By Chance | Book One |

Chapter Twenty Four

River

"I'm begging. Please give me five minutes, River." Emily begged.

All day she had been following me around and it was driving me absolutely mad. She didn't show up for the whole week and decided to come on Friday

"River!"

"Christ, Emily." I groaned and grabbed her wrist. "I'll see you in class." I told Teddy before dragging Emily out of the building, to the parking lot and to my car.

"Three minutes."

"I'm sorry. You have to understand that I was drinking on my medication. And I drank too much. When I found out you were in the closet with her. I lost it."

"That's not an excuse." I crossed my arms. "You scratched her face up."

She didn't say anything, she just turned and looked out the window.

"I'm not sleeping with her, Emily. Just leave her alone. We're exes." I sighed, I was growing tired of Emily's game. The back and forth. Her trying to manipulate me to get back together.

"Why do you care what happens to her?"

"I don't. You're doing this because of me, and I don't like that. We aren't doing anything to cause any drama in your life. You have to let go of you and I."

"I love you, River." She tried to grab my hand but I moved. A look of hurt washed over her face. "I see you feel differently."

"No, you don't love me. You love the idea of us. The idea of our families merging and you being set for life no matter what. That's what you love. I was the one that was in love with you. I tried, and I tried. We never work, and I don't think we ever will."

She stared at me before her lips parted, "I don't want to see you waste your life with her."

"Get it through your head, that's none of your concern even if something was happening. Just leave Lyra alone. Leave Sasha alone. Leave Teddy alone. And leave me the fuck alone. It'll harm our fathers business relationship if you don't stop."

"Are you threatening me?"

"If that's what it takes."

She wiped her eyes before she got out of the car, slamming the door behind her. "Fuck you, River!"

Always making a god damn scene. It was so exhausting. She exhausted me beyond belief. I may not have liked Lyra, at all, but I didn't want her getting hurt because of me. Just because my ex hates her, and thinks her and I are messing around.

Even though Emily's actually certified psychotic, she should know I'd never mess around with Lyra. There had to be something wrong with me to do that.

"Sash and I are done exams on November twenty eighth." Teddy said, leaning back in the bean bag chair in my basement. "I think we're leaving the week after."

"You're going to be gone for a month?"

"We invited you, River. My mom invited your mom. We're done exams early this year, my parents want to take advantage of that time."

"I can't go, Teddy."

"I know." He sighed. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. I came to hang out, not argue."

I sat across from him. "How's Lyra feeling?"

"You know you could ask her yourself. You see her almost everyday."

"But I can ask you and avoid that whole thing."

Teddy gave me a look. "She's fine. Other than everyone staring at her, she's okay."

I guess I hadn't noticed if everyone was staring at her or not. Emily has done a lot worse to other girls.

Emily and I's constant on again, off again relationship resulted in short flings and relationships. And when Emily gets word of who these girls were, there was a strong chance of her showing up to a party and hurting the girl.

My longest relationship outside of my relationship with Emily was two months. I was able to keep it quiet for so long before she barged into my bedroom while we were together. Ryder had to help me with her that night.

Convincing these girls to not press charges on her was much easier than I had originally thought it would be. Somehow, I don't think convincing Lyra would be easy. She certainly doesn't owe us anything, especially not Emily.

"Do you think she'll press charges?"

"She would have already. But she should have. You should have never convinced the others to not press charges."

"I was in love."

"No, Emily was the only person that made you feel numb enough. You're the cause of all of this. You're the cause of so many girls getting hurt by Emily and now my friend got hurt because of her."

"I don't want to fight about Lyra today, Teddy. She's ruining our friendship. I already talked to Emily. Be patient, Man. She has a hard life." I sighed, running my hand through my hair.

"You cannot be serious. Wake the fuck up, River. Until you make an effort to at least tolerate Lyra the way she tolerates you, you're not welcome to movie night or any plans."

My stomach dropped and my heart started to beat rapidly. "I do tolerate her."

"She doesn't talk shit about you much, but when she does, it's no where close to how you talk about her. You like to think you're going to lose us because of her, but you're going to lose us because of you. Stop being a jerk to everyone all the time."

"I'm not a jerk to everyone. I took care of her the other night."

"Be more like that then. You need to heal and get your shit together." His words stung like he was pouring alcohol over a fresh wound.

"I have it together. I'm fine."

As much as his words stung, they played over and over again in my head.

"You need to seriously heal from everything. I can't be here for you if you aren't going to put in the effort. I understand, but you need to get over Ivy and accept things."

My gaze burned into his skull as he said her name. "Don't say her goddamn name, Teddy."

"This is why you need to go see a therapist or someone. No one around you can say her name. Everyone has healed other than you and Emily. You're going to fall into a deep hole, River. You have no idea how hard it was to get you out of your last one." He grabbed his bag and keys. "She wouldn't want you to live like this. You're going to hurt everyone around you and yourself if you don't take a serious look at your life and the direction it's going."