Chasing River

Things Fall Apart

Two weeks later, Paris, France.

I AWOKE in the early hours of the morning tangled in silk sheets that I later remembered were not my own. I turned to face the little prince in the bed beside me, I expected him to be awake by now, he was usually awake by 4 AM or so. But to my surprise he was fast asleep, his eyes did not flutter and his still face appeared almost peaceful, for once.

River was undeniably the most beautiful human being I’d ever seen in my life. It was as though I constantly had to remind myself that he was real and that he wasn’t just a fever dream.

I traced my fingertips delicately over his chest, every freckle, every muscle all the way down his treasure trail to the birthmark on his hip bone that was tiny and almost unnoticeable to the unkeen eye. It was almost shaped like a flower petal, and for a second I thought I’d imagined it.

My phone began to ring beside me and I ignored the call as quickly as I could not wanting to wake him.

I turned my gaze back to River and draped my hand over him and leaned my head on his chest. Listening to the constant beating of his heart was like a lullaby and soon enough I was asleep again. When I awoke I was alone in bed and his body had been replaced with a body pillow. I yawned and got up to open the curtains, I was greeted by a beautiful view of the busy street. I made my way to the kitchen which carried a scent that reminded me of the little Café on 3rd street. I found River who was straining some coffee beans while flipping through pages of a random book on the counter.

‘I figured I’d let you sleep,’ River said, he didn’t look up at me when he said so,

‘Mhmm, where’s my coffee?’ I teased and he added two teaspoons of sugar before looking up at me condescendingly,

‘This is your coffee, I take mine black with no sugar.’ He reminded me but before I could take the mug from him he pulled it away and gave me something just as hot as he leaned in to kiss me.

‘Wow je suis une fille chanceuse, non?’ I retort, I’m a lucky girl no?

‘Today you are.’ He commented sarcastically and I grabbed the mug from him hastily, I sipped from it as his lips moved to my neck, ‘I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.’

‘And why is that?’ I asked, seeming clueless, he dropped to his knees before me and gently undid the ropes of my nightgown. ‘I doubt you wanted to make me breakfast that bad.’

‘Perhaps I had an appetite for something else.’ He added hooking my leg over his shoulder to give him better access.

He kissed his way down my belly and butterflies swarmed the very pit of my stomach as he swiped his tongue over bareness of me I grinned as he continued his gentle assault. He spread my legs wider and I nearly dropped my mug but he reaches up just in time to place it on the nearby counter, his tongue is slow and continues in a way that makes me cling onto him for dear life. He went faster and I grew more desperate at every brush of his cruel mouth.

He was kissing me in a way so torturous it made me lean back and he used his other hand to support the arch of my back. I was gripping his shoulder and my nails were definitely making their mark which earned me a low moan from him and when I pulled his hair he bit his lip looking up at me which nearly sent me over the edge.

‘You’re so beautiful.’ He murmured against me and I felt like it,

My hips strained to meet him and he chuckled before sliding his tongue into me and giving me the contact I craved.

‘No, you are.’ I sighed, my voice merely a small plea, “Please.”

“You needn’t ever beg me, darling, I will always give you what you want.” He assured me.

‘I could get used to waking up like this every day.’ I sighed and he lifted me up into his arms and wasted no time lowering me onto the kitchen counter.

Oh well, Victoria did say I could give her a call anytime.

River and I were on his balcony painting as practice for our art project, this particular assignment was coming to me extremely easily. It was something I’d dealt with my entire life, being stuck in between who I was and who I thought the world wanted me to be.

‘What’s your zodiac sign?’ I asked River and he looked up at me sceptically, ‘Come on just tell me!’

‘My birthday is on August sixteenth, I’m a Leo.’ He told me and I couldn’t help but laugh,

‘That explains that ego,’ I commented and he rolled his eyes, just then my phone began to ring again.

‘Perhaps you should just answer her?’ River contemplated and I groaned, he was right. I hated when he was right.

‘Fine, pray for me.’ I agreed, picking up my phone and he pulled out his cross and kissed it for me.

