Chapter Twenty One: The Feeling Of Not Feeling Anything At All
Sophia Crawford

River and I were on good terms, surprisingly.

Since he took me to the hilltop, things have been kind of good between us. It was like the bad blood between us was never there.

It was like absolutely nothing happened between us, and I was grateful for that.

To be honest, I was walking on eggshells the entire time because even though things were good between the two of us, River can still snap and we’ll go back to square one again. I didn’t want to jinx it either because I was a few minutes away to go to his house to attempt to finish the essay that’s due this week.

The caterpillar has gone into his chrysalis stage last week already when I showed River the cage, and after that, things have gone fairly smoothly, we just had to write the essay and I couldn’t do it by myself. River needs to contribute to the assignment before Mr Ryan notices that I did everything all by myself.

The past few days, after River took me to the mountain, was good.

River sat by his usual bench at lunchtime, alone as always, eating an apple and writing and doodling in his notebook—not that I watched him closely—but he has never, not even once mentioned anything about that night, at the party. He hasn’t mentioned it to me and he hasn’t mentioned it to anyone else, either. He just moved on like that night never happened and I guess I was grateful for that.

He only talked to me on Monday once when the both of us decided that we should rather meet up at his house this weekend to write the essay about the caterpillar’s growth so far, and that was that—nothing has been said after that.

Today was Saturday and I was getting ready to go to his house.

I was brushing through my brown hair with my hairbrush while looking at myself in the mirror when my grandmother leans against the doorframe with a smile on her face.

“You look beautiful.” She says, smiling even wider at me.

I turn around to face her even though I could see her clearly in the mirror. “You don’t think it’s too much?”

I wore a black turtleneck bodycon long-sleeved dress that covered the purple scar I had on my upper thigh and knee, and finished the outfit off with a blue denim jacket and a pair of black and white skate shoes. The weather has been getting colder and colder by the week, so I had to wear something a little warm.

“Of course not! I think you look absolutely lovely, honey.”

“Thank you, Grandma.” I return the smile.

I set my brush down onto my desk and grabbed my phone from the nightstand.

My stomach ties in to a million knots just thinking about the unopened message Daniel’s mother has sent me at the party. And even though a few days have passed since the party, I still couldn’t gather enough courage to respond to her.

Before I could make my worry obvious, I smile and look at my grandmother who was still leaned against the doorframe. “Will you be okay by yourself today Grandma?” I ask her, propping my phone deeply into my jacket’s pocket.

“You keep forgetting that I was alone before you moved in.” She chuckles. “Of course I will be okay.” She says, reaches out her hand toward me and she twirls a strand of my hair around her free finger. “Have fun writing your essay, dear.”

I nod, smiling at my grandma before I kiss her cheek. “Thanks, Grandma.”

I grab my bag up from the floor and sling the strap over my shoulder.

• • •

River was your typical bad boy.

He wore black combat boots, a black pair of jeans and a white shirt to break the colours a little bit. If that didn’t scream ‘bad boy’, then I don’t know what will.

His hair was damp and brushed backwards for a change—it was a definite change from the usual strand that always fell to his face whenever he would move his head. For the first time in a long time, River wasn’t full of bruises. His knuckles weren’t busted and the scar on his eyebrow was starting to heal nicely.

And he smelled like sweet cologne, and not like he just had a fight—smelling like literal blood and sweat, and not his own blood and sweat. His opponent’s.

“Why do you always wear so many rings?” I ask him, noticing that his entire left hand was completely covered with different kinds of rings—plain round ones, skull ones, engraved ones and ones with stones inside them, like gemstones and rhinestones.

He shrugs as he focused on the paper in front of him. “I like them.”

It made me wonder if he fought with them.

If he did fight with his rings on, it was unfair and a complete disadvantage toward his opponent who would be on the opposite end of those rings, and pain.

I nod and pick up the assignment sheet to read through it again, but my eyes kept darting toward the tattoo he had hiding beneath his collarbone every time he leaned in to take something from his bag, or from the bed behind him.

