Chapter Seven: Who Hurt You, Grey?

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Chapter Seven: Who Hurt You, Grey?

•..•River's POV•..•
"River!"

Elliot's cheerful voice rings in my ears as I groggily come to. I groan, barely awake as I turn my body to face where her voice came from, "Elliot?" I scratched my eye, squinting as I stared at her blurry figure, "What are you doing here? How'd you get in here?"

It's been two weeks since I started hanging out with Charlie's friends and I was beginning to get used to all the things that accompanied being his fake girlfriend. Regardless of the PDA that Charlie and I share, which is nothing more than a peck on the cheek, hugging, and holding hands as we walk to class, nothing really has changed in our relationship outside of school. We were just friends who were in a very casual fake relationship with one another.

These passed two weeks Elliot and I have swiftly gotten closer to one another as gossiped amongst one another at lunch and sometimes hung out after school at my house without the company of the boys. Ryan, Arden and Spencer would sometimes tag along until they realized that we'd only be talking about schoolwork, the problematic girls in our classes, and watching the teleserye that was on that day, which I didn't mind at all.

Hanging out with another girl in school was quite refreshing in comparison to being alone half the time. Throughout the years here, I would usually be floating between friend groups which I never really had a true connection with any of them during lunch and snack. But now that I was with the boys and Elliot, it felt very... nice... for once; almost like I can finally be myself.

Not to mention, even Annette had stopped bothering me as much at school and I couldn't be even more relieved. I guess fake dating Charlie has its perks.

Ryan and I have also been hanging out more after school, however most of the time its just for him to check up on me and make sure that Charlie wasn't leading me on so I wouldn't end up hurt in the end, which I very much appreciated. I needed someone to talk to about this whole thing without feeling awkward about it. Ryan's presence and constant check-ins with me during this whole situation has helped me a lot.

As for Arden and Spencer, we've slowly gotten used to each other through me being the person they go to just to vent. From their ranting sessions during school, I learned a great deal about them it surprised me how in a short time they took me in and accepted me as their friend.

It was all new to me, but I'm glad I have them.

"Your mom let me in." Elliot explains before shrugging and plopping down on an empty pot on my bed, "I stopped by because I was wondering if you wanted to hang out today at the mall."

Yawning, I had forgotten my mother had taken a day off from her work today. Usually, she was never home on the weekends, but she was today. She had told me about her day off at the same time that she had confronted me after the coffee run Charlie and I went to on.

My mother was already home by the time I was dropped off by Charlie that Saturday. She was sat on the porch, waiting for me to pull up in Charlie's car. Having been caught red handed with the neighbor boy, I immediately told Charlie to go home so that he would avoid my mothers onslaught of questions she was bound to have if he accompanied me to my room. My mother had this knowing face as I made my way to the front of the house with a coffee in hand and a bag of other goodies in tow. She seemed to already know that I was "with" Charlie due to how she immediately asked how Charlie and I were when I placed my belongings down on the kitchen table.

During that coffee run, somehow Charlie and I had managed to waste about two hours at the coffee shop near our school and the rest of the day walking around the city having no plan whatsoever. We ended up taking lots of photos at a Seafood city that was about an hour away just to get junk food, two cans of Arizona and Macapuno balls, a Filipino candy, which Charlie seemed to like the most from the snacks we bought.

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