‘Yes, mama?’ I said impatiently and she was almost

hysterical on the other end of the line,

‘I’ve been trying to get a hold of you since yesterday!’ Mama cried and my heart beat even faster, no, please no.

I looked up at the night sky and I hoped that if there really was a God that he would spare me just this once, anyone else but her.

‘What is it, mama?’ I asked as tears began to fill my eyes and River’s expression shifted to concern.

‘It’s your bibi…’ she said and I dropped my phone and it fell to the floor with a crack as my heart broke.

Ten years ago

The fire crackled on the bonfire as I sat in between the legs of my bibi as she knitted braids in my hair to help me combat the summer heat. The cool air brushed against my legs as the grass tickled beneath me. I wanted more than anything to be able to play with the rest of my cousins but mama had insisted I let bibi finish with my hair first. I read to her out loud the story of Cinderella and the glass slipper.

‘I wish to be Cinderella so I can go to a ball and dance with a prince,’ I told her and she chuckled,

‘A prince?’ She laughed, ‘What do you know of princes?’

‘I know that a prince lives in a big castle,’ I replied but she seemed unsatisfied,

‘And is that all you know of a prince, how will you know if he is good?’ She asked, the midday sun beginning to blind me,

‘If he has a shiny crown,’ I admitted,

‘Any man can have a crown of gold but it takes a very special man to be a good prince. You will know you have found your prince when he loves you for you.’ Bibi foretold,

‘And how will I make him love me?’ I questioned, “I look nothing like Cinderella.”

‘You will not have to make him love you, Armani, he just will, he will love you and your every breath will be enough. You will be his very light in this dark world and him yours.’ She smiled and so did I.

I couldn’t wait for the day that I too was someone’s light.

‘You’ve got such beautiful hair nne, you remind me of your mother when she was your age.’ Bibi said and I huffed picking at the bright green grass in passive aggression, ‘What is it?’

‘I am nothing like mama, I don’t like to be compared to her and it is only you who thinks my hair is beautiful.’ I expressed and she tisked adding in more of the extensions to another patch of hair,

‘And who are these people who have convinced you that your hair is not beautiful?’ Bibi asked, and my mind travelled back to that day at the park.

I was playing with my friends from school and two boys began to pull at my hair and ask me why I didn’t have straight hair like the pretty girl they saw on the television. Which got me thinking, who exactly is this ‘pretty girl’ I kept hearing about, does she only look like the girls with light skin and straight hair? Why was it that every time I heard the boys talking out their dream girls it was always the girls with blue eyes and blonde hair?

‘It doesn’t matter, why can’t I have pretty flowy hair too?’ I sighed and bibi stopped braiding my hair and turned me to face her,

‘I don’t want to hear you speaking like that of yourself again, do you understand me?’ Bibi declared, ‘Why would you want the easy hair of the white woman when you already have this, there is power in your curls, the hair of your ancestors is knotted with the struggles of our people and you must carry that with pride!’

‘But what am I to do if no one cares for it?’ I retorted with tears in my eyes and she immediately used her wrapper to wipe them away.

‘Then you hold your head up high and you prove them wrong with your every breath,’ Bibi said and it was the most serious I’d ever seen her. ‘You may not wish for me to compare you to your mama but I assure you that you will soon see that you are one and the same.’

A week had gone by and I wasn’t able to go to her funeral back in her village in Nairobi, to say that I was devastated was an understatement, I was completely empty and I felt as though every last bit of happiness had been drained from my very soul.

I’d been staying at River’s because I didn’t want to be alone, our friends came over a few times to check on me- I didn’t even remember when they came or what they said because it’d all been a blur to me.

I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

Yesternight I remembered wandering into his art room when I’d discovered he left in the middle of the night, I found him crouched over a box I hadn’t even noticed was there before, I hadn’t seen it. It was made of cherrywood and had silver latches and something engraved on the side that I couldn’t exactly make out. The second he saw me he shut the box and acted like It was somehow okay to be up at 2 AM, I didn’t have the energy to ask any questions I was just tired, so tired.

‘Go to bed.’ He said softly and I did just that.

