Phoenix's Lies

Silent

Phoenix

Riv's quiet when we set off, her head rested against the window so I can see a little of her face where I can read her expression when we pass under the sun. She doesn't say a lot and for a while, I thought she'd fallen asleep before she sighs and her expressive eyes lock on me. "Are you ok Riv? You've been quiet for a while. Something the matter?"

"Besides what I said before just thinking." She pauses then and I give her a look in the mirror, waiting. "I should regret what I've done. Dragging you into this. I should have stayed away that first party where we crossed paths the day Delia should have been turning fifteen. Had we never met there we wouldn't be here now. You'd have given up eventually, no matter what you say, since you wouldn't have known it was me. You would have been safe."

"And you would have been alone," I reply softly as I turn onto a road following the GPS directions. "No one deserves that Riv. no matter what they've been or what's happened in their lives. No one deserves to be alone and I think you're wrong for the record." She turns a little then, chin propped up on her hand as she watches me with a cynical sort of smile curling her lips. "I still would have tried to find you. Just to know for sure. Whether or not I would have then done something with the information I don't know that version of the future remains unwritten. Always will."

"Yeah I guess," She turns away again but not before I notice the tears. But before I can say anything she's brushed them away. "Sorry, I'm not normally much of a crier, something just feels....I don't know like it's balanced. On a wire, like the poem in the book. Balanced, trapped. I don't know one or the other but still. Like it'll have an outcome we can't see." She stops, turning back to me with guarded eyes. "Does that make any sense or am I just crazy?" She sounds sad as if she's balanced on the wire she was talking about. Balanced and waiting.

I think for a second before I respond to her. "I think I get it. But in a way, there's nothing we can do about that feeling Riv. That's just how life is, shit happens we don't always see or can change, that doesn't make us crazy, make you crazy, it's just how life is." She chuckles and leans her head toward me but stays on her side. "Sorry if that's a bad way to explain it, I just figured it was the most appropriate."

"In a way it is. I mean you're right I just didn't see it that way at the start and now...now I have too much to lose. Too many people I'm risking," She sounds sad again but angry now as well. With what or who I can't tell but the anger's there. "I just wish I could change it. Make sure some people end up ok after all of this." Now she looks over at me properly, "People like you, who still have a future outside of this town. This mess. If they want it that is." She chuckles again but the sound's sad now. Almost...melancholic. "Sorry, I didn't mean to get so dark I just..." She trails off, going back to staring out of the window as I drive us back.

The rest of the drive passes in silence between us. More than once I could have sworn Riv fell asleep but she never seemed to when I looked over at her. Checking that she was ok after everything that's happened. She tells me a few times that she is but something about the words doesn't seem to ring true to her expression. To how tightly she pulls herself away, inside of herself where she's safe. Where the world can't hurt her. Even if that means she shuts people out, is alone.

In no time at all, yet seeming to drag on forever, we're passing into the town borders and I see something in Riv's expression snap, a sadness I hadn't seen since we'd buried Lena not that long ago. The very thing that clues me into what might be going on inside her head since we were pulled into everything after Lena's death and in no time at all we were on the run. Maybe she still needs to process it. Finish grieving the last of her family more than she already has? The nightmares were pretty nonspecific for the most part but sometimes...sometimes I could tell it was something I could work out. A memory replaying. But not every time.