Truth of Dark Pasts by Serena Wood (free children's online books .TXT) 📖

like a glass doll the second we leave the hospital. I can tell Kathy finds it amusing and River gets easily annoyed with it. But like Shay, I don’t really seem to mind it. Until the rest of the month passes and she’s still watching me like I’m a child.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With mom insisting I do the rest of my school work from home, Summer finally arrives without me even having to attend almost half of the last semester. I still have to make up everything I’m supposed to be doing and I manage to pass the classes by the skin of my teeth.

The first week of summer break goes by relatively calmly, probably because I don’t leave the house. Fear of running into Chloe again still plagues me, even after the month that’s gone by.

Thankfully, I have friends to help pull me through it; something I haven’t been able to say for years. Shay’s made a habit of coming over every single day since I got out of the hospital and most of the time she brings Kathy along. For once in my life, I can actually say I have a best friend.

Besides River, of course. Speaking of her, she hasn’t left my house since school let out; lately she’s only been leaving when her sister insists she comes home to spend Saturday night with her family. Sometimes I feel like I’m a burden to all of them, but they’ve reassured me time and time again that they actually like spending time with me.

“Get your own popcorn!” Kathy swats River’s hand away and it pulls me out of my thoughts and back to the world around me. I try to redirect my attention on the movie playing on Kathy’s tv. Her and Shay moved into this apartment two weeks ago and they insisted we come over the first weekend after school let out. But already it looks like Kathy’s starting to regret it.

“I just wanted a little bit, God.” River huffs, moving back towards my side of the couch. She wraps her arm around me as Kathy speaks up again, “Get your own.” she grumbles again and Shay nudges her leg, “Behave.”

Despite Shay’s quiet command, the both of them continue to bicker back and forth until the bickering turns into nudges, that turn into hits. Eventually River decides to escalate things and when Kathy least expects it, she tips the bowl of popcorn in her hand, flinging popcorn all over Kathy and an innocent Shay.

“River! I just vacuumed!” Kathy’s first instinct is to push River off the couch and then for the next fifteen minutes, they run around the apartment throwing things at each other. For a brief minute I try to break the two of them up, until Shay breaks it up for me.

“I can’t hear the movie!” the suddenly stern tone in her voice startles all of us into silence. “Thank you. And you better clean this mess up before this movie ends, Katherine May.”

“Of course, dear.” Kathy mutters with this tone of defeat and for the whole rest of the movie, River and her silently pick up the mess they made. An hour later the movie finishes with some sappy, overused ending that I don’t really pay attention to. It doesn’t take long after the movie’s ending for River to start searching for food. She makes herself right at home and raids the refrigerator, much to Kathy’s dismay. Sadly for her, she’ll quickly get use to River eating everything she can manage.

But when she tries to eat her food in the living room as Shay starts the next movie, that’s where Kathy draws the line. “This is a new couch, off.” River smirks at her, “No, I’m not a dog.”

“Off.” Kathy growls and River moves to the floor in fear of angering Shay with another fight.

We end up watching two more movies before finally Shay calls it quits and wanders off to bed. River and I stand up from the couch, taking the hint that it’s time to leave. Kathy mutters a small goodbye through her yawns before shutting the door behind us. We walk down the concrete steps infront of her apartment and make the short walk back to my house.

Of course when we get there, mom is still up watching reruns of Grey’s Anatomy on the tv in the living room. We try to sneak by her to the stairs but her voice stops us in our tracks before we even get past the first stair, “Nice try, girls. I can finish this in my room, River you’re sleeping on the couch.” she gets up from said couch and gestures for River to take the now unoccupied spot. I now know very well why she does this every time River’s here, River told me the conversation they had when I was in the hospital. As awkward as it makes things now, I’m still overjoyed that River is comfortable enough to tell people about our relationship. Especially when it takes a lot more courage to talk to my mom about it.

I walk up the stairs without her and start changing into my night clothes, tossing my bra on my dresser in case I need it tomorrow or something. I pull the covers on my bed back and curl up in the warmth of the blankets. I’m not going to sleep yet, I know that much. Right now I’m just waiting. I know the routine by heart at this point. River will lay on the couch until she’s certain my mom won’t notice her going up stairs. Sometimes it can take hours for her to be distracted or asleep enough, sometimes only minutes. But regardless, I know River will end up sleeping here like every other time before, as if we can’t sleep apart.

