Devil's Pawn (Completed)

21. (Justin)

We were walking now. The air had gotten really chilly and I didn't understand how River wasn't cold or how he was pretending to be warm. Either way River looked gorgeous. Sometimes he could be this super sweet guy who only seemed to want to help people, but then he could be this monster who only ived to make other people hurt. That was the River I had just seen, the one who could break his mother's heart like that. 

"When I was twelve I met a guy. His name was Justin and he was cool I guess. He wasn't rich. He was the first struggling guy I ever met, or so I thought. Justin was smart as hell. Like your friend. The girl? He went to our middle school on a scholarship." I looked up at him in confusion. I didn't exactly ask him anything. He looked out at the landscape surrounding us without blinking. 

"When I say he was smart I don't just mean in books, he was wise. He had known life and death and risk and consequence. His mom died when he was younger so he grew up with his dad. His dad hated him. He only had his big sister. She'd protect him whenever his dad drank and tried to hit him or basically kick his ass. She took plenty of ass whippings for him." He wiped his runny nose absentmindedly. He walked slowly down the hill, careful not fall, in the direction of a park bench. He turned back to see me struggling with the wedges I was wearing and grabbed my waist lifting me effortlessly.

"One day, a new kid walked in with a scar on his eyebrow the size of a worm. Everyone made fun of him and called him Harry Potter, it was stupid. I didn't. I thought, hey this kid looks lonely. I was lonely. My parents were barely around for me. All I knew was nanny and butler, butler and nanny. So I decided, I'd be his friend."

He took deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. "We were close. He spent majority of the time at my house, eating, smoking, playing Legos. We were weird. But he always left at exactly 6:20. I asked why he always left so early and he blamed it on the far walk so one day I decided to have the car take him home. The next week he didn't show up. I asked for my nanny to send me to the place he was dropped off at. I knocked at the door and I heard screaming and yelling and the sounds of pleading. I walked to the window and then I saw him. He looked at me and then..." He swallowed as he looked at the river in front of us. He picked up a stone and threw it into the water and watched as it skipped. I didn't push him to speak faster even though I was curious. I knew he needed a few moments to register his thoughts and to try and hide his emotions as well as he could. So I waited. I even picked up a stone and tried to mirror his movements. I failed.

He chuckled walking behind me. He bent down and picked up a flat, smooth rock. "More like this." He wrapped his arm around mine as he placed the rock in my hand and tossed it. It made three huge water rings in the dark water.

"The flick of the wrist." He whispered. I smiled.

"After that he came to live with me. Him and his sister. His sister was four years older than us and she was stubborn as a mule. She refused to accept any handouts from me seeing as though I was always on my own. One day, two years after, my parents came home out of the blue. We usually made sure they were at a hotel or something anyway my mom freaked out and sent them home. She said we were harboring fugitives." He scoffed.

"When my parents left I went to get them. I found myself in the same memory of the first time. Only this time I was in the house, a gun was aimed at Justin instead of a fist and he didn't walk away from it."

I put a hand to my mouth to stifle the sob that threatened to come through me. "River," I called reaching out to him. He turned to look at me. I was hoping he knew that he could stop but he stared me in my eyes and continued.

"I saw my best friend's sister raped and watched them get beaten from the safety of a window because I couldn't get in. Then I was there front row and I didn't help. My best friend died because of me. Because of my mom. I was sent to therapist after therapist because of that but I never told them what I saw and what I felt. I still don't. I tell them shit to keep them off my back. I hate my mom. Every time I see her I see the scowl she made when she told us they had to leave. That they were trouble."

"River it's okay"-

"You're right to think I'm a failure. I am a fuck up." He said hiccuping.

"You aren't." I argued defensively.

"I am!" he yelled. "I watched him die and I sat while Jesse was raped."

 I didn't know how to react to this. I had never seen him so weak and vulnerable. River was the type to act as if nothing ever bnothered him. He didn't wear his emotions on his sleeves, in fact the only emotion I'd ever seen from him was anger. So I told him all the things he told me when I told him about Havenwyk.

"You were a kid. You were 14 River. Not 41. Their dad was a sick man." Tears were flowing down my cheeks.

"I'm no better than him." He spat swiping away at his cheeks.

"How dare you say that?" I snapped pulling away from his face to scold him.

"He did all that because he was drunk. How can I hate him when I do the same thing. I'm only happy when I'm so drunk that I can forget. He drank to get over the loss of his wife and so do I. I drink to forget about Justin."

"Does it work?" I asked.

"What?"

"Does it work?" I snapped.

"No." He mumbled.

"No." I repeated. "You will never forget Justin. You can't wish to forget him because of what happened to him. River it isn't your fault. You didn't kill him."

"He looked me in the eyes as he died. I held him."

"Stop."

"I held him until his heart stopped beating." He said louder.

He continued against my protests, I grabbed his shaking body and lay his head on my lap as I stroked his hair and let him cry. He had held on for so long and he was finally letting it down. Four years of being haunted. Four years of being strong.

"Stop River!" I yelled standing up. "Stop torturing yourself."

"I never left him." He whispered no longer sobbing. "Even when the ambulances came. Even when Jesse begged me. Even when their dad hit me and spit at me. I stayed holding him. I held him because no one had ever held him."

"Has anyone ever held you River?" He lifted his head and shook it. So I opened my arms and let my lip tremble as I took in his vulnerable state.

And I held River Dallas. And he held me. We held each other because we had never been held before.