Chapter Twenty: The Start Of A Friendship
Sophia Crawford

“Wow.” River mutters under his breath. “You really went all out for something as little as a damn butterfly.” River crosses his arms over his chest, leaning down so he can take a better look at the habitat I built for the caterpillar.

The tomato cage was basic; it was just a small and simple netting cage with a zip opening to feed the caterpillar.  The entire cage was completely see-through so you can keep track of the caterpillar—when he eats, when he moves and if he’s still alive.

Inside the tomato cage, there were beautiful milkweed plants—and according to research it states that it’s the only plant wherein a monarch butterfly would lay its eggs—and it also happens to be the only plant they really enjoy to eat.

I added some daisies—stolen from my grandmother’s little garden up front that wasn’t completely covered with snow and manages to survive the cold conditions by some miracle—and used it to decorate the caterpillar’s cage just a little bit so he can enjoy the view while he changes.

Yes, it has been snowing. Since the party’s downpour, the season slowly started to change, and a week later, we have found ourselves in a thin layer of snow.

“It’s a caterpillar.” I correct him, feeling a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. It surprised be that River loved the habitat I made for the caterpillar, so it was a start into a great friendship because River rarely liked anything, if ever.

He rolls his eyes at me and looks at the daisies I placed inside the cage for decoration. “You really want to pass this class, don’t you?” He asks, still looking at the cage’s contents.

“No,” I tell him, “I was bored so I actually made an effort, unlike you. You did, after all, leave me to do this entire thing myself before you decided to step in.”

He nods in approval, standing up straight again. “It’s nice. Better than what I could have done, actually. Mr Ryan chose my partner really well.” He smiles.

I was staring at him wide eyed. River can actually be nice when he wanted to?

But then again, he did save my life just the other day, so I think he was counting his words carefully. Not that he really needed to. What happened at the party was something I would really want to forget.

He was right the other day when he said that moments of weakness can happen to everybody. It happened to me, and it just had to happen while he was running after me.

“Stop looking at me like I’ve grown another set of eyes.” He says, catching me off guard.

I feel my cheeks redden, but shrug it off like it was nothing. “I am just not used to you saying anything nice.” I tell him honestly. “It’s starting to become a habit.” I walk around the cage, admiring my work. “I hope this sudden niceness has nothing to do with the fact that you think I’m a walking time bomb.”

“I can be nice.” He says. He was clearly offended when he placed his hand over his heart, and he was looking at me with fake hurt inside those blue eyes of his.

“Yeah… and I have purple hair.” I roll my eyes, shaking my head at him. “You weren’t always nice to me, if ever. You were an asshole on most days. Wait, let me rephrase, you were an asshole all the time and not just on most days.”

“I thought we were friends.”

“You said that I shouldn’t think of you as a friend just because you hugged me.”

He shrugs, and then I spot a small smile creeping up his mouth. “You’d nail the purple look, by the way. I think it would go well with the outfit you chose today.”

“What’s wrong with my outfit?” I look down in horror, trying to find fault with my outfit but found none. I was wearing a plain white t-shirt, a pair of jeans, and a pair of sneakers and socks. There was nothing wrong with my outfit.

“I just said that it would go well with our outfit. I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it.”

“You said it like there was something wrong with my outfit.” I huff, irritably. “Anyways, that’s not the point right now. Are we going to talk about purple hair or finish this damn project that’s due in a few days?”

He sighs before walking over to my bed and plopping himself down like he owned the place. He throws his hand over his eyes and started to fake snore.

“River!” I yell, smacking his boots off of my freshly washed comforter.

Nothing.

“Why did you even come here if you didn’t want to work?”

He stops his fake snoring and lifts his hand away from his eyes before they lock in on me. His hair was messy from lying on my pillow. “But you did so well with making the habitat… I thought you had it covered?”

I place my hands on my hips and glare at him. “I can’t do everything, River.” I tell him, looking at him through my eyelashes. “You have to answer some questions I piled up for the essay we have due in a couple of days.”

“I’m not good with answering questions.” He says, scrunching up his nose.

“Urgh!” I groan, shaking my head at him. “Fine, River. I’ll answer the damn questions, but you have to clean the cage on a daily basis then.”

He nods. “Fine. I’ll clean the damn cage once in a while.”

“You better.” I tell him, letting my hands fall to my sides again. “Mr Ryan won’t be happy when he finds out that I did this whole project by myself.”

He sits up on the bed, resting his head against the cursed headboard I always bump my head against in the mornings and smiles at me like he’s about to propose something.

I just hope it’s something good and not one of his damn jokes.

“Let’s go, and do something fun.”

“Like what?” I eye him sceptically.

He lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t know… just something fun. Let’s get out. We’ve been working on this assignment the entire time and didn’t even get time to take a break.”

I frown at him. “I did this assignment by myself, you mean. I need a break, not you.”

“Well, I need a break from your complaining, and the fact that you keep reminding me about the assignment you did by yourself…”

I roll my eyes and wanted to open my mouth to say something but he beats me to it.

“And besides, it’s Saturday and you clearly don’t have to do anything else other than that calamitous essay we have to write together.”

“Did you just use the word ‘calamitous’? Do you even know what it means?” I ask, stifling a laugh when I see him roll his eyes at me this time.

“You are aware that I got straight A’s before, right?”

“Before what exactly?” I ask after I composed myself.  “Before you became a bad boy who doesn’t care about anything else?”

“Yes.”

“Good to know.”

“So, do you want to come or not?” He asks, looking at me in a way like he demanded an answer.

“You still didn’t tell me where we would go.”

“Do you trust me?”

“No.”

He chuckles. “But you are bored right?”

“Yes.”

He gets up from the bed and grabs my hand in his before he hauled me out of my room. I didn’t even get a chance to object his offer of getting out of here.

• • •

“You’re kidding, right?” I ask him, gulping. “You’re not actually serious.”

I stare at the hill in front of me wide-eyed, wondering how the hell I’m going to climb this steep heel with a pair of worn-out sneakers. He actually brought me here so that we could hike on a snowy hill.

“What?” He asks. “You have sneakers on. So what’s the problem?”

“That’s not the point.” I tell him, seeing him slowly start to back away onto the hill like he did this a million times before. “I didn’t come here to hike! It’s cold, and the snow is starting to soak through my socks.”

He laughs at my sudden freak-out and that angered me even more.

He wasn’t the one afraid of heights. I was. But he didn’t need to know that.

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights.”

“I, uh, I’m not.” I stutter, but he looked right through me and my lies.

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Oh sure…” I laugh humourlessly. “You probably said that to all the people you brought here before you pushed them down the mountain.”

When he didn’t laugh like I did, I swallowed hard.

“You brought me here to kill me?”

“No, Sophia.” He rolls his eyes at me. “I didn’t bring you here to kill you. If I wanted you dead, I would have left you when you stepped in front of that oncoming car.”

“Then why did you bring me here?” I ask him, the curiosity was quite clear in my tone. “I mean, we weren’t the best of friends last week, so excuse my sudden curiosity to why you brought me here, to this place.”

“I brought you here because I wanted someone to enjoy the view with.” He says. “The mountain top creates a breath-taking view when it’s snowing.” He turns around and climbs the hill with me still staring after him, contemplating whether or not I wanted to climb it with him, or turn around and go home.

Climbing the hill like he did, I had my answer.

I wanted to enjoy the view too.

And River was actually talking to me for the first time in well, forever, so it was nice doing something with him that didn’t end up in bloodshed.

And hell, anything was better than staying in my room the entire day, so I swallowed my nervousness and climbed the hill as slowly as I could, my feet digging into the snow so that I could get a better grip, before I slide back down with my stupid worn-out pair of sneakers.

River was on top of the mountain first and I saw him reach out his hand toward me so he can help me up so that I won’t fall to my face if the snow decides to give out from underneath me.

I thank him under my breath when I was standing beside him on top of the mountain, but when I see the view in front of me; I get nervous all over again.

What if there’s an avalanche and the snow takes us down with it?

The snow hasn’t formed that much for there to be an avalanche, Sophia. Relax. But what if River shoves me down the mountain? Killing me in the process?

I shake the thoughts from my mind and turn to look at the view in front of me.

I think a gasp escaped my mouth.

River chuckles. “I knew you would like it.” He says under his breath.

“It’s so pretty.” I tell him with my eyes as wide as saucers.

Words couldn’t describe how beautiful the view actually was.

I could only stare at the view in front of me. The sun was just on the verge of setting behind another hill and the clouds were slowly starting to gather yet again, but they weren’t enough for us to worry about at the moment, they were too far away.

The snow covered the mountains, cars, buildings and trees like a blanket and nothing looked more beautiful.

If he was referring to us coming here instead of keeping it a surprise, I wouldn’t have hesitated to tag along. I would’ve grabbed his hand and pulled him along with me, and not the other way around like he did before we arrived here.

River didn’t say anything while I took in every detail of the view in front of me. He simply just admired it with me, without saying anything or looking at me.

“It’s really beautiful, River.” I finally say. “I’m glad you brought me here.”

I turn to look at him but my breath hitches when I notice that he was already looking at me. His eyes were somehow lighter than it usually is and it was impossible not to look into them.

They reminded me of the ocean on a good sunny day where the water is light blue, the sun shining onto the water, giving it a lighter glow.