So until then, I stare up at my ceiling silently and listen to the sounds of mom’s tv downstairs. It doesn’t take her long to drift off to bed and before I know it, my door is opening and River is crawling under my covers.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” there it is, that concerned tone. Every time we’ve been alone since I left the hospital, she’s managed to adopt that voice. She speaks like something terrible might happen to me any second. I find myself smiling at the thought of this side of River, she hardly ever shows she cares. I always thought that I was the only one to get to see her sensitive side and to this day I still like the idea.

“I’m okay.” I answer simply and she scoots closer, gingerly wrapping her arms around my waist.

“I’m not hurting you, am I?” truthfully, my stomach is still the slightest bit sore from how hard Chloe had punched and kicked me, but I can’t bring myself to mention it when River’s being so sweet, it’s not like her. And I intend to soak up every minute of it.

“No.” I mumble, a small yawn escaping me as I do so. Satisfied with my answer, she nuzzles my neck. It’s a nice feeling, to have her being this affectionate. She kisses my collarbone a few times and her hand slides under my shirt; her fingers moving along my ribs as if she’s counting each one. Already I can feel that bubbling feeling in the pit of my stomach because I know exactly what she’s thinking.

I realize we haven’t actually done this in a while, not since before I ended up in the hospital. Then immediately after the first realization, I realize what “this” is when her hands start to wander further up my body.

“River…” I start my protest, trying to remember why I exactly I want to protest. “What?” I can feel the smirk against my skin before she moves to kiss my neck. “My mom usually isn’t right down stairs when we do this, she’s gonna hear.”

“Maybe you should practice being more quiet then.” she chuckles and it brings out the playfulness in both of us. I roll over, moving to straddle her waist and a tickle fight breaks loose. She bursts into laughter as I start tickling her sides and she tries to form a sentence between the giggles and gasps for air. “Stop it, she’s going to know I’m up here.”

“Who needs to practice being quiet now?” I find myself laughing too and she lets out a grumble of defeat, “Okay... you win. Stop, please.” I pull my hands away from her sides and try to put on the most innocent looking smile I can manage. “You’re an ass.” she sighs, trying to catch her breath again. I lean down to kiss her nose, “I’m sorry.” much to my relief, I know now that she can’t stay mad as long as I put on my best smile.

“I forgive you.” she moves to kiss me lightly, but the soft touch instantly leaves me wanting more and without really meaning to, I move to kiss her more forcefully. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to make her uncomfortable like I worried it would and instead she kisses back.

The kisses go on a lot longer than I thought they would and when tongues come into the mix, I forget for a brief second that I’m supposed to be restraining myself. Her hands move up to tangle in my hair, pulling me closer and I take it as a sign to go one step further. Cautiously, I slide my hand under her shirt. For a minute, I don’t do anything more than that, just letting it rest on her stomach. But something starts to get to me and gradually my hand starts moving on it's own will.

She breaks the kiss briefly and a desperate need to still be kissing some part of her washes over me. I start kissing her neck and at first she seems okay with it. But at some point, the act must be too much to bear and when I get to her collarbone, she lets out a small moan. Her body tenses and as soon as it does I freeze up. Because the last time her body tensed like that, I went too far and scared her nearly half to death.

I pushed too hard, I’m making her panic. God, I’m such an idiot. I pull back instantly, suddenly remembering why I’m never the one on top. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… I just…” I struggle to find something to say but my whole brain process stops when she smiles faintly. “It’s okay, Ellie.”

“Really?” the stupid, pointless question leaves me before I can stop it and her smile grows. “Really… It’s okay for you to do that.”

“But, I thought…” I’m so dumbfounded that I can’t even manage to finish the sentence. Not that I need to anyways.

“I trust you. I know now that you wouldn’t hurt me.” her statement leaves me completely speechless for a few minutes. Is she really saying what I think she’s saying?

“Are you sure?” I wiggle back on her hips a bit and stare down at her with accusation unintentionally written all over my face. She sits up so her eyes are once again level with mine and stares right back at me for a moment. Eventually she closes the gap and kisses me softly before pulling back and taking my right hand. She guides it down to the waistband of her shorts and lets it hover there. “I’m sure.”

Every tiny doubt I have suddenly vanishes with that little action and I find myself kissing her, gently pushing her back down a moment later. That familiar nervous feeling I felt the first time we did this resurfaces. Only this time it’s a thousand times worse because now I’m the one in control. And Ellie Stone has never once in her life been in control, she doesn’t even know where to begin with the idea of control.

Ten minutes go by and we’ve managed to get down to an almost completely naked state. But I still have no idea what I’m