First of Two

First of Two - Chapter Eight

First of Two – Chapter 8

R I L E Y

It was like having hot chocolate in a beautiful winter morning—cold but warm at the same time.

Riley was shivering, but sweating as well. She couldn’t get rid of the smile on her face, so when she got to her dorm room and Becca was there, she had to directly slump on her bed and bury her face on her pillow so Becca wouldn’t see how silly she looked like.

“Um, Riley?” Becca asked. “Are you… are you okay?” Her backpack was still hanging on her shoulders. She shook her head, rubbing her face against the pillow which felt weird. But everything felt weird, anyway. Why is Becca even home? It’s Friday! She should be out shopping or partying or something!

 No matter how much she tried to distract herself with different thoughts to keep her from thinking of Adrian, she couldn’t shrug him off of her mind.

This really needs to stop, she kept telling herself. But why should it? another voice in her head would say. And then she would launch into hundreds of reasons why Adrian deserved to occupy that big space of her brain.

But it wasn’t just her brain—it was her chest, her heart, her pulses. Everything wasn’t normal. It was driving her crazy.

“Riley,” Becca complained. “Tell me!” Riley knew that if she didn’t flip over soon, she would faint from suffocation and that would be the last thing she would want Becca to deal with. Slowly, she rolled over and sat up, tossing her backpack behind her as it landed on the bed.

She bit her lip to hold the smile. “I—“ she started, but rethought. The mixed emotions that were twisting inside of her were so new. Not just towards Adrian, but that urge to spit everything out to someone too. She has never felt so desperate to tell somebody her bouncing thoughts. And the way Becca was looking at her made her want to spit it all out even more. “It’s complicated…”

“What is?” Becca invitingly asked.

“Um… I mean it’s not… But…” Riley took a deep breath, as if she hasn’t done it a million times already while walking to the dorm. Then with that, she told Becca. From Day 1 until today. Telling Becca felt like looking at the person she turned into. She almost didn’t recognize herself. A few months ago, this would have been silly non-sense to her.

When she finished telling her roommate—when she finished going through every moment that made her feel like a whole new person—it took Becca a minute before responding. “First of all,” she blurted,  “I cannot believe. You’ve kept this from me. For the whole month and a half. How could you!” Riley shrugged. She never considered telling Becca or anyone. She couldn’t believe she told her at all, in fact. “Secondly… Did he ever kiss you yet?” That was the thing, though. Riley wasn’t really finished with her story. She left out that one, most special part which she kept thinking about.

It made her head spin and wonder what else did life have to offer her.

A D R I A N

It was like a broken DVD with that one scene stuck on the screen, playing over and over again.

Except that the screen was his brain and the scene… well, was the scene. No. It wasn’t a scene. It was a moment. An extremely important moment in the movie of his life. He felt like that one moment where his lips brushed Riley’s was going to be in his head forever.

Even if he didn’t try to engrave every move, it would still probably stay in his head. Like a stuck scene of a broken DVD.

It went something like this:

When Jim walked away, he laughed. Riley did too. They left the cafeteria and decided to go to class early. Naturally, the room was empty. They quietly sat in their usual places—next to each other. He wasn’t able to think straight.

The thought of knowing what to do was screaming inside his head. Maybe he knew after all, what Riley meant about the loudness in her brain every time he was in it. Because he could feel it himself. Maybe even louder.

When he turned to her, she was already looking at him. Every part of him was awoken by her widely lit eyes. They were beautiful. He looked down to her lips, which she immediately bit consciously. His heart was literally pounding that he almost couldn’t breathe. How was a fragile, quiet girl with gorgeous, hazel brown eyes able to make him feel that way?

Swiftly, he cupped Riley’s cheek. She flinched, but didn’t move an inch.

The kiss happened slowly as he closed his eyes and held his breath, the way he felt Riley did. The world stopped, as if without both of them breathing, it refused to keep spinning.

As Adrian opened the front door when he got home, his guts were telling him that something wasn’t right. After all that happened today, how could something go wrong? He froze in place as he saw the broken glass scattered everywhere. The pillows that used to be placed neatly on the couches were messily spread out and the coffee table was flipped over.

He gulped and rushed to the kitchen yelling, “Mom! Mom!” His mother wasn’t around. As he ran upstairs, he spotted blood trails coming from his parents’ bedroom. His stomach churned like he wanted to throw up as dizziness slowly crawled unto him.

“Mom!” he yelled again. There was no response. Although things were getting blurrier and blurrier, he could make out a figure coming out of the bathroom. It stopped walking and looked down on him—only did he realize that he was on the floor, clutching his stomach tightly.

Adrian was running out of breath. Or at least he felt like he was. Oh, no, he thought as he realized who the man was. Now this was a scene. A scene he thought was too buried deep down inside his week brain. He couldn’t believe it was strong enough to float up once again.

It made his head spin and wonder what else did life want from him.

Whoops, no matter how much I hate to kill the vibe, it's time to find out what Adrian's past is. Any ideas? :)

Thank you so much for reading <3 <3 <3

Daphne