“I know.” He says, raking his fingers through his still unruly hair. “It’s my favourite place. I always come here when I want to be alone, away from the human population.” He props his hands into his jean pockets and releases a heavy breath.

“If you come here to be alone, why did you bring me along?” I ask him, looking at him but he turned his head to the view in front of him.

“I can’t be the only one to witness such a beautiful view.” He says and I see a small smile appearing on his mouth. “I needed to share it with someone, and I guess I wanted to share it with you.”

I didn’t miss the way my heartbeat suddenly started to pick up at his confession—the fact that he wanted to bring me here instead of someone else.

“This place makes me feel relaxed.” He nods, mostly to himself. “I forget about everything when I’m here, and I wanted to share it with you because I think you needed to feel relaxed too. I think you needed to forget about everything too.”

“Wow, River.” I mutter, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear. “So you do have a heart, after all.”

“Don’t make me regret bringing you here.”

I chuckle at him. “This place really is peaceful and I’m just so… I can’t even describe how I’m feeling right now. I like it. Thank you for bringing me here.”

I see him smirk and I immediately know that his nice façade he put up was just that—a façade. He’s going to be an ass, I can feel it. I just know it.

“Now that you admired the view, I can’t have you coming here again.” He says, the smile evident on his mouth when he turns to look at me again. “So now I have to push you off.”

I shrug, ignoring the way my heartbeat sped up again when he stepped closer to me. “I would push me off too.” I tell him, swallowing hard when another step was taken to get closer to me. “I wouldn’t want anyone to see this place either.”

He grabs my arms faster than I could pull them away from him and I feel my feet threatening to slip out from underneath me almost immediately. The fast movement felt like the mountain trembled underneath our feet.

I shriek when my shoe gets caught in the snow, nearly sending me flying backwards and off of the mountain, but River grabs me around the waist and pulls me toward him before I got very far. His shoes got caught in the snow too, and that caused the both of us to topple backward.

I fall onto him.

Snow splatters all around us when we made contact with the snow.

I was so close to him, I swear he could feel how fast my heart was beating inside my own ribcage. His warm breath fans my face and my neck and I forget how to breathe for a second when I lock eyes with him.

“I told you that I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.” He says.

“That was a shitty thing to do.” I managed to croak out. “Especially since you know that I don’t like heights very much.”

“You’re not afraid of heights, Sophia.” He says. “You’re afraid of falling.”

• • •

The snow crunches beneath our feet as we make our way towards the diner’s doors. He opens it for me and lets me enter first before he follows close behind, closing the door behind him so no more warm air would escape the diner.

The smell of freshly baked apple pie and coffee fills my nostrils.

My stomach growls at the delicious aromas and I catch River chuckling at me when I slid into the nearest booth, close to the middle.

“Someone’s hungry.” He comments and I swat his arm when he scoots into the booth across from me.

“I didn’t have anything to eat the entire day.” I defend, rubbing my stomach. “So yes, I am hungry.”

A waitress makes her way over to our table and hands us our menus before she introduces herself as Ruth. She didn’t even smile at us, not even when River tried his luck by flirting with her for free coffees.

He shrugs the rejection off and orders without looking at the menu in his hands.

“We’ll have two coffees and two apple pies, please.”

The waitress nods and takes our menus after she wrote down our orders onto the paper in her tiny notebook.

I stifle a laugh when she leaves the two of us alone. “You’re really starting to lose your charm if not even a waitress is falling at your feet.”

“I wasn’t trying to flirt.” He defends. “I was just being nice.”

“By complimenting her shoes?”

“Whatever.” He rolls his eyes. “I don’t flirt. With anyone. Ever.”

“Right.” I mutter. “Because River Jenkins doesn’t date. I forgot.”

“I don’t date.” He says in a matter-of-fact tone. “You’re right.”

“That’s what they all say right before they meet someone who’d change their minds about the entire dating thing.”

He shakes his head. “I never dated before.” He says simply.

“What about that Mackenzie girl?” I ask him. “The one I saw you with that night, at the party.”

I shudder just thinking about it—the way she was on top of him and I got a good glance at her bare back, and hearing her moans echoing throughout the entire room.

“She was fun for the time being, but not anymore.” He shrugs. “She’s just being annoying and clingy now. She has been for a while. She doesn’t take no for an answer.”

The waitress comes back with our coffee and pies and slides it onto the wooden table in front of us. River thanks her and I smile, looking at the plate of food in front of me. I think my mouth actually started to water at the sight.

River and I eat in silence, and for the first time I enjoyed it being quiet. It was better than fighting with him. Hell, anything was better than fighting with him.

I was having fun, and I think River felt the same way.