Page 61 of River & Rue

A distorted memory flashes and winks out, swallowed by static.

“Wha—huh?”

River nods like my incoherent appeal is perfectly reasonable. Oddly comforted, I close my eyes. His approaching footsteps resonate through the floorboards, vibrating them against my battered body. It feels good, or at least distracts me from my general unwellness.

“Up you go. It’s already ten thirty. If you sleep all day, you’ll regret it.”

Knowing he’s right, I force my watery eyes to reopen. He stands above me, his lips tilted and a hand outstretched.

With a disgruntled sigh, I raise both hands. He grips them firmly and lifts my dead weight to standing. Vastly overestimating my balancing skills, he releases me too soon. I pitch forward, my face smashing into a rock-like surface.

“Ow. Stupid muscles.”

A rumbling laugh tickles my nose, already sensitive from the dust on the floor. I sneeze twice into his shirt.

“Nasty.”

“You’re nasty,” I mumble.

A huff of amusement heats the top of my head. More warmth flows over my shoulders as he cups them and turns my listless body toward the bathroom.

“Splash some water on your face and brush your teeth. Coffee and food are on the way.”

Grumbling, I lift my arms for balance and take baby steps toward the bathroom.

“Proud of you.”

I flip him off.

Somewhere between brushing my teeth and peeling off my sweat-encrusted pajamas, the noise in my head quiets and memories of last night flood back.

The pool. The cabana. The walk home. Scaring the hell out of River when I introduced Lenny. The wonder on his face as she ate a strawberry out of his hand. His horror when she scent marked his leg before trotting smugly into the woods.

From there, my recollections become watercolor, each bleeding into the next. River gagging at the stench of coyote urine, ordering me to stay in his front room while he showered. Forgetting the order when I had a craving for grilled cheese.

The perilous journey across the porch to my door. Colorful, undulating patterns on the walls and floors. Smoke, a screeching fire alarm, and River bursting into my cabin in a towel to turn off the stove and open all the windows. After, watching him make me grilled cheese and barely tasting it because rainbows kept dripping from his smile.

Now I know why my throat hurts—LSD apparently flips a personality switch for me. I talked incessantly. For hours. River is at least partially to blame. He kept asking questions that, in my addled mind, required answers in the form of twenty-minute-long monologues.

I wasn’t so out of it that I opened my mental vault of trauma, thankfully. But I still shared way, way too much. Details about my life only Ivy knows and some I’ve never shared—like my worry that Ivy and I are too dependent on each other, outweighed only by my fear that without her, I’d have no one who truly cared about me. Without me, though, Ivy would be free to focus fully on herself and her dreams.

My melancholy didn’t last long. Before River could put words to the serious look on his face, I dragged him outside and made him spin in circles until we were dizzy and gasping.

We dropped onto our backs on the cold grass and stargazed. I ran my mouth about my remote job as metadata librarian, my obsession with propagating, and my dream of having a garden to grow my own food. I also vaguely recall a fervent discussion about time travel, reincarnation, and parallel realities.

Eventually, River tried to convince me the hammering sound in the forest wasn’t a woodpecker but my teeth chattering. I refused to believe him and took off running. He caught me before I made it out of the clearing, threw me over his shoulder, and carried me into my cabin.

He distracted me with fancy French chocolate, then let me brush his hair. I spent at least five minutes running my fingers through the strands, mesmerized by their softness, before giving him pigtails, then space buns, and finally deciding on a small braid near his face.

I can’t remember a time I laughed as often or as hard as I did last night, but there was a cost to letting go.

I stared too much.

Touched him too much.

At one point, I crawled into his lap and pried open his mouth so I could test whether his canines were sharp enough to draw blood. He laughed so hard we almost fell off the couch. Not to be deterred, I shoved my index finger into his mouth and told him if he didn’t bite, I’d never forgive him.

He stopped smiling and bit my finger. There was a moment. An accidental brush of his tongue on my skin. A gasp—mine. His hands clenching on my waist.