When he leans back farther to grab a pen from the middle of the bed, my eye catches the tattoo he had on the left side of his hip when his shirt lifted up with his movement—it was a tattoo representing handcuffs that were broken, as if he was finally free from someone’s hold on him.

“If you stare any longer, you might just catch feelings.” He says, pulling me from my endless staring.

My cheeks heat up almost immediately and tried to hide it by snatching the paper from his hands so that he won’t see the warmth of the blush on my cheeks. I quickly look at his face instead of the tattoo he had on his hip and wondering what the tattoo actually represented.  “You wish, asshole.”

“Hey! I was reading that!” He argues, trying to snatch the paper back from my hands, but I hide it behind my back so that it was out of his reach.

“You did not read anything written on this paper.” I tell him, raising my one eyebrow at him questioningly.

“I—th-there stood—”

“Hmm, exactly.” I give him the paper back and show it to him. “There’s nothing written on the paper, River. That’s how I know you’re lying.”

“Oh…”

“What did you do while you were ‘reading’ the paper?” I air quote the word.

“We’re not here to play twenty questions, Scarface.” River says, placing the paper back on the ground before him. “Let’s just write this damn essay, okay?” He runs his fingers through his hair and his shirt lifts up as he was doing so.

I caught a glimpse of what was hiding underneath that white shirt of his—scars. He had scars on his stomach that looked like burns that never properly healed.

Cigarette burns.

No. It can’t be. I’m just imagining things.

The rumours were getting to me.

They’re making me see things that aren’t there.

Not wanting my gaze to linger on the burns, or scars, or whatever they were, I look at him as he started to write five big letters on the first line of the blank paper, the same paper he used moments ago to ‘read’ from.

He wrote the word ESSAY in his beautiful, neat handwriting.

Even though we weren’t here to write the essay again, we were just here to collect more data so that we can add them into the essay I already compiled.

He needed to write them down so that Mr Ryan won’t notice that I did the entire assignment by myself.

“We have to collect all the data first…” I tell him, seeing a small v forming between his eyebrows, indicating that he was slightly confused to what I meant. “The changes we see in the caterpillar when it grows.” I explain. “It’s already in its chrysalis stage. So write down what you saw before it went into that stage.”

River was looking at me as I explained.

His mouth was slightly parted as he concentrated on what I was trying to say.

I clear my throat, suddenly feeling nervous. I couldn’t concentrate when he looked at me like this. Hell, it was hard forming any words at all. “Uh, the habitat is complete. You already watched the caterpillar go through the chrysalis stage the other day, so write down what you saw in an essay form, basically.”

“Watch the caterpillar go into the chrysalis stage?” River shakes his head in disbelief. “We should’ve taken the damn diaphragm instead. I didn’t think we’d have to—”

He stops mid-sentence when he realised that I was laughing behind my hand.

“What?” He asks, clearly annoyed that I was laughing.

“It’s a diorama, not a diaphragm.” I say in between laughs.

His nose flares in annoyance and he glares at me through his thick eyelashes.

I throw my hands up in surrender. “Okay. Okay. I admit it… choosing the butterfly was a stupid move… but it would be an easy pass if we manage to write an essay without the caterpillar dying.” I tell him, trying to stifle a giggle but it came out as a snort.

I couldn’t help it. River trying to pronounce Biology words were funny as hell.

He was still glaring at me. “You think everything is funny, don’t you Scarface?”

And there, just like that, he ruined everything.

I stop laughing immediately and grind my jaw together. “Stop calling me that.”

It was a terrible damn nickname and it’s even worse when he’s the one to call me that. It made me think back of the first time we met—when we bumped into each other on the first day of school.

“Don’t you—”

“Do you think I asked to have this scar?” I ask him, feeling the atmosphere around us change from comfortable to very uncomfortable in a matter of seconds. “No, I didn’t ask to have it. So, please stop calling me that River.”

River swipes his thumb across the corner of his mouth, sensing the sudden change of atmosphere around us, too. “What happened, anyways?” He lifts his hand into the air and beckons with his hand, around his cheek area.