I was seated on a chair on the balcony watching the sunset, it reminded me of how my Bibi loved sunsets. Everything reminded me of her, her laugh, her smile, her stories. River came over to the balcony and watched the sunset with me in silence for a little while until he finally said.

‘If you want to eat something I ordered takeout just in case, it’s your favourite.’ He said but I could only give him a weak smile, a poor excuse of one at that.

I didn’t want to eat anything, I had no appetite despite feeling so empty. He tried to feed me some spaghetti but I didn’t want it, he basically hadn’t left my side since I got the news. I cried all day that day, and he held me every soul-wrenching minute of it. I didn’t expect him to be so patient, but he was, he didn’t even once ask me if I’d be okay, because I think a part of him knew I wouldn’t be.

Once midnight came around I soaked in the bath and watched as time went by slowly. Just then I heard River knock on the door but I was way too weak to even reply, he knelt before me by the bath and reached out for my hand, and pressed his lips against it.

‘Does it ever get easier?’ I asked, my voice small and in need of an answer,

‘No, no it doesn’t.’ He replied honestly,

‘Then what next?’ I asked,

“Sometimes Armani, you have to learn to just let there be scars. To let them hurt, and etch themselves into you. To learn from them and grow, It may not feel like it at the moment but there will come a time when you will look back at them and recognize that all that pain, all that hurt built you into the person you became.” River told me.

‘You will move on, the pain will get a little more tolerable, you’ll carry your grandmother with you and in a way, she will never really be gone. Let me show you something?’

‘River I don’t think-‘ I began but he cut me off,

‘Let me, please.’ He insisted and I let him lead me out of the bath and into my pyjamas and out onto the street with nothing but a glass bottle, a paper, and a pen.

‘What’s all this?’ I asked simply, wanting to go back home and crawl under the covers and hide just a little longer.

‘When Jace died I-‘ he paused, I don’t think I’d ever heard him ever acknowledge the fact that Jace was dead out loud before, I reached my hand out to hold his in a way that said it’s okay, ‘I didn’t get to say goodbye either, so I wrote letters to him in bottles and tossed them into the river in the hopes that maybe, somehow, somewhere he’d get them.’

‘And you wish for me to do the same for my Bibi?’ I questioned and he nodded silently in response, I sighed and took the paper and pen, sat on the curb and began writing my letter.

Dear Bibi,

I’m sorry I never made an effort to see you when you were ill, I feel horrible I really do. And I know that if you were here you’d tell me not to waste any more time crying over spilt milk. But this is not over milk, this is over you and you were my first everything. My first friend, my first free consort, my first smile, my first laugh, and my very first true loss. I don’t think that life will ever be the same without you, I wish that I could see you one last time and tell you all of this to your face but I know that that’s impossible.

I met someone, someone very special and he’s actually the reason I had the courage to write to you today. You would’ve liked River if you got the chance you know him longer, I wish you stayed long enough to see what I see every time I look into his eyes. Sometimes if I’m being honest, I see the exact same all-knowing look and depth you had within you in him. All I’m asking for is a sign, any sign. So here it is, goodbye Bibi, know that I will see you in every sunset and every curl of my hair. Until next time, I love you always, Aminali Armani Achieng.

– Armani

I didn’t even realise I was crying until River kneeled down and wiped my tears away. I shut my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.

‘I’m not ready to say goodbye.’ I sobbed and he leaned his forehead against my own, he had his own letter in his hand and before he folded it up I caught a little glimpse of it.

You were half of my heart, but I’ve found a way to be whole once more.

-River 

‘I know but this will give you closure.’ He insisted and so I got up and we both put our letters into the bottle.

I corked the glass bottle and tossed it into the River and as I did I felt like this huge weight was being lifted off me, just a little, but that’s all I needed these past few days. I turned and wrapped my arms around River and sobbed into his chest, my tears soaked his shirt as he stroked my hair, and the midnight air swirled around us.

‘It gets better, ma lumière.’ He whispered, my light. He called me his light. I couldn’t help but smile slightly as I remembered bibi’s words all those years ago, ‘You will be his light, in this dark world as much as he is yours.’