them being all cutesy together.  Sometimes she’d tag along and it was never too bad, but she wanted them to be able to have their alone time.  “Didn’t feel like spending the day by myself, you know, as awesomeas I-”

It was then that she took notice, only halfway into the room, of her best friend’s face.  Her own smile dropped.  “Hey.”  Concern filled that one word.  Maya made quick work of crawling the rest of the way through the window and onto the window seat.  “What’s the matter, what happened?”

a grin grew on her features as the bus touched down. it seemed only yesterday that she was on that bus, experiencing the wonder that was sky high for the first time. (or so she thought - never in her wildest dreams had she imagined she and her merry band of misfit friends that she adored a lot had to stand against and stand up to royal pain.)

one by one the new kids got off the bus and ambled towards the stone steps where she stood, leaning on the side with one leg up and arms crossed, wearing a leather jacket and a choker with studs around her neck.

“’sup, nerds! the name’s magenta queen, you don’t look me in the eyes.” her brown eyes were hardened, sure, but behind that hardness laid something akin to kindness; she knew what it was like, being a newbie. supple lips slowly curved into a grin that showed off pearly whites. 

“nah, i’m just kidding. you can look at me.” she cleared her throat. “welcome to sky high. these four years will be the best and worst of your life. i’m just going to go through the rules real quick with you all and then i’m gonna walk your butts to power placement. heads up, nerds: you show off your powers in front of the class. now, before i start with the rules...are there any burning questions?” 

Morotia hadn’t had the best day. and apparently riley could tell,    probably from the rare frown that was written across her face.    when she was pulled into a hug, the brunette laid her head down    on her sister’s shoulder and took a deep breath.

“Why do we have to feel things, Riley?”

Riley sighed as she pulled her sister closer. She could tell as soon as she walked into their room that something was wrong, and that Morotia wouldn’t tell her anything either. “Because that’s part of growing up” she sighed as she hugged her sister a little tighter, “But at least we can do this together?