AN: get ready
Rivers pov
"Where have you guys been?!" Noah asks, him and I are sitting at the kitchen table having a conversation with Mom and Dad. We're supposed to be at school.
"What do you mean? We've been texting you updates and I even left a note on the fridge yesterday." She says in her defense.
"Two texts messages and a note, really Mom?" He says. He's really frustrated but it's understandable. I've just stayed silent.
"We have work guys. We let you do whatever you want when we're gone. How about this, you guys can stay home from school for the rest of the week."
"No Mom, tell us we have to go to school, tell us when we have to be home, tell us when you're getting home."
"You're one weird teenager Noah." Mom says trying to get us to laugh. It doesn't work.
I know where Noah is coming from, he wants boundaries like there used to be. A few years ago Mom and Dad were on top of our shit and all we wanted was for them to let us do whatever we want. Recently they have been. It's weird.
"I'm the one that's weird? You guys have been practically ghosting us for the last few days."
"No we haven't." She says shaking her head. It's kind of true though.
"Really? Then what have we been up to the last couple of days?"
"School, friends, and Will." She says stating the obvious.
"Mom, you're saying the most basic answers."
"Ok then if I'm wrong, what did you guys do?"
"If you would like to know I was out drinking last night." I don't know why he outted himself like that.
"Well you know you shouldn't be drinking on school nights."
"That's all you're going to say?"
"Yep, you guys are on your second semester of senior year. You're grown up enough to make your own decisions." She said. Usually Noah and I wouldn't oppose to that but that's not like Mom and Dad. "So River I'm assuming you've just been at Wills?"
I was about to speak for the first time but Noah chimed in before I got the chance. "Nope, wrong, River got into a fight with Will and was over at the triplets house."
"Hey!" I said whipping my head over towards him, "How do you know that?"
"I called Jordan last night because you were sleeping."
"Oh." Trader. In her defense she probably didn't
think he would remember.
"Wait who are the triplets?" My Dad asks.
I spoke up, "Just these guys Jordan has been obsessed with the past couple of months."
"What was the fight about?" Mom asks actually sounding interested.
I get a text from Jordan,
hey are you coming to school today?
yeah just running late
i'll be there soon
I look up from my phone, "Doesn't matter, we have to go to school." I say standing up from my chair and grabbing my backpack. "Come on Noah."
***
The day went by slow. I moved seats in photography so now we're in the back of the class, the furthest from Will. I still haven't talked to him, I don't want to.
I'm now laying in my bed, scrolling through instagram. I noticed Matt and Nick followed me but not Chris. Wack.
I heard a soft knock at my door. I shuffle around and put my nic under my pillow. "Come in."
It's Dad. "Hey, how was school?" He says sitting on the edge of my bed.
"Good, boring." I say shrugging. "Where's Mom?"
"Hanging out with Kelly." That's her best friend. They're day ones.
"Ah. what's up?"
"I just wanted to catch up. Do you wanna talk about the fight you had with Will?"
"Yeah actually, so we were having an argument about...something every couple argues about and he ended up saying something about Spencer." I feel myself getting chocked up so I clear my throat. I'm not about to cry over this again.
"What did he say?"
"Well we were talking about me being stressed so he said 'why don't you go pop some pills like your brother'"
He looks down at his feet and just sits there for a minute. "You don't deserve that, I'm sorry." He says looking up at me. His eyes are glossy.
"Why are you sorry?" I ask.
He clears his throat, "I know how much trust you put in him. He was the only person you told other than Jordan."
"Yeah I know" I say now looking down at my hands and fiddling with my fingers.
"What did you say?"
"After he said that?"
He nods his head.
"Nothing. I just left. He tried to say sorry but I didn't let him. That's just not something you can take back."
"Yeah I agree," he says shaking his head. "so you haven't talked to him since?"
"Nope, and as of right now I'm not planning on it. I really do hate fighting with him and I do miss him." I said looking up at the ceiling to think for a second. "But when I think about him and what he said, I don't have any emotion."
"That's fair. Do you want advice or for me to just listen?"
Usually, I would want someone just to listen but it's my Dad, I want to hear what he has to say. "You already listened so sure gimme some 'dad advice.'"
"Don't turn it off."
I try not to laugh but it comes out anyway. "What is this, the vampire diaries?"
"Huh?"
"The vampire diaries. It's a show about vampires who are in high school and blah blah blah, they can turn off their emotions." I say. He looks at me with the most confusing face I've ever seen. "Nevermind."
"Then I guess kind of. What I'm trying to say is don't shut out your emotions, it'll be hard to get them back."
"I just don't wanna get hurt anymore. I let him in when I didn't let anyone else. I can't feel hurt if I don't feel anything."
"Just trust me on this one. If you feel sad, let yourself be sad. Sit in it, take as much time as you need. If you feel happy lay in it, absolutely soak it up. And that goes for everything, not just this."
This sounds like a whole therapy session. Maybe I need this though.
"I'll do my best." I say with a small smile and a nod. "Can I just say something though? This might sound stupid but I feel like I'm making this a bigger deal than it actually is and maybe it's just not that deep."
"Well first, It's not stupid if that's how you feel. Second, if it's something that makes you upset than that's just how you feel, you can't control how you feel. And third, I think it's a big deal."
