The Problem with Riley

Riley Somers was in her room, angry at the world. She always got her way and got what she wanted, no matter what. No one ever argued with her, no one ever considered crossing her. No one ever got in her way. No girl ever tried to pick a fight with her, she was so powerful and all the guys were bending over backwards to please her. She didn't realize that was her horrible, inflated ego talking.

Her room was completely pink, from floor board to the ceiling, and was adorned with lacey frills and flowering patterns. She had even a pink pom-pom teddy on her bed, and a pom-pom dog, and a rabbit… all sorts of pom-pom animals, except a cat. When her father had gotten her the cat, she had thrown a fit and he had gone back and gotten her two more. Cats were horrible things… expesully when they came in the form of other girls.

A frown came to Riley's face as she thought about Kitty Pryde. That girl was so happy, but that girl was plainer then she, not to mention it was Riley's dad who was so rich that he could afford half of the town. Kitty's dad was just regular rich, middle class possibly. Also, Riley was the one who had friends at the school, not the pitiful little squirt. Riley then sat up and posed in her mirror.

She smiled at the curves in her body, her hips, even her chest. She had tons of things that Kitty didn't have and she didn't have something that Kitty had, which was a very flat chest. What boy wouldn't go for her instead of the little worm of a girl who was more a spineless worm then a cat? She remembered the first time they had met.

…

Riley had been sitting with her best friend Riley… no, her name was Amy, but their names ended the same, so Riley had called her Riley up until Kindergarten when she found out that Amy didn't deserve to be called by her name, but she would never tell her friend that. Kitty had come in to the Kindergarten class with her mother and father, making Riley mad.

This was because what child came to school with their parents. Riley went to school with Amy's parents because her parents said they had things to do. Riley didn't know they were getting a divorce. Of course, Riley still didn't know what a divorce was, but it could be said that her little, supposedly non existent sister did.

Seeing the girl come in with her parents was annoying. So was the fact that she was dressed very much unlike Riley, the girl was dressed in cute dresses that weren't entirely pink. Riley wondered what parent would dress their daughters in anything but pink… later on with her mother and sister living apart the way that they did, she found that her mother let her little sister dress as a boy, of all things. Riley figured it was to make her father mad or something.

But anyways, here was this girl, all dressed nice a pretty and so not like Riley. The girl was brought over to where Riley was sitting with her friend and the teacher introduced them. "Riley, Amy… this is Kitty. Please play nice with her. I am going to continue to great other students and parents."

"Hi! My name is Kitty!" Kitty said, a smile on her face, seeming excited about starting school.

"No… your names Riley," Riley commented, giving her name to the girl, as she did with everybody.

"No… my name is Kitty. Riley is a boy's name," the little girl stated, frowning at Riley in confusion. Riley blew out her cheeks and held her breath.

Amy saw this and intervened like she always did, to pacify Riley. "No… it's a girl name. My name is Riley. Her name is Riley. Thus your name is Riley too."

"No!" the little girl cried. "My name is KITTY!"

With that, Kitty ran off to the principle, crying as she did. That was when Riley found out her name was to important to give to others. That was also the day it became evident that Kitty was a tattle teller and was not to be put up with, she wasn't worth anything at all.

…

Riley continued to narcissize into the mirror, enjoying her reflection, as if she was a Venus of perfection. She thought good and hard about the things that were going on around her, well… not really. She thought more about how she thought things should be and how they weren't. One of the things she wondered about was why Kitty had not disappeared like she wanted as soon as she wanted.

Riley moved from staring at her reflection to staring at her nails, something that Kitty would never understand. Kitty still wasn't allowed to wear makeup, as far as Riley knew. Kitty was still a little girl in her father's eyes, but Riley's father took her to the beauty salon to celebrate the first day of third grade. Riley had remembered both Kitty and Amy's reactions to her special look.

…

Kitty had been sitting at her desk, scribbling in her little school notebook while Amy had been sitting at the desk next to where Riley sat everyday. Amy looked up, her eyes going wide in awe. Riley's face was painted all over with color and her hair was permed and curled to what Riley considered perfection.

"Riley!" Amy said with her eyes wide. "You look like a movie actress!"

This caused Kitty to look up at Riley and wrinkle her nose in confusion. She looked the girl over, thinking carefully. She then spoke up. "You look like a china doll…"

"Of course," Riley said, tossing her hair to the side and smirking as she did so.

"If you're not careful a baseball will hit your face and break it into a million … no … trillion pieces," the little girl said, turning back to her desk. Riley blew her cheeks out, but then came up with a response.

"Kitty is just jealous about the fact she isn't allowed to wear makeup," Riley stated, pretending to sit like a little lady.

"My daddy says little girls shouldn't wear that kind of makeup. It makes them look like…" Kitty paused.

"Like what!" Riley snapped, Amy agreeing with her.

