River & Colt [Completed]

1. Before

Unedited  
1. Seventeen
River
I grabbed his hand tightly in my own. Our fingers intertwined so tightly it was hard to tell where his skin ended and mine began.

My hand was sweating. The humid summer heat leaking through the open windows of his car. The breeze trying to break through the thickness. I wanted to wipe my palm on my shorts but also didn't want to lose the feeling of his hand in mine.

I didn't want to waste another second not touching him.

We drive through a grassy, bumpy road that has tracks in it from people who have made this same journey.

I stare at the burnt brown grass as we pass wondering how such a huge piece of land can be so abandoned. The silence of the night stretches on, the whisper of the slow moving wind, his hand in mine, the radio playing softly in the background.

We drive right by the sign that says No Trespassing. I want to tell him to stop, turn around, but that is the old Vi speaking. I'm different with him. I'm better with him.

We continue on and he puts the car in park and we walk a bit away. He has a blanket tucked under one arm and a bottle of something in the other. This is okay, I remind myself.

The blanket is scratchy underneath my bare legs and arms. His arm is wrapped around me. He smells spicy and earthy like cigarettes and grass.

"Ready?" he asks looking at the darkening sky above us.

"For?" I ask.

Then a plane ascends above us. Roaring loud with a blinking light. So big than smaller and smaller until it disappears.

The planes coming in are even more satisfying. The tiny blinking dot turning into a humongous airplane that looks so close I can touch it.

I reach my arms up and feel the wind pick up speed as the plane glides closer to us.

"Wow," I breathe looking towards Colt as he continued to watch the sky.

His green eyes looked so dark in the glow of the stars and his smile seemed so big. So much bigger than I've ever seen.

Then the sirens started. Red and blue flashing lights, shocking loudness echoing in the silence.

"Shit," Colt mumbled grabbing my hand again and yanking me towards his car. But it was too late the cop car was close.

Too close for us to make it back to the car.

I looked at Colt. At his eyes that looked so bright when the flashing lights got closer.

"Run," I whispered and began sprinting across the deserted field of dead grass and emptiness.

I don't think I ever felt as alive as I did in that moment. My brown curls flying behind me as I ran. My lungs aching in the humidity. Colt's heavy footsteps behind me. My laughter and his laugher.

"Vi," I hear Colt calling from behind me until suddenly he wasn't. No sound. Just a noise that didn't sound much like Colt.

"Colt?" I asked finally turning around to see him in handcuffs and a cop headed my way.

I'm not this person. I'm not the type of person who trespasses and runs from cops and gets arrested. I'm the girl that focuses on grades and helping my mom around the house. I'm shy and quiet and mostly alone.

But I felt like I was apart of something for the first time that night and I couldn't let it end.

I allowed the cop to handcuff me and throw me in the car next to Colt. He smiled this sad quiet smile at me and I hated it.

I hated how Colt looked like a little boy instead of the seventeen-year-old guy I've learned to tolerate and then more. I wanted to hear his easy laughter again and his smile that could light me up from top to bottom.

"Hey, do you have anything to drink?" I asked the cop when he got into the driver's side. He looked back with a stare that told me I better shut it quick. But Colt laughed.

"You're so young to be a cop. You barely look at day older than us," I said maneuvering so my face was close to the cage that separate us from them. He looked at me again and I smirked and tilted my head.

"Back up," he said not amused. But I didn't care. I was already in this and Colt was smiling again at my horrible show of flirtation.

I shrugged, "sure." And I moved closer to Colt.

We were touching from our shoulders down to our ankles. The warmth of his leg on my bare one, his arm pressing into mine.

"Your mom is going to kill me," Colt said quietly shaking his head.

I laughed, "you think she's gonna be bad? My dad gets home tomorrow. He might come murder you."

"Well, I guess I can report that now right?" He said nodding towards the cops.

The cops weren't amused by us but we were amused by each other. His smile and the heat of his body was enough to almost make me forget where we were and what was about to happen.

Our first date was in the back of a cop car and I wouldn't have it any other way.

***
This story will be told in both before and after. Make sure to check the ages in the chapter :)

Thanks so much for reading! <3

-Brooke