River paused, wetting her lower lip. She fixed her gaze straight ahead through the windscreen at the dark waters rushing past.
Then she said, “If one of your witches manages to figure out how to cure me, how will I get back to New York?”
“That is going to be the least difficult part,” I replied. “Our witches can transport you there by magic. I promise it will be the fastest journey you have ever been on.”
“And… If I turn back, will I ever see you again?” Her voice sounded strained.
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. “Once I’ve figured out what’s wrong with me—assuming I manage to—and I return to The Shade, you could come visit me.”
She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“Yeah,” she said. “I guess so. But how would I contact you?”
Again, that was a difficult question. Neither my parents nor the witches liked to just give out phones to anyone. They didn’t like lots of lines of communication open into The Shade, unless it was for emergency purposes. Still, I was sure that I could convince Corrine to give one to River.
“I would try to sort something out for you. We’ll have your address also, so we know where to find you.”
“Okay,” she said, her voice now sounding dry and hoarse. “Because… Ben, I really like you.”
Averting my gaze away from the controls again, I was surprised to see that she had tears moistening the corners of her eyes.
I put the vessel on autopilot temporarily and stood up, walking over to her and running my hands down her shoulders. I bent down to her level, brushing my lips against her cheek. “Hey, it’s okay. We’ll find a way to see each other.”
She stood up, allowing me to gather her in my arms. She pressed the side of her face against my chest and took a deep breath, holding me tight.
“Thank you,” she said. “I hope we can stay friends even if nothing more… at least, until I get too old for you.”
I leaned down and caught her soft lips in mine, kissing them gently.
“You’re getting a bit of ahead of yourself, you know,” I said, attempting to bring out a smile in her. “We don’t even know if you can turn back into a human yet. You might be stuck as a half-blood whether you like it or not.”
She gave me a weary smile.
I sat back down in my seat and, holding her hand still, pulled her down to sit on my lap. She crossed her legs over mine and draped her arms around my neck. We continued kissing before she raised her head and said, “When we were back in the desert, after Jeramiah let us go free… saying goodbye to you then… that was really hard.”
I brushed my thumb against her cheek. “I know.”
“I… I kind of wanted to kiss you then.”
“You did kiss me.”
“Yeah, on your cheek.”
I paused, thinking back to the time we were within the atrium and I had told River to pretend that she was kissing me. I had gotten carried away myself. “Well I wanted to kiss you even before that. When we were pretending to make out.”
The small amount of blood that she had in her cheeks rose to the surface, giving her face a cute pale pink glow. She smirked. “Yeah, that got me a bit hot and bothered.”
We made out until I’d made her breathless again, and then she sat back down in her seat.
“Are there lots of people our age in The Shade?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “There are lots of people of all ages in The Shade. It’s kind of a place for everyone.”
“You must be the hottie of the island.”
I rolled my eyes. It would be a lie to say that it wasn’t a constant effort to keep girls at bay back home. But that wasn’t something that I was interested in boasting about or letting on to. So I chose not to respond to her comment.
“And what about you, beautiful? I was surprised when you told me that you’ve never had a boyfriend. I would’ve thought that you’d be the target of all the boys in your class.”
She shrugged. “I guess I don’t make myself very approachable. And I’ve had family problems, lots of them. Even if I did get asked out, I’d never really have felt stable enough to commit myself much… You, um, you’re the first boy I’ve ever kissed.”
“Wow… I, uh, wouldn’t have guessed if you hadn’t told me. You’re a great kisser.”
She grinned.
I was glad that she had told me. Knowing that I had been her first was something that I didn’t take lightly.
“You said that your brother is autistic,” I said. “Is that the ‘family problems’ you’re referring to?” I hoped that my question wasn’t intrusive. I didn’t want to pry into something that wasn’t my business, but I felt genuinely curious.
“Well, my dad has been… kind of an asshole, shall we say. He’s actually in jail right now. He’s been sentenced to ten years.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” I said.
“Nothing to be sorry about,” she said. “It’s just life… He put a real strain on our finances before he left, and my mom has been struggling for a while to care for all of us, including a disabled nineteen-year-old. So I got into the habit of working a lot to help out. My grandfather, he’s comfortably wealthy, and has often offered money, but, well, he and my mom fell out recently and things have been awkward between them… Anyway. I don’t want to bore you with my sob story.”