I laugh, a little too bitterly. “Who’s the one being nosy now? Are you up in my business now too? Is this your way of getting back at me for prying about your personal life—”

“Well,” he scoffs, “maybe now you’d know how it feels like when someone keeps placing their nose where it doesn’t belong.”

His words hit me as hard as a slap, but I won’t let him get to me, not again.

“I apologized for being nosy, time and time again and you didn’t want to forgive me. I did my part, you didn’t do yours.”

“Sometimes apologies just don’t cut it.” He says.

I shake my head. “You can’t go through life without forgiving others. It’s a very bitter life to live if you don’t forgive after one apologizes time and time again.”

“You’re one to talk about having a bitter life.” He backfires. “You’re the one who always looks so damn sad in the hallways. Like someone kicked your damn puppy!”

Duke lifts his head from where he was sleeping on the bed.

He didn’t like the fact that our tone went higher and higher ever second.

“Maybe I am sad because I know that I have to go to class knowing that you’re my damn partner in this stupid damn assignment!” I yell, throwing my hands up in frustration, but it drops back to my sides when he flinches.

River. Flinches.

He also shuts his eyes tightly like he was waiting for me to hit him. Expecting me to hit him.

That’s when realisation strikes.  River was hurt in the past, physically. And those cigarette burns weren’t just my imagination, or that it was just rumours.

It was the truth.

The atmosphere wasn’t uncomfortable anymore, now it was downright tense and really awkward. Walking-into-the-school-naked awkward. Walking-out-of-the-bathroom-with-toilet-paper-sticking-to-your-shoe awkward.

I place my hand against my mouth. “River, I—I’m sorry.”

“I think you better just leave, Sophia.” He finally says, pointing to the door when he opened his eyes again. They were red-rimmed and he was keeping himself from saying anything when he bites the inside of his cheek, hard.

“River…” I plead. “I’m sorry.”

“Leave, Sophia.”

And there, just like that, we were back to square one.

I get up from his bedroom floor after I gathered my things and leave his room.

I close the door behind me.

As I stepped farther away from his room, I heard sniffling coming from inside.

I wanted nothing more than to go back and to comfort him. But I didn’t. I refrained myself from going back because I didn’t want to worsen things.

I leave his house, still hearing his soft sniffles in the back of my mind and I was still picturing his red-rimmed eyes as if he was sitting right in front of me.

Guilt was gnawing at my insides.

My heart ached for River, because the farther away I walked from his house, the more I started to connect the dots, even more than before. One of the rumours Ana told me might be true after all, that River might’ve been abused in the past.

If my theories are correct, River would need professional help.

• • •

River Jenkins

When Sophia lifted her hand—I really thought, even if it was just for just a brief second—that she was going to hit me.

I always fail to remember that not everybody is like my abusive father.

Sophia was not like my dad, and I was foolish to think that she would hit me.

“Weak.”  I tell myself, tugging at my hair roots frustratingly. “I am so weak.” I wipe the traitorous tears from my cheeks furiously.

“River, why did Sophia—” My aunt stops mid-sentence when she saw me crying on the floor. She quickly enters my room, falling to her knees to pull me into a comforting embrace.

“What happened?” She asks, pulling away but her hands still rest on my shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“I am weak. I am a coward.”

She lets go of my shoulder and lifts my chin up so I can look her in the eyes. “Listen to me, River… you are not weak or a coward… You’re the strongest person I know and you are the best thing to have happened to me. Don’t let his words get to you.”

“I was the worst thing to have ever happened to Beck… And my mom…” I say in a low voice, rubbing my tear-stained with the back of my hand. “They would’ve still been here if it wasn’t for my negligence. If I wasn’t a coward…”

“Don’t say that.” She shakes her head. “You did everything you can.”

“No,” I shake my head slowly, repeatedly, “not everything.”

“Talk back one more time boy, you’ll be the reason that they’ll be next.” He says, anger written all over his face, in his eyes and in the way he bawled his hands into fists.

“You know what, dad? I don’t give a shit anymore. You did it to me all those years; you won’t start with them because you’re afraid that you’ll be exposed for who you really are. They’d see you for who you really are, the person you tried to hide all this time. You won’t do it.” I tell him, feeling the same anger he had towards me start to take over.

