The Peace in the Storm

Chapter six - A trip and then some.

"She forgives you," I frowned and looked up at him.

"Amalia forgives you... she has for awhile now and she wants to move forward with you. Why won't you let yourself be forgiven? I hate seeing you beat yourself up to point that your bruises will never fade away."

Meeting his glossy eyes, I let out a shaky breath and my eyes burned with tears threatening to be freed. I got what he was saying, I honestly did but moving forward just like that felt too good to be true. As much he, Leila and even mum loved to say how things will get better, it won't because we will always have that lingering cloud above our heads to remind of us of the past. In reality the past followed us into the present and will affect our future, sometimes I believe I'm the only one not looking through a rose-tinted glass.

"It's hard Harry... and scary." It came out as an unintentional whisper, I didn't trust myself to speak.

He offered me a smile that didn't reach his eyes but nodded anyway, my eyes travelled down to my plate, I still a couple bites to go. Silence between us dawned but it wasn't as comfortable as before, to distract myself I let my eyes wander around the diner. There was your regular construction workers digging into their custom builders' breakfast, I almost gagged when one of them caught my stare and winked. Diverting my eyes away in disgust, my eyes settled on twin sisters, they looked like they were early thirties and both with a child on their lap who looked similar in age. Their eyes shone bright as they laughed in harmony, they seemed so in sync with each other, my heart leaped for them. Smiling, I turned back to Harry who was turned watching the twins as well, he turned back stuck his tongue out.

"Why did you tell River?" He raised an eyebrow and sighed.

"I had let it slip out, a moment of weakness but I don't regret it," My eyes widen at that. "River isn't who you think he is."

Harry and I hung out for the rest the morning into the afternoon, I didn't complain because other than the lecture I missed in the morning I only had one other class at four. One the whim, I decided that studying psychology alongside my main course film would be interesting, so as it being a new module I had to go the class. Harry went into detailed with what I missed when I left, which wasn't much just them catching up with Amalia but he made me promise to take Aaron out as he was he was the one who was bummed out the most on the way I left.

The time for me to attend my class and Harry left me with a side-note to check in with Nile. How he even knew about Nile, I didn't know because I was pretty sure I never told him about us potentially being a thing. Keyword, potential because I know I messed up on the way things ended on Friday and how I've avoided his calls and replying to his messages. I didn't know if I could go back to Nile just like that, I wasn't keen on diving into a relationship where there are unanswered questions swimming in one's head. However, I did miss Nile's presence and I'm sure he wouldn't mind I don't tell anything I don't want to for now.

"A minute later and you would have been late Miss..."

"Erm...Okeke."

I avoided the eyes of my fellow classmates as I found myself an empty seat, she is definitely a lecturer that I'm going to learn to loathe. The lecturer who I haven't learned the name of yet went on with the lecture and not once did she pause to give us time to write anything down or to even breathe between the paragraphs she was giving us. Messing about with my iPad I learned that I have been wasting my time trying to keep up with the damn lecturer when it has the ability to listen and type for me. I swear soon we're not going to have to attend university because robots are going to be doing everything for us. Proud of what I have discovered, I take the moment to look around to try to get a sense of who's a nice person and who isn't, after deciding a friend in this class would make the module easier to get through.

Instead I find the same mahogany eyes that seemed to be following me wherever I go and right beside him his main chick.

"Okay, seeing that we are focusing on child development for this I thought of a great assignment that would go along with it."

Gripping my pen tightly, I turned around to face the lecturer, out of all people who came from Northumbria, I had to be the one with the same module, scratch that, the same class as River and Amber. As if I didn't have a lot going on in my life, God said let give some more on your plate Amaka I know you can handle it.

"Amaka and River."

Who and who? I shot up brows touching the edges of my hairline as I looked around at students who just looked at me without a care in the world and then at my lecturer who was holding...two babies. I let my mouth fall open at the sight of the two babies she held in her arms, I had completely missed everything she said. The babies from afar looked realistic but the box of babies behind told me they were fake. River had beat to it and was taking the babies away from her then found my eyes as if to say what am I still doing up here. I cleared my throat and played with my ear as I made my way to them, I still had no clue why babies were suddenly in the room.

"We're not working together, are we?" I had to ask, my eyes not once leaving the lecturer.

"You most definitely are and seeing that you two need more credits than others, you get a boy and a girl."

"I'm pretty sure boys and girls develop differently." River piped up.

An impressed smile played on her lips as she nodded. Her nod was slow as she scanned River down then up, I rolled my eyes. "Exactly, that way you can easily get all the credits you need for this term."

She dismissed us back to our seats, River holding the boy and I the girl. She went on to explain the assignment, which was to write a two-thousand-word essay on child development. The babies that were given to us were no ordinary toy baby, apparently, they high tech and programmed to act as a real baby, which meant for the next two or so months River and I are to be parents to twins. Although I wasn't too keen on co-parenting with River, I was more than impressed with the babies, if I didn't know any better I would actually believe that these babies are real and they weren't even on yet.

"You just going to keep staring at the toy like that?" River called out, awkwardly I looked around and saw that I was the only one left. River patiently waited as I quickly packed up.

"So how we doing this?" He questioned as we walked out of the classroom.

"Do you mean how am I doing this?" I retorted and grabbed the doll out his arms.

"No, I meant we," He smirked and took one of the babies back.  "I know you think bad of me but this is our assignment, keyword there is our."

I eyed him suspiciously, It felt weird that he was being nice and cordial with me now, where was that same energy all them years ago when we were introduced to each other. People who casually switched up like this always put me on edge, they almost always had an agenda and I was not about to entertain being a pawn in his wicked plan. Or should I just forget the years of him teasing me and the fact he walked around knowing my secret? Or maybe I'm reading to much into it like I tend to do and he genuinely wanted to work with me to get our project done. I narrowed my eyes at him before sighing and unlocked my phone.

"Give me your number, I'll text you later on and we can sort it out then."

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Chi.x