Chapter 2
Chapter Two
ALEX
The constant thought of River was suffocating.
His reappearance opened the floodgates in my head.
All of thirteen-year-old Alex’s feelings had come rushing back in.
The gut-punch that came when he began ignoring me in school, the loneliness that came afterward because he was the only friend I wanted to be around, the nagging belief that what I did had caused his disappearance—it was all back.
The only difference being that the feelings felt ten times stronger, because his refusal to acknowledge that we had met before only proved what younger me had thought.
River did not want to be around me, and the only reason I could come up with was that stupid, impulsive kiss.
“River Moore?” my sister’s voice rose in astonishment. “The kid I was convinced you were secretly dating?”
Scoffing, I rested my elbows on the countertop and leaned on them. “Yeah. By the way, you were wrong.”
Annabelle pursed her lips in disbelief as she chopped the carrots on the cutting board. “River’s lying. Seventh grade isn’t long enough ago to forget your best friend.”
I let out a sigh of relief, grateful that I wasn’t overthinking it. This was one reason I enjoyed visiting my sister’s place. Anna was always ready to listen to me complain about my problems, and then she’d give her expert older-sister opinion.
“Wait. Who’s lying?” squeaked a little voice.
My niece’s pigtails swung as she skipped into the room, a carefree attitude to her. Stopping at the countertop, she rested her fingertips on the edge and pulled herself up to see.
“No one.” Annabelle waved a dismissive hand at her daughter and then dropped a few carrots onto the already prepared dinner plate. “Eat your food, Millie.”
I helped Millie onto the chair, and she grimaced at the sight of the carrots. “I don’t want that.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” Annabelle said sternly. “Carrots are good for you.”
Even though Millie was displeased, she began eating the carrots, behaving like a fifteen-year-old even though she was only eight.
Ignoring her child, Annabelle’s eyes landed on me. “What have you eaten today?”
My teeth ground against each other as I thought back on my day. “Umm, I had a banana for breakfast.”
Anna didn’t need to look out the window to know. “It’s dark outside.”
“Well, I also had two granola bars, like, two hours ago.”
Her frown resembled our mother’s. “Seriously, Alex?”
“It’s not on purpose; I was going to eat,” I assured her, but she was already working on fixing me a plate. “A lot is going on, and I just…”
“Forgot,” she answered for me.
I nodded, and she slid the plate toward me. “I know, I know you. Maybe since you’re eating, Mills will eat too.”
“Nope,” Millie muttered, picking at her food with pure disinterest.
My sister treated everything with seriousness and care, especially when it came to her daughter and me. In a way, she acted more like a mom to me than our true mother. Not because Mom wasn’t a loving mother—she was, and she tried her best, but she never understood me like Annabelle.
Still letting my ex-best friend take over my brain, I asked, “But why would River lie?”
“I don’t know,” Annabelle stated. “But he did, and you need to leave it at that. You do not need the added stress, especially after what happened with Killian.”
“I miss Killian,” Millie interrupted, kicking her feet back and forth on the barstool. “He would have gotten me pizza instead of forcing me to eat nasty carrots.”
Killian had a soft spot for my niece. He spoiled the girl, always buying her pizza and sweets, so she didn’t have to eat her vegetables. While Mills understood what a breakup was, she hadn’t yet caught on to how ill-mannered it was to bring up how much she missed my ex in front of me.
Anna shot me a sympathetic smile. “You should go to the bar or a frat or something. Get your mind off both of them.”
“Dad says it’s a waste of time when I could be studying instead,” I muttered. “But maybe you’re right. I could go on Friday if I can get a friend to go with me.”
Annabelle sucked air through her teeth, eyes wide and slightly guilty. “I work that night. I need you to keep Millie.”
My lips rolled together as I tried to hide my annoyance with her contradictions. First, she told me to go out, then, in the same breath, told me I can’t.
Seeing my irritation at her springing it on me, she gave a helpless shrug. “I picked up an extra shift on Friday night. I’m sorry. Are you okay with watching her?”
At this point, Millie was just as much my kid as she was my sister’s. She spent at least five out of the seven days of the week at my place. It wasn’t always ideal for me, but it had been like this for so long that it was normal.
Millie’s big eyes stared up at me with anticipation and a toothy grin.
“Of course I am.” I rubbed the top of my niece’s head. “Maybe I can do something on Saturday.”
“I work that night too, remember?”
Oh. I agreed to that a while back, like I agreed to the other three days this week.
