Chapter Forty Four: Don’t Put The Blame On Me
Sophia Crawford

I couldn’t sleep a wink last night.

I kept thinking about River and his younger brother’s notebook that was missing. I really hope that Mackenzie has it—otherwise it would be lost forever without us having a single clue who might have the notebook in the first place.

If someone were to read Beck’s entries, that would break River.

The rumours that were started when he became secluded took a huge toll on him, and if everyone finds out what happened to his brother and his mother, it would only worsen things with River.

I can’t imagine how that would make him feel if that were to happen.

It would scrape the wounds he has tried so hard to heal open again.

We have to find that notebook.

I quickly get dressed in a pair of stirrup trousers, a brown coat over a normal black tee-shirt and throw on some tall boots.

The snow was getting heavier and colder by the day and I didn’t want to risk getting a cold by wearing the same blue skinny pair of jeans I always wore.

I rush to the bathroom to wash my face and to brush my teeth, and when I was done, I go back to my room to brush through my locks of brown, wavy hair.

“Why are you in such a hurry, dear?” My grandmother asks, noticing that I was in a hurry to grab my bag up from the floor and my phone from its charger.

“I need to get to school.” I tell her, rushing to her before planting a kiss against her cheek. “Okay, I’ll see you later. Have fun!”

“But… your breakfast!”

“Not hungry!” I yell over my shoulder, leaving the house in a hurry.

I nearly face-planted about three times in the thick white snow on the sidewalk, but I managed to make it to school in one piece, and in less than thirty minutes, so it was a win-win either way.

• • •

I looked for Mackenzie everywhere, but she was nowhere to be seen. Usually I would see her trailing on River’s heels, but today she was absolutely nowhere to be seen.

I asked Ana and Cole if they might’ve seen her, but none of them have.

I sigh in defeat, starting to feel anxious on River’s behalf.

That notebook meant a lot to River and if I can’t find it soon, he’d get another panic attack and I don’t want that to happen to him, not again. It absolutely pained me to see him lying on the floor of his room, hugging his knees to his chest and trying to breathe. I don’t want to see him in that state ever again.

He might get another panic attack; or he might get an anxiety attack.

If someone finds out what happened to him and his family, his entire secret he tried to keep from everyone would be out in the open. He’s like me, he doesn’t like pity, and he also doesn’t want everyone to look at him with sadness written across everyone’s faces.

“Can I ask what this is about?” Ana asks, pulling me from my thoughts.

I was staring at the school’s doors, hoping that Mackenzie would walk through them any time soon. “I just really need to find her.” I tell her, picking at my nails with my teeth.

Ana opens her mouth, but closes it again. “Oh, wait, there she is right now.” Ana says, jerking her head towards the bathroom’s doors.

She was walking out, licking her lips smeared with this dark red, wine-coloured lipstick.

When she sees me, her eyebrows settle into a frown.

Mackenzie backs away back into the bathroom when she sees that I’m walking towards her and right when she wanted to close the door in my face, my foot catches between the door and the wall, and I opened the door with my hands.

I wanted to ask her if she had River’s notebook, but she starts to ramble before I even got a word in. “I didn’t know what was written inside when I took it.” She starts off by saying. “I didn’t mean to take it. I just wanted to find some clues to why he’s suddenly so distant and cold with me… but I didn’t think that the notebook would contain, uh, personal things.” Tears started to collect at the bottom of her eyelids, and she genuinely looked as if she felt bad for taking his notebook, but this was Mackenzie we’re talking about, this can be one of her many façades.

“So you did take it, didn’t you?”

She nods, taking her bag off of her shoulders and fishes the notebook from the bag. She hands it to me and I notice that the tears started to roll down her cheeks. “I know I have no right to ask this but please don’t tell him that I was the one who took it. Things are already bad between the two of us and I don’t want to worsen things… I know you hate me, Sophia, but please…” She begs.

I frown at her words. “I don’t hate you, Mackenzie.”

I dislike her. There’s a difference, but I wasn’t going to tell her that when she’s an emotional mess in front of me right now … in the girls’ bathroom…

“You don’t?” She asks.

My words clearly surprised her.

“No. I don’t hate you. I just don’t like you very much at times when you’d talk shit about me, but I don’t hate you.”

She nods, smiling thankfully at me.

“How will I tell River where I found his notebook?” I ask her. “I couldn’t just have found it anywhere. I mean, he never leaves the thing just lying around.”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Just, uh, just don’t tell him that I had it. He already hates me and I don’t want him to hate me more.”

“Fine. I’ll think of something.” I release a heavy sigh. “I won’t tell him. Okay?”

“Thank you, Sophia. I owe you one.” She leaves the bathroom in quite a hurry and leaves me alone in the bathroom with River’s notebook in my hands.

I don’t know if her sudden niceness was just one of her many façades, but I decided to trust her. If she decides to stab me in the back, that’s on her then.

At least I have River’s notebook safely back in my hands.

• • •

I find River in the hallway during lunchtime and Mackenzie was talking to him. She didn’t trail her talons across his bare arms like she always did trying to seduce him, but she did look like she was on the verge of crying with the way she kept dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, trying to contain her unshed tears.

