Riley

I remember being shocked the first time I saw Riley hanging out downtown with a handful of skaters, smoking what I later discovered was a joint. Until that afternoon, I had only seen her in and around school, and she had always come off as a conservative, upper class girl, but at some point since school got out, she had changed her look. Her previously bobbed chestnut brown hair had been dyed and was gelled into a bed of short black spikes so dark they almost seemed blue. Her trendy clothes were replaced by tattered items from goodwill: a thin brown sweater and a pair of faded brown corduroys which had had extra cloth sewn into them to convert them into bellbottoms. Except for at her shins, the articles of clothing hugged tightly against her body, and the profile they created was like some sort of old fashioned ballroom gown. I stared at her, trying to process whether or not I was actually looking at the same girl, until I realized she had felt my eyes on her, and was evenly returning my gaze from across the street. I immediately broke eye contact, and ducked into a nearby local coffee shop I was fond of.