“But next week.” She dropped the cutting board into the sink. “Or on a random Wednesday if you’re wild like that, but we both know that you aren’t.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “I’d go out on a Wednesday night.”
“And Millie’s favorite food is carrots,” Anna said, sarcasm dripping from her tone. “In the meantime, do not think about River. I know you, Alexander Roscoe Pierce, and the last thing you need is to obsess over some guy who is acting like he doesn’t know who you are.”
I shuddered at the use of my full name. No one called me it but Dad. The icky feeling I got was why Anna enjoyed using it.
“Got it,” I said. “Do not obsess over River.”
I wondered whether she knew I was lying.
I was not trying to obsess over River, but I also knew I was not going to stop miraculously. My brain liked to constantly think of questions that had been left unanswered, and River was the epitome of unresolved issues. How could I not think about him?
River used to come to my house multiple days of the week after school, and sometimes we would play basketball on my driveway because it was his favorite sport.
He would beat me every time, and I used to joke that when he one day made it into the NBA, he would get rich and forget about me.
His response was that we’d both be rich because he could never forget me.
I remember we used to cause trouble during class.
They were small disruptions—the normal amount that any decent kid made—but my parents acted like we were performing talent shows in the middle of lessons.
I was sent to the principal’s office once, and all of a sudden, I was on the path to becoming a criminal.
And for some fucked up reason, they correlated that to River.
Despite my parents’ disapproval, I grew attached to him. He was the only best friend I ever had, and he understood me better than my sister. The bond felt irreplaceable.
I should not have wanted to talk to River with the way things went between us, but I did. It was taking everything in me to stay away. Completely staying away from River was nearly impossible when he and my roommate were teammates.
Salem gave me no warning each time he let him into the apartment. Luckily, River never stayed. They were always getting ready to go somewhere, though I still migrated to my room the second he walked in.
And that was working. River had no intention of talking to me, and I was making it even easier by avoiding him like he had a disease. We danced around like that for a month.
Today I was running late for my communications class, which was on its way to giving me hair loss from the constant stress-pulling I did at my ends. I shouldn’t have even needed the credit in the first place; I was a biology pre-med major, for fuck’s sake.
It was my smallest class, so small that I could recognize faces, which made it more personal. Exactly what I did not want for a class where I had to speak in front of everyone.
It also meant that the professor took more notice of late students, which was why I was speeding through campus with a coffee in my hand.
I was pretty good at weaving in and out of morning crowds because I ran late for this class most mornings.
Thinking I was a pro at distracted speed-walking, I took a sip from the drink.
The only thing I ended up being successful at was taking my attention away from the path ahead of me, and hot liquid burned my chest when I slammed into someone who happened to be standing up at the same time I was about to trip over them.
An elbow jabbed right into my throat, and the rest of my coffee crashed against the ground as my hands flew up to my neck. My eyes went as wide as they could, and I couldn’t help but sputter as I tried to catch my breath.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he cursed under his breath, panic clear. “Are you okay?”
The choking vanished, replaced with a chill in my body. River stood before me, his arms extending and retreating like he didn’t know whether to touch me or not.
“I’m okay.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Sorry for running into you.”
“You’re the one who got an elbow to the neck and wasted coffee, yet you’re apologizing?”
A shrug. “I ran into you.”
River’s eyes softened, and my body tensed when his hand landed on my shoulder. “Seriously, is your throat alright?”
This was the most reaction I had gotten in River since I first laid eyes on him again. His eyes peered into mine. Watching me. Analyzing me to determine whether I was lying or not. He should have already known that I wasn’t one to fib.
My cheeks felt warm. “I’m good.”
He retracted his hand. “Good.”
Silence fell between us as we stood idly, neither of us sure of how to proceed.
Entertaining the idea that he did simply forget me, did this interaction jog his memory? Was he worried because he knew me? Or was it because he’d be worried after stabbing anyone in the throat with his pointy elbow?
“What are you looking at?” The blunt question brought me back to reality.
My cheeks flushed with embarrassment, but I stood up straighter. “Nothing.”
River blinked and then spoke quietly. “Glad you’re cool.”
He was walking away before I got the chance to reply. Thank goodness, because my reply was no doubt about to be a jumbled mess of words. Since he went in the same direction I needed to go, I waited around for a minute before setting forth for class again.
But as I followed him the same way, then into the same building, and then into the same classroom, it dawned on me. We shared a class.
My tiny communications class never included River—I was sure of that. So what the hell was he going there now for?