Riparian

Tallahassee IV

Summer was a lousy reminder that I had no one to hang out with and nothing to keep me busy. I spent almost all my time listening to the flow of the water I dipped my feet in. Now that summer was in full swing, I hoped to see Aven more often.

As much as I didn't deserve one, I wanted a friend. Having one for the summer, I thought, would be very refreshing. Because, as much as I detested them, I had human emotions and desires and I wanted someone else to have those emotions for me. I wanted to be cared about, whether or not it was something I would necessarily admit.

I dragged my feet slowly out of the water, hugging my knees tightly to my chest and resting my cheek atop the structure. Sharp blades rested behind me, lying in the tall grass. It had been a few days since my last encounter with Aven, and I wasn't sure whether it was best to wonder about him or forget he existed. His appearances hung over me in an incorporeal cloud of wishes, wants, and almosts. I almost thought I was worth someone's time. I almost thought someone was capable of caring about me. I almost mattered. The last was the dagger that cut the deepest, a deeper wound than my blade cuts could fix.

I almost mattered.

I decided Aven was fulfilling a personal obligation to himself; he couldn't do nothing for me or shun me, because he would've felt guilty. As long as he'd been friendly, he could sleep at ease. I hadn't made a friend, and I still had not a caregiver in the world.

I didn't blame those who had no regard for me. It wasn't as if I was likable, had anything to be proud of, or was the one everyone in the family adored. I was the crazy cousin who cried in the bathroom for no apparent reason while everyone else celebrated. No one asked me what I'd been up to lately because they knew I hadn't done anything worth mentioning. My life was a series of hollow, meaningless movements that took me in a vicious cycle instead of moving me straight forward. I'd heard talk of those who were "moving forward," but I was stuck in a dull, disappointing circle that offered no action to take and no reward to receive. I had nothing to look forward to and nothing to look back on - I was stuck in the middle of a vast nothing.

As my thoughts consumed me, tears pushed out of my eyes. I wept because I'd messed everything up; I couldn't even live correctly. I was the embodiment of failure and squandered chances.

It was at that moment that a voice I'd found all too familiar spoke up from behind me. "Funny, that's what I came here to do." The shiver that Aven's voice sent up my spine was unnerving. How vulnerable did he make me? How deeply could he hurt me? I knew he'd punctured me far more than I should've allowed, and it made me wonder just how thin the walls I'd built up overtime really were. Had I only built up and not out? Had they grown in height and not in thickness, so one strong enough could get to me just by breaking through them?

I turned around to face him. His smile was small, and with a single glance in his eyes I could tell he was putting on a show. I knew because of all the times I'd had to do the same thing.

Unsure of what to say, I stared at him blankly. There was a frozen moment in time neither of us could bear to break, until Aven walked toward me. The light scraping noises his sneakers made in the dry grass were all I could hear, amplified in my ears. After a moment's hesitation, he sat down beside me, keeping a safe distance between us as if I was a ticking time bomb. He gazed at me for a small forever before finally saying, "It's nice to see you again, Tallahassee."

Now that he was closer, I could see the unshed tears deep within his eyes, hidden from the naïve.

The words that escaped my mouth could've easily been controlled. But, for a reason I couldn't explain, I didn't want to hold them back. "What happened to you?"

He responded with a somber laugh and I knew I was in for a sugarcoated answer.

But Aven was one to defy what I thought I knew about the world. "Don't you worry about me," he said with a desultory smile. "Life isn't treating me all that badly."

And we sat, observing the pain in each other's eyes.

Finally, Aven broke the ethereal silence. "Do you want to go somewhere?"

This boy named Aven was certainly a mystery. Knowing nothing of me except that I was a freakish masochist with a strange desire for self-deprivation, he had decided to come into my life trying to mend what was broken. He didn't know that I wasn't just broken; I was shattered. There were so many minuscule shards that a master carpenter would be left with sliced hands and little holes in the finished product instead of the pieces that could never be recovered. This boy named Aven didn't know I was irremeable--and yet he was still willing to try and mend what was shattered. This boy named Aven was a mystery. A refreshing and awesome mystery.

A sincere smile crept across my face. "It depends on where we're going."

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I had a ridiculous amount of trust in Aven. I knew he and I were practically strangers, but I believed he and I possessed souls with the same dark roots. I looked into his eyes and saw pain; I could feel agony radiating from his soul. As much as he tried to convince me otherwise, I could tell he was not as halcyon as someone naïve could've believed. He was broken, and those who are broken see each other's fractures.

Notwithstanding, I knew absolutely nothing about Aven, except that he was an ebullient spirit with a worn-down vessel, and that I had frighteningly quickly put my trust in him, something that I hadn't done for anyone since I was young and naïve. It was as if comfort radiated off of him and drew me in, and for some strange reason I didn't mind.

And it was for this very reason that I found myself in the passenger seat of Aven's car, with little idea as to where we were going. He had described it vaguely, but it sounded like a place that held similar traits to my familiar riverside.

Aven's voice pulled me out of my thoughts. I hadn't even noticed the thick silence in the air. "It takes an awful lot of trust, Tallahassee, to get into a car with an 18-year-old stranger whom you've only had a couple of conversations with and could be taking you anywhere within the limits of a full gas tank." I knew he hadn't meant to ridicule me, but I still angled my head towards the car window so he couldn't see my crimson-tinted cheeks. It was true; I didn't know who this Aven character was, and my fate was completely in his hands. Jumping out of a moving car didn't present itself as a reasonable option, so whatever happened to me was truly up to him. That prospect should have scared me. But with Aven, it simply didn't.

I shook my head. "I don't believe you'd steer me wrong, Aven. I don't know. I just don't." I had never been eloquent. When it came to repartees, I definitely lacked the ability to muster them up.

Seemingly perfect Aven, of course, didn't seem fazed by my pathetic response. "Before you think we're going anywhere special, I should let you know, it's pretty underwhelming."

Being as low and uninteresting as a girl could be, I responded the way I saw fit: "Nowhere we go could possibly be underwhelming to me."

The grin that spread across his face elicited a chill that shouldn't have run down my spine. "Well then," he said, "the odds are in my favor."

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Author's Note

Ahhh I'm alive guys! I'm so sorry, high school is killer!

Aven and Tallahassee have returned! But I honestly have no clue when the next update is coming; consistency is not in my vocabulary.

I hope you didn't forget about my children and I'll see you all in the next chapter!

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