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"Hey," I said, greeting River. Today River and I have a tutor session. I was also going to try and ask her about her date for the dance. I have to try to figure out a way I can subtly ask her.
"Hey, what are we working on today?" She asks me with a small smile. She walks into my room and plops down on the bed next to me.
"English. I wanted to know if you can read my essay, to see if it's good." I reply as I pull up the essay on my laptop. She takes the laptop from me when I hold it out to her. I listen to her as she mumbles the words while reading through the essay.
She highlights parts to go back to once she's done reading. River then tells me what I should fix in the highlighted parts. I sit silently the whole time, trying to gather my thoughts. I feel Rivers gaze on me as I take my laptop from her and start to fix the things she highlighted.
"Okay, what's wrong?" She asks me. I finally meet her eyes for the first time today. Her eyebrows were drawn together as she looked at me with both confusion and worry.
"Nothing," I mutter to her as I go back to looking at my laptop. It wouldn't easy be to look at her while trying to figure my thoughts out. She was too pretty for me to focus on my thoughts.
𝑊𝑎𝑦 𝑡𝑜𝑜 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑦.
"Don't say nothing is wrong because I know there is. Usually, when I'm here, you won't stop talking to me! It feels weird when you're quiet like this," She tells me.
"If you don't tell me what's wrong I will stab you in the eye," She threatens. River has been watching a lot of serial killer documentaries lately. I'm used to her threatening to stab out my eyeballs.
"I'm just thinking that's all," I say. It was the truth I was thinking.
"Yeah, well I want to know what you're thinking," She tells me in a sort of small voice. At the sound of her voice, I look up at her and see her staring at me with a soft expression.
"You have a date to the fall dance," I state before I can even stop the words coming out. I see her finger start to tap against her thigh. It was something she did when she was anxious.
"Yeah, why?" She says slowly as if she was trying to figure out where I was going with this. I try to think about what mom had told me.
I take a deep breath before continuing. "Is there anything going on between you two?" I ask as I focus my gaze on anything but her. I didn't want to see her reaction.
"No," She states. I looked back at her and now it was my turn to be confused. If nothing was going on, why would she go to the dance with him? People usually go with someone they are with or they go by themselves. She cuts me off when I open my mouth to speak.
"Why?" She asks me suddenly.
"Why what?" I ask confused. Why was I jealous? Why did I care? Why did I want to say fuck off to anyone who came near you? Why did I want to be around you all the time? Why do I like you so much? Why do I have a big dic-
"Why do you care if I went to the dance with someone?" She finally asks, cutting off my thoughts. I wanted to say 'Because I wanted to take you, I wanted to be the one next to you and I wanted to be the one you'd say yes to' but I didn't.
"It was just a question," I say instead. My heart drops to my stomach when I hear what she says next.
"If you're jealous about this you shouldn't be, we aren't together." She tells me softly.
I bite my tongue as I let my gaze fall back onto my laptop keyboard. I knew I shouldn't have said anything. She was right, we weren't together. I have no right to act like a jealous boyfriend when I'm not her boyfriend.
"You're right, I'm sorry," I say, trying to keep any emotion out of my voice. I'm just a guy she is tutoring, that she slept with and hangs out with.
We sit in silence for a little bit as I finish up my essay, and show her it before she says a quick goodbye and leaves. I stared numbly at the door, just a couple of seconds after River had closed in a hurry.
I think bitterly to myself. I shut my laptop and get up to put it on my desk. I walk past my bookshelf and grab the book I was reading. I was now on the last book in the series. I lay back down and put on my headphones.
I play soft music as I start to read. I just needed something to take me out of reality. Something that would make me forget about everything that just happened.
After hours of reading, I look at the time on my phone. It was almost one in the morning. I put my bookmark into my book and place it down on my nightstand with my headphones.
I get up and walk to my bathroom to brush my teeth before walking back to my bed. I turn off the lamp and lay down. After a while I finally start to doze off, the last thing or more like a person I think about before I fall asleep is River.
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