APARTMENT 143

04

I take a step back creating a large space between Riven and me, he watches me intensely as I hold out the drink with the full extent of my arm.

"You want it? Fine."

Riven reaches for the glass but before he can grasp it I let go, the glass falls to the ground and shatters.

Riven's expression goes from surprised to downright pissed off, he looks at me with a very scary look and I immediately realize I may have messed with the wrong person.

I step back and head towards the door, however as I go to open it, Riven grabs my hand swinging me around, and pins me aggressively against the door.

"What the hell is your problem?!" he shouts angrily at me. "You come into my place and think you can just do whatever you want?"

"I was just trying to help," I say, trying to defend myself.

"Who says I wanted your help?!"

"Y- You're running away from your problems... but drinking isn't the solution."

Riven's eyes widen to my words for a moment, but go back to aggression."

"Listen, I don't know you and you don't know me, but I sure as hell don't need or want your help, so get out!"

He lets go of me and turns his back towards me, walking back to where the glass was. He leans down and starts picking up the shards quietly.

I turn around to open the door when suddenly I hear Riven.

"Ouch!"

I ran over to where he was and saw him holding his hand, I could see that he had accidentally cut himself with a shard of glass while picking up the pieces.

I hold his hand and help him stand up without saying anything, he follows my lead as we walk over to the kitchen sink. Thankfully our apartments had the same layout, so everything was placed the same.

I turn on the tap to cold water and put his hand under it washing away the blood, inspecting the area to make sure nothing got stuck in there.

"Do you have a first aid kit?" I say still avoiding eye contact with him.

Riven reaches over my head into a cabinet and pulls out a red box placing it beside me on the counter, he opens it with his free hand and leaves it for me.

I reach in and grab rubbing alcohol and a Band-Aid, while still holding his hand under the running water until I was ready.

Drying his hand I cleaned the area and wrapped it gently around his hand, though I didn't look up I could feel his gaze on me.

"There," I say as I finally let go of his hand. "Be careful with that, and clean it every day."

"Where did you learn to do this?" Riven says observing his hand closely.

"Well, I'm not stupid if that's what you're asking," I say throwing everything away. "My mom was a doctor, one time I fell off my bike and got hurt. I got cut on my leg and she did this to help treat it, if you don't take the proper take of things like that it could come back to bite you someday."

"Was...?"

I turn around looking at Riven.

"Yeah was, my mom died a long time ago."

I held my head down trying to force myself to smile as I spoke about her. "Sometimes I wondered how a doctor couldn't save herself... I was so confident in her abilities, but when she told me not everyone can be saved... well that definitely came back to bite me."

"I'm sorry, how old were you?"

I take a deep breath and lean back against the counter now looking up at the ceiling.

"I was only five at the time, I stayed by my moms' side every day while she was sick."

"I see," Riven says calmly. "Do you know what was wrong?"

"She was... really sick Riven. She knew the entire time she wasn't going to make it and that treatments weren't going to help her, and yet she pushed herself every day until she couldn't anymore," I speak softly reminiscing. "But I don't think she wanted her daughter to see her die, I remember she asked me to get her some water... when I came back... she was gone."

I wipe the tears from my eyes, Riven walks up to me and wraps his arm around me, and pulls against his chest into a hug, as he mumbles under his breath.

"Looks like we might have something in common after all..."

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