Riley walked up to his house, seeing the lights off and his mother's car in the drive. His father's was nowhere to be seen, but that didn't ease Riley's mind as he tentatively opened the front door. A distinctive smelled came to his nose and an even more distinctive sight, his mother sprawled out on the living room couch. Riley didn't feel like playing his usual drugs-or-alcohol-or-both guessing game with his mother so he locked the door and crept by into is room.
He opened the back windows to let some air in and try to wash out the overbearing sense of failure that pervaded the place at night. He stripped off his shirt and collapsed backward onto the bed, well, the mattress with a sleeping bag. Riley awoke to his usual alarm: the violent inner screaming of his dreams. He rolled over and looked at his clock, blinking away the reading of 3:42AM. Riley slowly got up, put on shoes, and slipped out the window into the night air. It was cold against his bare chest as he started running out onto the path that he had beaten out over countless morning runs. Riley liked to jog by deer and then as they noticed him and bolted, he liked to race them and see who would tire first. Just as the sun was creeping over the treetops, Riley returned to his window and climbed back in.
Showering and putting on an old long-sleeved shirt, ripped a bit at the collar, Riley slung his bag and coat over his shoulder and left through the front door. Nothing in the living room had moved.
Riley didn't remember anything of importance happening at school before lunch. He saw Brooks once in the hall but he didn't see Riley, or at least didn't react. Then, as he bought a bottle of water and was heading outside, he heard a familiar voice. When he turned and saw Aspen standing before him, the first thing he saw was her face as it had been in his dream the night previous. Riley, blinking the bloody, terrible image from his mind then smiling the distinctive Riley half smiled at Aspen.
