Beside Him

Chapter 28// She's My Fallen Angel... Only, Prettier

Confession: I've come to notice that River's eyes are not just brown but are like a pallet of paint with all the colours mixed in. Green, blue, black even f*****g pink in there somewhere.

I can't really describe it, to be honest. It's just something I've noticed. Don't ask how, because I do not know.

I'd known of her existence even longer than she'd known of mine. Which, just to be clear, is a very long time.

In fact, cringe worthy as it may seem, seeing her is my first ever memory. I remember it briefly considering I was only a maximum of 4 years old, but from what I can gather, she was running around the park chasing boys with a painted purple stick with glitter and stars on it, shouting 'if it touches you, you've got cooties!".

I remember sitting on the bench with my head on my mother's lap as she read Harry Potter and the half blood prince to me (that was always our favourite) but upon seeing this girl with a huge grin and dimples, I'd sat up, falling off the bench in the process.

I was always pretty reclusive with only Jay for a friend considering we were born beside each other. No, really our hospital beds were beside each other and our mums got close and so did we. So I hung about with my mum most of the time, not really bothering with humans overall. They were all annoying to me, even at that young age.

Anyways, back to the story. After managing to gather myself onto my knees, I'd stared with my mouth agape and my eyes wide, the buzzy feeling flowing through me numbing out the pain of gravel digging into my knee. She'd paused, as if somehow knowing I was watching her like a goldfish on crack before continuing to run after who I now know as Callum.

That's about all I remember. Now that may seem like a lot to you, but to me it's nothing.

Right, let's get this out of the way first. I'm not creepy (ok, maybe a tad) and I'm not a stalker. But I remember every single moment around River as if it were yesterday.

From the first moment she'd moved permanently to America to the day we'd spent together paint balling, every second around her was embedded into my brain like the China stamp on the bottom of the plates my mum loved to hoard.

She was like a puzzle. Problem is, I was like a jagged piece that would never fit in. I never would.

She was that popular girl who everyone wanted to be around, to get the chance to breathe the same oxygen as. And, up until 9th grade when I earned my reputation, I was the freak who sat at the back of the class, never really saying a word to anyone.

Now, I'm sure the curiosity is there on how exactly it is I earned this reputation that everyone keeps blabbing on about.

Easy; I was a 12 year old who punched a teacher when he'd said a certain painting was 'uncreative' and 'the work of someone who's going nowhere in life'. Yeah, I don't even know if River knew the prick was saying that about her truly beautiful painting.

But he got what he was coming to him in the shape of a black eye.

Anyway, you'd think I'd get excluded for that, but Kings are Kings and I'd gotten off without so much as a scratch to my record.

The teacher, however, was not so lucky. My mother had lost her mind at him, screaming, shouting and, alas, suing him when I'd told her that 'Mr Xander made fun of my angel's painting!'

Yeah, I'd cringe too.

"Archie," the angel in question spoke suddenly beside me, breaking me out of my thoughts. "You're drumming too loud."

Archie. Why she called me that, I did not know. But what I did know is that I adored it. Don't ask why, because (shocker) I don't know.

I frowned in her direction in confusion, my breath hitching at the sight.

When I turned 15 dad, Valerie, Penny, Dawson (Penny's older blood-brother) and I had taken a little trip to the mountains. I loved it, and the view from the top was something I never thought I'd want gone.

But for just one glimpse at a distorted, slightly sleepy, blurry eyed, rosy cheeked, sleepy-ly smiling River, I would swap my eyesight altogether let alone an image of the sunset.

She was beautiful. Now I didn't compliment girls very much, I never really needed to. But with her, I was helpless. My mouth formed the words before my brain could give the 'good to go'.

"You're so f*****g gorgeous, River." My voice was one that I used only with her. It was a whisper, only a release of breath with words added in somehow.

But her reaction, Christ Id fight through world war three to see it again. Her cheeks tinted a pale pink (this was a very rare sight, as one thing I learnt the hard way is that River Harrison does not blush) her murky brown, chocolate eyes widened to the point where her eyelashes grazed her eyebrows. Her plump lips fell open and she quickly averted her gaze, looking out into the dark night.

I cleared my throat, fighting to keep a smirk at bay. I was the one who gave her that reaction. Me. Not fucktard number one and not fucktard number two or any of the other billions of fucktards who wanted my River. But me.

"Alright there, sweetness?" I asked, trying to get her to look at me again.

It was ironic, really. So many years of trying to get her to just once, one time, just look at me. And now she was sat in my car with me and me alone as we drove across the county to her sister's wedding.

"Shut it." She snapped, her sudden flicking of head causing her brown, naturally highlighted hair to bounce on her shoulders.

I couldn't hold in my smirk this time. "Is something wrong?" I asked innocently and her cute little glare made me look away before I crashed the car by picking to kiss her instead of focusing on the road.

The rain outside was basically flooding the floor and the drive to The Four Seasons hotel in New York was about 5 hours. We could have easily taken her dad's jet, as he had offered, but I wanted- needed- to spend some more time around this master piece of a human before I lost what little of my mind remained.

She murmured something under her breath that the stupid radio drowned out.

This is why I hate playing that damn thing. It always blocks out words that I wanna hear. I don't give a flying f**k that 'everybody's watching her but she's looking at you'. I do, however, give many flying f***s about every word, every syllable, that comes from River's mouth.

She saw me glaring at the system and her lips lifted into a smile. "You're so dramatic." She muttered.

And I laughed. You know why I laughed? Because I could.

Because around her the world actually made sense. Because I knew that if nothing else, my purpose in life could be to appease her. Because I needed her more than I needed oxygen, more than I needed my heart. I needed my River. My princess. My everything.

She was my fallen angel... only prettier.

I don't know if you've ever felt what I'm feeling. I don't know if you've ever been confused about whether to feel guilty about pursuing something with someone simply because you were a jackass and only started talking to them for a specific reason or whether to let it go. Whether to allow yourself to be fully controlled by a person you knew had the ability to destroy you.

I don't know if you know what I'm feeling. But I really, really hope I'm not the only one.

That I'm not the only one lying to the girl I've grown almost obsessed with, just to protect myself.

That I'm not the only one hiding a secret, one that someone like Lily could spill within one second, ending relations with River for me and, ergo, ending me.

My mum, her mum. A suicide. One kid left motherless, the other left rich.

So many years I'd blamed River. For just existing, I despised her. I ignored the memories in my head that reminded me how much my mother actually loved the girl I admired from afar.

And I ignored the sane part of my brain telling me what I was feeling wasn't hate.

Like a chant, like a god damn mantra. It's not hate, Archer. It's not hate. Wake the f**k up.

You're not here, right now in a car with who you've seen as a fallen angel for years only because it's some part of some elaborate revenge scheme.

You're here, because a moth can only go so far away from the flame. Because the wave can only go so deep into the beach. It can only go so far from the moon.

You're here, because Archer King can only go so far away from his River Harrison.