Phoenix's Lies

Well This is Awkward

River

Hours later and it's almost time to go home. Something that like any other seventeen-year-old kid should have made me happy. Was I a normal teenager with a normal, happy life. Only that wasn't the case. Instead, all that fact meant was trading one prison for another. Of spending another night trying to fend for me and the last of my family alive. Another night was spent straining myself to see if my mother would return to abuse me or El. That was if Ari didn't drag me somewhere or Ash couldn't find me a fight or race to earn some cash. Never enough to live comfortably without worry - never that with an abusive, neglectful, alcoholic and addict of a mother - but enough. Enough to carry on. To survive.

"Are you ok River?" Amélie asks when I snap out of my head and offer her a rueful smile, shrugging once to show that I've heard her. "You seemed a little distracted. Is everything ok?" She tries to sound concerned but I know she isn't. I've had enough time and experience at reading her to know that she was as sincere as she was attempting to sound, and it was a poor one. "River?"

"I said I'm fine Amélie," I shout back, feeling a little bad when she flinches at my harsh tone and sighs. "Sorry, just a little tense, I didn't sleep well yesterday." I look down when I say that, not because it was a lie but because someone else's eyes on mine make me feel anxious. Like I was having to look out for danger, a little like when my mother was home and I could hear her in the house moving about. Only this time it wasn't about the danger itself that had me feeling nervous, not like when I would try to protect El from our mother. This time the danger was how my body and mind were reacting to the eyes. How all of me was emotionally reacting to the eyes. Swallowing I look up from between the curtains of my hair to find myself staring into hypnotic blue-silver ones. Phoenix. That's who had been watching me. Pulling out emotional responses all whilst sitting in some girl's lap with her clawed hands all over him.

Suddenly angry the image made me mad. She should keep her fucking hands to herself and off him. The thought takes me by surprise, but before I wipe the expression off my face I make the mistake of catching his eye again, only to see he's smiling at me with a slightly different expression than before. The hunger was still there but there was an unreadable edge to the way his lips curled in the expression, all whilst he ignored the girl trying to make out with him. Arrogant bastard, the snide comment flits through my mind but I don't ignore or push it away. Rather let it sit. Seeing no reason not to acknowledge it, true as it is.

Opposite me, Amelié shares a look with Angel and her twin Abigaile though it's only Angel who speaks, her eyes following mine to where I still had yet to look away from the table my former friends sit at. Phoenix's eyes were still on mine as he offers a slow smile and winked, completely ignorant of the people around him, as well as the girl half on his lap where they'd somehow swapped places with me watching him. His eyes focus on mine and mine alone, something that causes an eruption of butterflies in my stomach. Clenching my hands into fists under my table I look away, despite every part of me urging me not to. Hoping that no one else notices.

But when I look back at my friends that illusion is shattered, Shattered into a thousand pieces when I notice all of them are watching me with various, unreadable expressions. All but Derek who glares at Phoenix with an angry look that does all but attacks him. Something that isn't helped when I glare back at Phoenix to see him raise Derek with a challenging expression, the handsy blonde who had been on his lap before, now vanished. Good riddance.

Except I can't understand where the feeling of jealousy is coming from. Nor can I explain the blush and butterflies I'd felt earlier. Not rationally anyway. And yet not even six hours after my old best friend turns up at school I've felt more emotion than in the past five years put together. Well outside of my sister and a few close friends like Ari that is. And yet despite everyone around me trying in vain, he could do it as easily as breathing. Something that makes him dangerous to be around given who I was trying to hide from. To run from,