Chapter 11 River
Chapter Eleven
RIVER
“You’re what?”
Alex stuffed his hands into his pockets and shifted his awkward stance. “Dropping the class.”
“Eating too fast?” I echoed, the corner of my lip turning upward. “Don’t do that. It might give you heartburn.”
His eyebrows raised in pure confusion. “Do you see me eating anything right now? I said I’m dropping the class.”
“Dropping all that ass? Here? In this classroom? Now?”
Lola snickered beside me, while Alex threw his arms out to the side, staring at me with clear incredulity.
We only had a few more minutes before the professor arrived to start the lecture, and I was wasting them with jokes.
Well, I wouldn’t call it wasting because my jokes were something to be appreciated.
“Are you deaf?”
I raised my hands in defense. “I’m just saying what I’m hearing.”
“Or you really don’t want to hear what he has to say,” Lola suggested with a raised finger.
Scratching my head and scrunching my nose, I told her, “I don’t remember asking you. Hm, weird.”
She extended her arm and sent a light punch into my shoulder, muttering a couple of insults under her breath. I was about to retaliate, but she held her hand before my face like a stop sign and turned to Alex with slight concern. “You’re dropping the class?”
His gaze flickered to Lola and then to me, behind them, an emotion I couldn’t quite figure out. It wasn’t discomfort, which is what I expected him to have seeing each other for the first time since that day, but he was anything but uncomfortable.
Then, Alex’s eyes settled on Lola again, and they almost narrowed.
Realizing he was staring, he pulled his gaze to the ground, shifting his posture and grinding his teeth.
But I caught the clenching of his jaw and the way his shoulders angled to block her from his view.
Subtle, but defensive. I don’t think he knew he was doing it.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d call it jealousy.
But that would be a projection of me wanting it to be jealousy. Wouldn’t it?
“I’m dropping the class,” he eventually said. “I thought it better to let you both know in person since we’re a group. Were a group.”
Lola’s expression fell. “What? You’re leaving us alone?”
Alex clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “Unfortunately.”
His nose scrunched up cutely, the same way it would all those years ago.
It was the whole reason I called him bunny in the first place.
It used to be my telltale sign that something was bothering him.
That, coupled with the word blabs his parents used to get upset about, but those weren’t as frequent as his mannerisms.
The professor, now at his podium at the front of the room, began taking out his teaching materials. Alex tugged on the straps of his backpack and turned on his heels, seeing that class was about to begin. “Good luck on the project.”
Showing up to let us know he was withdrawing from the class when it could have been a simple text was very Alex of him.
Lola pouted, her eyes following Alex as he exited. “Guess it’s just you and me.”
Professor Golding cleared his throat, willing the chatter to stop. He immediately began the lecture for today. How the hell was I supposed to sit through this class without someone beautiful to stare at?
“I don’t know how we’re going to do this without Alex,” I muttered.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “I already miss his input.”
I gasped, an imaginary light bulb appearing above my head. I turned to Lola with an optimistic grin. “What if we can still get it?”
“How?” Lola whispered.
The seat snapped upright when I abruptly stood, causing a loud smack to echo through the room. Lola, embarrassed to be next to me, turned away and covered half her face with her hand while the class stared. The way they were gawking at me, you’d think I had just dropped a bomb in the room.
I didn’t bother apologizing to the professor as I moved toward the double doors. No need to cause more of a scene than I already had.
I could only hope he hadn’t gone too far yet. While I had his phone number, I had yet to call him. There had never been any reason other than that I wanted to hear his voice.
Every time I thought of calling, I stopped myself. Things were growing more complicated between us by the day, and I wasn’t trying to speed up the process.
You sped up the process last week at the water fountain.
That… was a weak moment. Alex’s damp hair clung to his forehead, his cheeks were red and flustered, and every time I looked into his eyes, they were begging me to kiss him.
It was how he always looked at me—mystified.
Like I was the only force keeping him grounded in this world, and if I walked away, he’d fade.
Alex couldn’t stare into my eyes with such tenderness, lick his soft, pink lips like he knew what he was doing, and then not expect me to lift him and do what his body was asking me.
Now, outside the door, I searched frantically. He couldn’t have gone far…
“Stalker.”