"Yeah, I get what you're saying but I haven't talked to him since Tuesday night." I say thinking about when I'm supposed to talk to him.
"It's only been two days. If you're not ready to talk then don't. Feel however you feel whenever you feel it. I wouldn't want to talk to anyone if they said something like that to me. If I'm being honest, I probably wouldn't talk to them again."
"But doesn't that seem a little extreme? I mean I've been dating him for how long? Almost two years. If we weren't dating I would agree with you, but we are."
"I don't know Riv, do what you want with this. If you want to stay with him, I understand and if this is something you can't let go, I get that too.
"Thanks, I'll let you know as soon as I do." I say. "Moving on from my problems, what have you been up to?"
"Work. Your Mom and I have been working on this insane business idea. There's a lot of connections we have to make which is why we've been gone so much. I feel bad about that though."
"You feel bad about what? Being gone so much?" I ask.
"Yeah, I'm sorry."
"No it's ok. I get it. You gotta do what you gotta do."
"And I'm sorry for the fact that your Mom and I are going out of town this weekend. We have lots of meetings in LA with people who will do a lot for us. We tried to get them to do zoom meetings instead but it won't work out. We'll be back on Monday night." He said with a guilty look on his face.
I'm sad they're leaving considering this is the first real conversation I've had with Mom or Dad since Tuesday morning, but I'm not going to make him feel bad about it. "That's great Dad. I'm glad you guys are making progress on this project. When are you guys leaving?"
"Early tomorrow morning."
"Oh ok. That's ok. Again, you gotta do what you've gotta do."
"Thank you for being so understanding about this." He says sounding grateful. "So who are those triplets you were talking about this morning?"
"They're names are Nick, Matt, and Chris. They do the same things Jordan and I do work wise. Jordan found them through social media and we saw them on Wednesday at Mcdonald's and then met up with them again last night." I say trying to catch him up.
"Do you like them?"
"Yeah I do, they're good people. They're funny too."
He stands up from my bed, "That's good, well I have to go talk to Noah but keep me updated on that.
"I will."
***
So I somehow ended up at a party with Jordan and the boys. We got here about an hour ago and everyone is either super fried or drunk. I decided to stick to smoking instead of drinking tonight. I absolutely hate being hungover. I don't even know if I'm going to school tomorrow but being hungover at school is actual hell.
Jordan went off with Matt somewhere a while ago and I'm sitting on the couch with Nick and some other people who we both don't know.
"I'm gonna go find Matt and Jordan, do you wanna come with me or are you good here?" Nick asks.
"Nah I'm good here." I'm not going to lie, I'm insanely high and this couch feels amazing.
"Suit yourself." He says before leaving the random living room I'm in.
I pulled out my phone and started playing Clash of Clans. I haven't played this game since I was like 9 because I literally don't understand it. Where am I supposed to place each person? I keep losing all the battles. I hear a few muffled screams and I look up from my phone at everyone and no one else seems to notice. Everyone's too consumed with themselves. I continue to look around the room and I spot Chris wiping his lip as he turns and goes up the stairs. For some reason, I decide to follow him.
Chris's pov
I get to the top of the stairs and it lead me into a hallway. All of bedroom doors are closed so I continue to walk down the dark hallway to find an empty room. I am not trying to walk in on someone. I make my way to the end of the hallway and there's one room with an open door. I walk into the room and close the door without looking behind me. I look around the room and it's practically empty. There's a single bed and a bathroom, perfect.
I look into the mirror to see how much damage was done. My eye is almost swollen shut and red. It's already starting to bruise purple on the inner corner of my eye. My lip is bleeding and there's a cut on the top of my forehead. I don't remember feeling anyone or anything hit my forehead but it's bleeding a lot. I hear from a small distance someone come into the room. I poke my head out the doorframe of the bathroom. For a second I thought it was him but it was River.
"What the fuck happened to you?!" She asked with full concern in her voice while making her way over to me.
I didn't say anything and turned on the faucet. Her body pushes me aside and she turns the water off. I looked back into the mirror so I could see her. "I was using that."
She has a 'seriously?' look on her face and she holds her arms out to the side and drops them again.
"Don't look at me like that, I won." I said.
"I don't care if you won or not, what happened?"
I again don't respond. I shouldn't.
"Get on the counter." She demand as she points to the surface next to the sink.
I smirk and hold my hands up in surrender, "Woah I don't know what you think this is but-"
"Just sit on the counter dipshit."
I sigh and hop up into the counter just like she told me. She looks around the bathroom and opens a few random cabinets. What is she looking for? I look down at my arms to make sure there aren't any cuts on them. My knuckles are bruised and cut up a bit but other than that, none.
As I'm looking down I see her feet walk past me. I hear the sink run so I look up and she has a small towel in her hands. She wets the towel and stands right in front of me. She scans my face and gently places her left hand on top of my head. She brings her right hand up to my face and starts dabbing the cold wash cloth on my forehead. I close my eyes in the mix of pain and comfort.
She spends the next couple of minutes working on my forehead and then she stops. I open my eyes and she turns the sink back on and starts squeezing the bloody wash cloth under the water.
She makes her way down to my lip and starts cleaning that up too. I look into her red, dark brown, squinted eyes, they're pretty. I wonder what she's thinking.
She backs away from me and says, "K. You can get down now."
//
sooooooo how are we feeling?