I didn’t get a chance to give River his book back in Biology because we had a test we had to write and he was out of the classroom after the bell rang faster than I could catch up to him, so now was the chance that I could give it to him.

When I neared the both of them, Mackenzie smiles wickedly at me and skips away from us.

River, on the other hand, looks like his puppy died. “Mackenzie tells me that you had my notebook this entire time.” He says.

I should’ve known it was one of her many façades after all.

“You can’t possibly think that I had it this entire time—”

“Just give it to me, please, Sophia.” He says, reaching out his hand towards me. “I don’t have time to argue with you right now.”

I was dumbfounded.

I was at loss for words when I fished his notebook out of my school bag.

He actually believed Mackenzie over me?

I hand River his notebook back, but when I opened my mouth to say something, he takes the notebook and walks away without another glance or word my way.

He just left.

• • •

River ignored me for the rest of that week.

He has left my messages on seen. He hasn’t answered any of my calls. He hasn’t even looked my way once since Mackenzie stabbed me in the back.

It was like the beginning when we used to fight all the time, but this time it broke my heart more than it should. I didn’t like it when River ignored me, but he did, and I just have to make peace with that.

It’s like the tables have turned.

I ignored him for quite a while, too, and now I received the same treatment, but what hurt me the most was the fact that he chose to believe Mackenzie’s story over mine. He thought I was the one who took his notebook when I went over to his house when he had that panic attack, and I think he believed Mackenzie’s story over mine because I apparently have reason to take the book seeing that he has taken my ring, and that I wanted to get him back by stealing the book.

I couldn’t take this back and forth between us anymore, so I went to the place I know for certain where he’ll be, and where he’ll just have to talk to me, if he wants to or not.

The snow was falling heavily; not even the beanie over my head could shield my ears from the piercing cold, but I climbed the mountain nonetheless while I tried to ignore the cold on my way up.

When I reached the top, I saw him sitting in the knee-high deep snow, staring at nothing in particular in front of him.

His hands were shoved deeply into his coat’s pockets, his hair covered in snow.

“I knew I’d find you here, even on the coldest day in history.” I tell him, seeing him release a deep breath even with his back turned towards me.

He ignores me. Of course he does.

“I don’t care if you choose to hear me or not, but you are going to listen to what I have to say.” I tell him, walking towards him, but I don’t sit down like he did. “I forgave you for taking my ring and I forgave you countless times before too, actually, but this,” I wave my hands between the two of us although his back was turned, “this is bullshit.”

Silence.

“You can’t blame me for taking your notebook because it wasn’t me who took it, and the fact that you believe Mackenzie’s story over mine is a low blow. You had reason to believe that I took it to get you back for taking my ring, yes, but the fact that you would think, even for a second, that I could ever do that to you, after everything we have been through. I thought you knew me better than that.”

“I didn’t believe her story, Sophia.” He says, speaking for the first time since I arrived here at the mountain top. “I didn’t even think that you took the notebook. When I asked you if you took it, I was out of it. I was panicking because it’s Beck’s notebook and his poems…” He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “I needed to be alone to process things, like you did with Daniel.” He admits. “I need to forget, too, but it’s hard. I came here to find peace, and I know what I have to do in order to get it, but I can’t stomach the thought of what I should do in order to move on from my horrible past.”

He finally turns to look at me, his face was red from the cold, the tips of his ears were blood-red, even the tip of his nose was red from the cold. “When Mackenzie took my notebook last week, it made me realise that I relied on it more than the memories I have of my family and it’s wrong because the notebook only contains bad things…the things that happened to them and I don’t want to remember them like that.”

“But the notebook means a lot to you?”

He nods. “It does.” He says. “But rereading it every single day just makes me angrier. It makes me feel more hatred towards the man that caused this pain in the first place, but I can’t do this anymore… I just can’t. I have to move on.” He looks at me, his blue eyes piercing through mine. “I’m done being angry, Sophia. I am done trying to figure out why he did the things he did, because I know now; it is because he was an angry, abusive drunk who had nothing better to do with his life. But I am done thinking about the ‘what ifs’, I’m ready to let it all go. I’m ready to let go of my past. I don’t want to be this person anymore.”

I didn’t miss the way he choked out the last words, or the fact that there were tears now streaming down his reddened cheeks.

“It will be difficult, River.” I tell him. “But I will be here for you.” I crouch down in front of him, grabbing the sides of his face in between my hands. “I will be here for you. Like I always am.”

“Thank you.” He says, smiling at me through his tears. “For coming here.”

“I’m done fighting with you, River. I forgive you for what you said, but please don’t ruin it again. I just want to be here for you. I want you to heal, too. Don’t use me as a punching bag when things get too much for you. Talk to me instead.”

He nods, slowly. “I won’t hurt you again. I promise, Sophia.”

I wanted to tell him that it was too soon to make promises that he might break in the future, but with the way he was looking at me with regret inside those blue eyes of his, I decided to keep quiet instead. If River said he wasn’t going to hurt me again, I just had to believe him. He was trying to be a better person, after all.

He was trying, and that was more than enough.

“You know what you have to do, right?” I ask him. “You need to go to the person who has been there for us without us knowing. He’ll help you, River.”

He nods. “I’m ready to talk to him.”