Chapter One-Malcolm

I walked into the small apartment, a little tired from my day at 'work', paint was splattered on the floor, and everything was covered in paint as if a rainbow monster walked in and exploded on the floor tiles and part of the furniture. I walked on to the bedroom, so I could change into my bedtime jumpsuit. That's when I saw River. Paint covered his arms, his clothes were a patchwork of colours, and streaks of paint were on his cheeks only distorted by the stream of tears running down his face. I froze, River glanced at me one jagged half of his paintbrush in his hand, and he gave me a small brittle smile then shielded his glistening eyes with his eyelashes. He looked out of the window staring at the wide cityscape we always saw almost every day. But there was something different in River's eyes. Something I couldn't quite place my finger on. But it made me feel fidgety and anxious. "River, are you okay?" I whispered. He merely stared at me and blinked sheepishly... I slowly walked towards him and his eyes popped wide as if he was terrified of me, I stopped, he relaxed a little and took a step back gently shaking his head, a sign that I shouldn't come any closer. I took a once overlook around the room, that was when I saw the source of the problem, he'd found my digital camera. It's a small LCD screen still on and a vague picture of what I knew was a naked photo of my supposed ex-boyfriend was on it, the time stamp read 13-Aug-2018, 3 days ago. "Why?" He asked his voice cracking up, a long beat of silence only made a little bearable by the sound of my unsteady breathing and the traffic 15 floors below us in the busy street. "I'm sorry, I --." He gave me a sharp glare that meant I should stop talking, he started walking backwards out of the glass door that separated the room from the balcony, and he turned around facing the steel railing that was meant to stop people from falling to their death, they never considered those who intentionally wanted to jump. I slowly walked towards him, hoping my footsteps were inaudible. "Do you love him?" He started his voice like iron nails, I didn't answer, I couldn't. "Jay tried to kill you, he sold you out, and he watched his cronies beat you bloody, he stood there smoking a frigging cigar, and he almost put a bullet into that thick empty skull of yours!" His voice was rising as he said this, not in volume but in toxicity "I could have lost you." River turned and faced me, his face deathly pale and his obsidian eyes burning with a cold light that made me feel vulnerable, an injured grin on his face, "But I guess all the lead in all those bullets you took for him fried your brain." His grin vanished, replaced by a blank stare. I couldn't answer, my throat unusually dry, my temples ached in a dull throb, I needed a drink. "Please, tell me why you bothered to come back." He asked.

"I ..." I couldn't think, his gaze was relentlessly cold and my brain ceased to function. "I don't know anymore, I'm sorry." I sighed out in defeat and hung my head imminent tears stinging my eyes. River's stare softened just a bit, "You can screw me over a billion times, and it may hurt the same or worse each time, I won't give up on us. Just know that I love you, even if you choose your psychopath ex-boyfriend over me." He walked towards me and cupped my face in his hands 'cold' -his body temperature has always been a few degrees lower than the average human- "Now, come help me wash off all this paint before it dries."