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?
Chapter Three
RIVER
No way.
No fucking way someone ran into me when I was so clearly tying my shoe. Well, maybe that was my fault for stopping in the middle of the walkway, but still. I made sure I was out of the pathway to avoid a collision, yet someone still managed to run into me right as I was standing up.
Andof course,that person had to be Alex. It had only been five weeks since I’d been at this school, and I had seen him way too many times. College was supposed to be large enough that it was rare to run into the same person more than once. I guessed the exception to that rule was when you wanted nothing more than not to see said person.
Not only did we collide, but my elbow jabbed right at his throat. It sent me into a whirlwind of panic, my mind racing with the thought that I had broken his vocal cords or something. I never wanted to hurt Alex.
Then he had the nerve to say sorry tomewhen he was two seconds from decapitation. Not to mention his coffee had soaked onto his shirt and the ground, and if he was anything like the other coffee fiends on this campus, that ruined his entire day. Still, he was the one apologizing.
I caught myself staring at him. I knew better than that, so I had to fix my mistake. I needed to present not rude, but uncaring. Couldn’t have him thinking I knew who he was.
I wondered whether he believed that lie. Of course, I remembered Alex—trust me, I tried to forget. I really did.
I could forget the name of the girl who lived next door for three years, my cousin’s birthday, and how to ride a damn bike, but I could never forget Alex. Genuinely, it was impossible for me to erase him from my mind.
Just like it was impossible to erase that kiss from your mind.
Gosh, one peck on the lips at a mere thirteen years shouldn’t have lived in my mind the way it did. Did Alex even remember it? Did he even want to?