I am sick and tired of his bullshit.

I couldn’t do it anymore.

“Well, we’ll just have to wait and see.” He says angrily, walking out of my room after he had shut the door loudly behind him.

“I was the reason he moved onto them next.” I sobbed. “I was— I—”

“You couldn’t have known, River.” She swallows hard. “Your father was unpredictable, and an angry, abusive drunk. You didn’t know that he would move onto them next. It’s not your fault.”

Her words were supposed to be reassuring, but they were anything but.

“There were signs, but I ignored it. I ignored them.”

“Beck hid it so well, River. Nobody could have known—”

“He had a notebook written full of what he did to him, to them!” I yell at her, breaking down once more when more tears start to run down my cheeks.

My heart was being ripped to shreds every time I would think about him laying his hands on them, hurting them… He threatened to do it and I didn’t believe him, and it was too late when I found out about it.

“I wish it was me instead…” I cry out, hugging my knees to my chest. “I wish it was me instead…”

It hurt so damn much and I just wanted the pain to end.

I needed it to end.

“I–I found the book too late and when I did find it, I didn’t know what was happening… I thought it was just a school bully, someone trying to get to Beck but it was him all along… I should’ve known it was him but I was blinded.”

“River… You have to see someone…” My aunt says, holding my hand in hers. “This has been weighing on you for too long and I’m afraid you won’t be able to carry it for longer… I thought fighting was helping you, but it doesn’t. You need to see someone other than the support group.”

“I don’t want to see anyone.” I tell her. “They won’t help me. They can’t help me. I’m meant to feel this pain. I deserve it even…” I swallow hard, shaking my head at her. “Professional help won’t get rid of the pain or the guilt I’m feeling right now.”

“But it will lessen the pain and guilt.” She says, “Just try, for me. I can’t take it anymore seeing you broken like this. It pains me to see you like this. It pains me to know that I can’t do a damn thing to help you.”

“I’m sorry… I never meant to burden you.”

“This guilt and pain is eating you alive, River. You’re not burdening me; I just want your pain to end because you don’t deserve to feel like this.”

“Maybe I am meant to feel this pain…” I tell her. “Maybe it’s karma getting back at me for not being there for them when they needed me the most.”

“That is not true.”

“It’s embedded into my brain… how they looked like in their final moments… Beck smiled at me because he knew he was going someplace safe after… he was happy when h-he left… but he didn’t deserve to leave so early. He had his entire life mapped out. Karma is trying to remind me of what I did. Karma is telling me that I deserve to feel this because I wasn’t there for them.”

“River… you need professional help. You know that, right?”

“What I need right now is to fight.” I tell her, nodding.

I get up from the ground and look at her.

“I don’t need help, Aunt P. I just need to fight.”

• • •

The crowd goes wild when I climb into the makeshift ring.

The sound was music to my ears.

My opponent today was much bigger than me; with arms the size of footballs and a white-teethed smile enough to scare the weakest of fighter.

But not me.

I wasn’t afraid.

The one time I’m never afraid is when I’m in the ring, ready to beat the shit out of my opponent. It makes me forget. It makes me feel higher than I’ve ever been.

“Let the fight begin!” The ringmaster announces.

The crowd goes wild.

My opponent jumps up and down, his eyes glued onto me.

“Oh, it’s on.” I tell myself before charging at him.

I throw a punch to his face but he surprised me by grabbing my fist into his big hand, twisting it backwards. He punches me in the ribs, sending my flying to the ground the second he let go of my hand.

He kicks me while I was down on the ground, struggling to catch my breath from the blow he inflicted against my ribs. He didn’t even give me a chance to recover because he kept on kicking me and kicking me until I couldn’t take it anymore.

The last thing I remember when the darkness finally took me under, was the ringmaster’s words echoing through the barn full of crowded people; “and we have a new winner!”

There it was… the numb feeling I’ve been craving when the darkness finally took me under.

The feeling of not feeling anything at all.

The darkness…

I was finally away from the pain.