"I won't say. Daddy says to never say that word… it is an insult," Kitty said, turning back to her work. Riley then turned to one of the boys in the class and got him to launch spit balls at the back of Kitty's head. Also, after that, Riley was careful of putting on enough makeup that it caked her pours, though she still wore TONS of it.

…

Riley had to agree that her looks were supreme; she had even won many beauty contests, with her father telling her with every loss that the judges didn't know true beauty when they saw them. She figured that her father was right. All through out middle school she had been able to string along a bunch of boyfriends, quite possibly none of them lasting more then a few weeks at a time.

Kitty on the other hand was almost invisible when it came to getting a boy friend, not to say the boys didn't notice her. What it happened to be was that the boys noticed her to be a plane girl, who could in no way compare to Riley? The boys would take her lead and tease the girl, some might say poor, but Riley said there was nothing poor about it.

…

Kitty had been sitting at the school lunch table, trying to sit by herself, so that no one would notice her. This was expesully when the person she was trying to avoid was Kitty. However, Riley some how found a way to be able to find her, whether Kitty wanted her or not. She would go over and coo all of her growing terms of non-endearment.

Every time she would do this, a few of the boys would come up and tease Kitty about her hair, even pulling it. This made Riley smile and walk away, a grin on her face. Amy would always throw another term of hurt back at Kitty. When the girl ran away crying, it was the best thing in the world.

…

Riley frowned though, as this year, when she had become a freshman in high school had been different. While she could still pick on Kitty and it was still fun, people weren't listening to her like she wanted them too. She was thinking specifically of a boy she had met the first day of school. Riley had never had a crush before, but she was having a major crush on him.

Or perhaps it was as she told him, not in exact words, that he looked to be a challenge compared to all the goodie two shoe boys she had been involved with. In fact, all the boys she had been involved with had been from proper households, one might say, so she had no problem getting her influence over getting them to date her. She was the in thing to date.

However, this boy was a definite bad boy. His clothes were worn so much that he had holes in his jeans. It was likely that he was a smoker, at least she thought so. She also formed the opinion that he was heavy into drugs and was a skipper, not to mention likely to have a car, that or the ability to high jack them.

The other thing was, his skin was dark from being outside so much, which she happened to like the color of. She wondered how he had been able to get his skin that color when she had problems getting a tan, she always burned, but she wouldn't tell anyone. She just went with the flow that a tan for a girl was not as ideal as the skin she had, and so far it had worked, though there was a little bit of tanning to her skin.

She had done something she had never done before with a boy, to get him to skip with her. She had offered to do something with her body, something she figured a boy like him would respond to. She figured a long time ago that no boy wouldn't say no to having sex with a girl, expesully one as delinquent looking as that one. His reaction surprised her.

He basically told her to get lost, not realizing that she wouldn't take no for an answer. She didn't care that he called her names like slut and stuff, she still wanted to be able to have him as her boyfriend, perhaps a more permanent one. However, she had problems getting the fact that he wanted nothing to do with her.

Then came that day when she fell down at P.E., something she was very good at. She had seen Kitty glancing at someplace and saw her looking at her boyfriend. He was waving her hand at Riley, or so Riley thought. She then became mad when Kitty hurried off, thinking the hand wave was for her. Riley decided she wanted to do something to Kitty, but she ended up not doing so, as Kitty had left.

…

"Hi Mr. Pryde… I saw that Kitty wasn't at school today and I was worried," Riley commented, lying through her teeth. She hadn't said her name, so the man didn't know this was the girl who had been making fun of his daughter.

"Ahh… Kitty has gone to Bayville, New York. She was welcomed into an institute for… ahh… gifted students… really gifted students," the man said, a smile on his face.

"A gifted… a gifted school," Riley said, jealousy evident in her voice. "How did 'she' get into a gifted school. I can't figure that out."

"She had something that all the students there have," the man said, tapping his fingers and looking up at the sky.

"How could I get into that school?" Riley said, not thinking about what she was saying.

"Well… it's not something that I can exactly explain to you… one might say it is very exclusive," the man said. "I could give her your name for you."

"No thanks," Riley commented, walking off grumpily.

…

Riley had also heard that Lance had also gone to Bayville, but to what could be deemed a boys home. Riley had asked for the address from his old foster mother, stating that she was Lance's girlfriend, only to have the woman retort that she didn't believe her when Riley had mentioned that they had sex with each other. She had even slammed the door in her face… multiple times at that.

Riley then asked her father if he could get her into that institute, causing him to make some calls. But he had told her that no, he couldn't get her in as he had no clue what it was that got the students picked. He told her that if she wanted to go to a preparatory school, he would be glad to comely. She retorted that wasn't what she wanted.

She then pushed the idea of actually going to Bayville, to which he wasn't happy about. He told her there was no way that they would be going and the decision was final. This wasn't something he could hand her on a silver platter. This made Riley even madder then hell. She wanted to go to Bayville, and her father wasn't going to stop her. Kitty would pay and Lance would be hers, no matter how long it would take.