The not-so girl next door

Chapter eight

I chuckle at her. I keep my mouth closed wanting to say sorry again. She places her hands on my cheeks and shakes her head at me. She kisses my lips lightly, I feel the heat of her cheeks. Her hands are cold though. I kiss back lightly and smile against her lips.

"Every time you want to say those words instead just say something totally random," She says once we pull away. She looks  at me with intense eyes. "Of course there are times that you can say it but when you say it without even thinking just say anything else that comes to mind."

"Why are you so fixated on my not saying it?"

"Because if you say those two words when you don't mean it then they lose their meaning," She says this in a very quiet voice. I sense that something happened in the past that ruined the word 'sorry' for her. I get the urge to say it again.

"Banana sandwich," I say back to her. She lets out a laugh before leaning her head into my chest. "I suppose I should be getting home. I still gotta go to school and I'm already late." I kiss the top of her head and let go of her slowly. She lets go too and we slowly walk down the stairs. We stay quiet even though her mother was in her room. "You can come into my house. No crazy family this time." 

She chuckles and agrees. We head to my house and up to my room, once up there she starts to look about my room. "You must be good at sports," She says tracing her hand down one of my trophies. I was going through my closet to find something to wear but I stop so I can look at her.

"Yeah I guess. Natural talent and all that," I shrug my shoulders and go back to looking through my closet. I grab a normal t-shirt and go to my dresser and pull out some sweat pants. "I'll be right back." I say as I head off the bathroom to take a shower and change. I get in the shower and sigh as I feel the water run down my bare body. It felt good. As I washed myself I notices the bruises all over me but that wasn't really different. I get out and look at myself in the mirror. I was a wreck. There was a bruise over my nose and my eyebrow was swollen. "Fuck" I say to myself and slowly get dressed. I walk back to my room and see River sitting on my bed looking through a yearbook from last year.

"I hope you don't mind, I saw it and I couldn't resist." She was smiling up at me. I roll my eyes and run my hand through my wet hair.

"Nothing in there that interesting. I mean other than Freshmen me." I shrug and look at her. She smiles and continues to look through the yearbook and then she finds my picture and she starts laughing.

"Oh my god! You were so emo!" She lays back on my bed laughing still. I walk over and take the year book from her.

"Ha ha very funny," I say rolling my eyes.

"What?? I just never expected you to be a repressed emo!" She says laughing.

"I'll give you something to laugh about," I say getting on the bed. I start to tickle her until she was crying from laughing so hard. I stop and realize I'm laying on top of her. She was looking up at me blushing. I slowly lean down to kiss her lips. I kissed her gently and slowly, she didn't pull away. She kisses me back and held on to my shirt. I finally pull away and look down at her. She was blushing deeper now, I smile and get off her.

"Raspberry pudding," I whisper. She giggles sitting up. 

"I'll drive you to school." She says leaning over so she can rest her head on my shoulder. I hold her close and after a few calm minutes in silence we get up and head to her car. We get in and pull away not before seeing her mother looking at us from out a window. "She is crazy." She says shaking her head. She starts to play some throwback 'emo' songs and I just laugh. Together we sing along to the music and drive to the school.  Along the way she lit a cigarette.

I couldn't stop smiling as we sat there together in her car, just listening to songs we both seem to know every word to, as we made our way to my school. She pulled up to the front and slowly put her car in park. "Well it looks like we are here," She says. Her smile had slightly faded. She was looking deep at me as if she didn't want me to leave.

"I'll see you later okay? and I'll text," I say as I slowly open up the door. I lean to her and kiss her cheek before I get out of the car. As I walk toward the school I feel a pull to turn around and look at her. I couldn't help but do this. I turn around and see her still watching me. She smiles and waves. I wave back and take a deep breath going into the school.