Variables in Motion #5
Riley’s chest constricted hard, her breath catching halfway in before she could steady it. Beside her, Dee didn’t move. But something in her expression changed completely.
Something raw breaking through before it could be contained. Her shoulders locked, her posture rigid in a way that didn’t match the conversation anymore. Tyler exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through his hair, the frustration spilling over.
“I don’t need someone coming in here acting like they’ve got some kind of insight when they don’t even—” He cut himself off, jaw tightening further. Then, more bluntly, “It’s not helpful. It’s just crazy.”
Riley felt it, a jolt through her system. Her fingers tightened hard around Declan’s hand without conscious thought, her grip desperate. Her other hand shifted again against the table, then curled in on itself, like she needed to reposition the reaction somewhere.
Heat prickled beneath her skin while a chill still crawled up her arms, her body unable to settle on one sensation or the other.
The ringing in her ears wouldn’t stop, sharp and relentless now.
With every second she felt a stronger, almost instinctive urge to fold inward, to curl herself into something smaller and protected from all of it.
Across from her, Dee froze completely.
Riley saw it in the way her shoulders locked, the way her gaze hardened but unfocused at the same time, like she was looking through the moment rather than at it. Like something internal had overridden the present and dragged her somewhere else entirely.
“Crazy.”
Riley’s breathing faltered. The word looped once, twice. It was inherently wrong.
Dee moved before anyone else could respond.
It was fast, decisive. Her hand reached for the glass in front of her, fingers closing around it with an intention that didn’t match the emotional charge behind it.
And before Riley could process the full trajectory… Dee threw a full glass of Pinot Grigio.
The splash hit Tyler across the chest, sharp and sudden, the sound cutting through the contained noise of the room. Nearby conversations faltered, attention flickering toward them, but Riley barely registered it.
Because Dee was already standing.
“Fuck you,” she said, her voice tight, controlled in a way that meant she was holding something much larger beneath it. Contained rage, hurt.
“You don’t get to stand there and reduce me to something unstable because you don’t like what I said,” she continued, her voice low but unwavering. “You don’t get to throw that word around like it doesn’t mean anything.”
Tyler opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Whatever he expected, it hadn’t been that.
And Riley, Riley understood something no one else at that table did.
This wasn’t about the conversation, not anymore.
This was about something older. Something that had been reinforced enough times that one word, in the wrong tone from the wrong person was enough to cut straight through every layer Dee had built around it.
Dee didn’t wait for a response. She turned and walked.
Riley’s body moved before her mind caught up. Chair shifting back, breath catching. She stood immediately, her focus locking onto Dee as she moved through the room, the environment around her blurring into noise and movement that no longer held any relevance.
Because Dee—Dee was leaving. And everything else became secondary.
Riley stepped forward immediately, the movement too fast to be measured, her hand slipping from Declan’s as she moved to follow without thought. Her breathing was uneven now, not fully controlled, her body operating ahead of structured thought.
“Riley—”
Declan’s voice reached her somewhere behind them, low and steady, but Riley didn’t stop. She couldn’t.
The only thing her mind seemed capable of holding onto was the fact that Dee was hurt. Everything else: the room, the people, the noise, Declan’s voice fell away beneath the singular realisation.
Riley followed her out of the ballroom and into the corridor beyond, leaving behind the lights and conversation and the version of the evening that, only minutes earlier, felt unexpectedly manageable.
The muffled sounds of the event followed them briefly before fading behind closed doors, replaced by the quieter rhythm of footsteps against carpet and the distant hum of activity elsewhere in the building.
At the end of the corridor, Dee pushed through the exit with more force than was strictly necessary. Cool night air rushed over them, carrying away some of the heat and pressure of the room they had just left.
Dee kept walking. Riley matched her pace without thinking.
Her thoughts attempted to reorganise themselves, pulling apart the sequence of events and reassembling them in different configurations, searching for the point at which the evening shifted from stable to unstable.
The chronology itself remained straightforward enough.
Dee had spoken, Tyler had reacted. The atmosphere of the room changed almost instantly afterwards.
By the time Dee finally stopped, they had put enough distance between themselves and the venue that the sounds of the fundraiser were little more than a muted blur behind them.
Traffic moved somewhere further down the street.
A burst of laughter drifted briefly through the air before disappearing again.
Riley slowed beside her. “That interaction was—”