My eyes grew wide as I flinched. I turned to my side, and there was Alex, leaning against the wall with his arms folded across his chest like a Disney Channel motorcycle riding bad boy.
I couldn’t help the grin forcing its way. “Who’s a stalker?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “You.”
Shifting my weight onto one leg, I scoffed. “Do you think I’m obsessed with you or something?”
Alex shrugged simply. “You followed me out here, didn’t you?”
“But you waited out here to see if I’d follow.”
His lips formed a line, and his eyes drifted from mine. Ha, I got him there.
“What do you want, River?”
I wish I could time-travel, fix all my fuck-ups, get drafted into the NBA, win the lottery, have my way with you—
That last one was a relatively new wish, one that should have made me feel more uneasy than it did.
I always had potent feelings about my best friend.
The need to protect him from every bully who tried to take advantage of him was the biggest, but then there was the inclination of needing him to be mine.
I paid little attention to it—I felt that way because he was my best friend, and I wanted it to stay that way.
But now I wondered if I had misinterpreted that feeling.
Or maybe the reason why every time he bit his lip, I had to make a subtle adjustment to my pants was simply because I hadn’t been with anyone in what felt like forever.
“Are we ever going to have a rematch?” I asked with a smirk. “So that I can win by beating you instead of by default.”
He pushed himself off the wall. “Are you ever going to use your wish?”
“Do you want me to?”
“I want you to get it over with.”
I leaned forward, right beside his ear, and asked lowly, “Where’s the fun in that?”
Smirking, I took a step back, our gazes locked as Alex brushed a strand of hair out of his eye. There’s that look again.
“Come over tonight,” I tried to ask, but it came out as more of a statement.
He blinked. “Why?”
A valid question that I did not have a valid answer to.
“I need help with the… uh, the project,” I stuttered. “Lola doesn’t think that I can research as well as you, so I want you to help me find good articles. To prove her wrong.”
Alex eyed me skeptically, and I offered a lopsided smile.
Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes.
“What time?”
I try to wipe the evidence of my giddiness off my face. “I don’t have practice tonight, so whenever you want.”
“Alright, River. Text me your address.”
After spending a month avoiding him and keeping my distance, I finally caved in. I was too weak to endure the torment any longer.
We’d have to suffer the consequences later.
Classes dragged out so long that I resorted to pleading with time itself to speed up. When I finally made it home, I went straight to prepare for Alex to come over.
I took a long shower and shaved, cleaned Carson and my bathroom, and tidied my bedroom. Now I was doing the last thing on my list: the dishes. Momma would be so proud of me.
I had an urge to do something special. Something to make up for all the hot and cold behavior I was putting Alex through. He never deserved that treatment, and as much as I justified my actions because they came out of care and protection, they still hurt him. And what hurt him hurt me.
“Carson,” I sang.
Carson, having just entered the kitchen, side-eyed me. “What do you want?”
I continued sticking the plates into the dishwasher. “Why do you assume I want something?”
“Because you’re you.”
“Lucky for you, I do want something. Will you cook dinner tonight?”
Pulling a plate out of the cupboard, he turned to me with a raised brow. “Why?”
Carson had been with me during the shittiest times of my life, and never did he try to leave my side.
He was my only brother, and I couldn’t even tell him about the only guy that I ever came close to caring for as much as I did him.
The thought of telling him made my throat dry up, but I couldn’t explain exactly why.
“Alex is coming over, and I want him to have food in case he’s hungry,” I said. “To make up for how much of an ass I’ve been to him.”
Car leaned against the counter, listening intently. “What have you done to the guy?”
I tossed the dishwasher pod inside and shut the door. Slowly, I faced Carson, my body wracked with guilt. “I’ve been gaslighting him into thinking I don’t remember who he is.”
“But you do?” he asked.
“I tried to forget for a long time. It never stuck.”
Pulling a hair-tie out of his pocket, Carson pulled his hair into a ponytail, rolling his lips together as he processed what I said. “Why are you pretending you don’t remember him?”
Easy. It was the safest option and protected him in more ways than one. If I couldn’t stay away from him, I had to keep some sort of distance, that being acting as if we had no past.
I took a long, deep breath. “It keeps him safe.”
“From?”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Me.”