Chasing River

Chasing River

RIVER AND I sat beside each other on a bench outside in the dead of night. The exhibit had been a success and I got to meet so many prevalent figures in the industry and the craziest thing of all was that they recognized me first. They knew my name before I even called out theirs. It all just felt so incredibly unreal. That I was sitting here in the middle of the night, on a bench along the River Seine, in Paris beside someone who loved me.

I found it incredibly perplexing how much someone’s life could change in a year.

A year ago around this time, I was crying alone in my room stressed out because of my final exams, terrified that I wouldn’t make it, terrified that I would never make it out of there, that I would never get to have my own freedom and see the world outside of my little glass bubble. I was so tired of watching from the windowsill as others accomplished my dreams, and so I decided that night that I would stop feeling sorry for myself and wallowing in sorrow— and go out and chase them. That I would move at my pace, no matter how long It took and claim what belonged to me. I hope this is the fate for all African women, that someday we stop being afraid of taking up space and appreciate all that we have worked for. Because I did, I worked so hard to be here right now, and I will continue to do so for the rest of my days in France.

I turned to River who was staring at me, I suddenly felt flushed, had I been thinking out loud? His eyes seemed to glitter almost in the presence of the moon, the echoing sound of the water in the distance. “What is it?” I asked.

And then he just…smiled at me. His eyes almost disappearing entirely into crescents, I smiled back because my heart…for the first time in my life was so full. I was so content with everything I had, so content with the woman I had grown to be. I felt the tears begin to well in my eyes and River lifted a gentle hand to wipe them away, softly kissing my cheeks to calm me down.

“Why do you cry, my sweet girl?” He asked me.

“B-Because I love you and I’m scared to tell you,” I admitted, remembering Fabian and Keomi’s secret.

“Why would you ever be afraid, to be honest with me?” He wondered, his eyebrows furrowing in concern.

“Because I don’t want to hurt you, your pain is my pain and this…this will hurt River.” I cried, my tears falling hopelessly down my face, my mascara smudging.

“Hey.” He spoke sternly, placing a hand on my cheek and looking deep into my eyes, “I’ll be okay, don’t be scared.”

“I wish I could protect you from this truth.” I pleaded, holding his hands as he rubs circles on my palm to calm me down. “I wish that in this case, ignorance was bliss.”

“Talk to me.” He insisted and I nodded slowly.

“Yesterday when I went over to my dorm, I overheard Keomi and Fabian having a conversation and so I decided to listen in because it sounded serious. Keomi was telling Fabian that everything was all their fault and that she could never forgive herself for what they did. And so then I was really curious as to what they were talking about. So then I asked them to explain everything and Fabian told me that he knew about you and Jace, that he had seen you two that day a few years ago at the mountain peak. That he promised Jace that he would never tell, but then Jace saw Fabian there the day that a girl named Claudia broke her leg when she was being bullied by Elle and her friends. Jace wanted Fabian to give his statement to the police but he was scared, so he threatened Jace to…” I paused feeling my breath catch in my throat.

“He threatened Jace with what?” River asked, his expression immediately turned serious.

“He told Jace that if he told the police, that he would tell everyone about what he saw between you two,” I confessed and I watched as River’s expression contorted from hurt, to annoyance to…absolutely nothing at all. He just stared blankly at me blinking, opening and closing his mouth almost as if he wanted to speak but he didn’t know what to say.

“River…” I hummed, placing my hand on his shoulder in comfort.

“He…threatened to tell, he…” River muttered slowly, processing the information.

“I’m sorry.” I apologised in Fabian’s place. “Fabian also, he told me to tell you that he’s sorry for what he did. That it plagued him every day, Keomi knew about it too and she’s remorseful as well.”

“To who?” He exasperated, “Because it sure as hell can’t be towards me, it’s not me he hurt. It was Jace. What he did was awful.”

“I know, I told him that I was so…so angry.” I expressed.

“No.” River refuted.

“No?”

“No, you are far too precious to carry all that anger inside of you. Anger that you’re adopting vicariously through me, it’s not yours my love. And I know you, I know that you have such a good heart, your natural instinct is to empathise and I love that about you. But I cannot allow you to hurt for me any longer.” He explained to me holding my hands in his. “I do not carry any more anger with me, and you shouldn’t either.”

“A-Are you not upset with me, with Fabian…with Keomi?” I asked him with a sniffle and he shook his head no in refusal.

“No.” He assured me, “No I’m not.”

“So you don’t hate them?”

“I am disappointed, but not angry, nor do I feel any hatred towards them. There are no saints in this story, Armani, as much as Jace was loved I realize now that he was not all perfect. He did and said cruel things too, just like all of us. The pressure that this academy puts on its students, we’re bound to crack sometimes.” He sighed, “I have made peace with the fact that I will never know what happened in that car that day, whether Jace drove it off the road on purpose out of fear, or if it really was all an accident. I refuse to drive myself off too hyper-fixating on it, I burned the paintings, and I said goodbye. I have let go.”

His expression was calm, as I placed my hand on his cheek and then stroked his hair. “You have, haven’t you?”

“Yes I have, and I need you to do so as well.” He asked of me, “Let go, my love, let go of what could’ve been. In all aspects of who you are, because I’m right here with you in the present and I promise that it’s…it’s beautiful here too.” He hushed and I nodded.

“Live in the present, you’re right.” I agreed. “But I have to ask, is there anything I can do to make you feel better, anything at all?”

“Well.” River thought, pausing. “Tu peux me faire un câlin.”

You can give me a hug.

“Come here.” I smiled, pulling him closer to me, as he buried his face into my neck. “I know it’s hard baby.”

“I’m okay.” He spoke with a shaky voice, and he thought I didn’t notice but I felt a warm tear fall into my shoulder, then another, and another.

“You’re okay.” I agreed with him, as he sniffled. “We’ve got this.”

We watched in the distance as the fireworks then set off, the colours were an array of light and hues of blues and green. An explosion of truth and a promise of what was to come, I didn’t know at the time exactly what that would be but I was certain that I would be present for it and that it would be different, that it would be beautiful.

A month later, Jace’s memorial, January 2010

I looked at myself in the mirror, my itchy new black dress was bought just for the occasion. I tied my hair up into a bun and laid my edges neatly, classes would reopen within the next week as the winter holidays came to an end.

Jace’s memorial was being held at a local Catholic Church a long drive away from Paris, and everyone was going to be attending. Jace had a lot of friends, a lot of people who loved him yet…knew very little about his life. The church was old but beautiful, with vines that crept up the walls and an evergreen courtyard that stretched out for miles. River wore a plain black suit, and we knew we weren’t going to stay long here.

We made our way hand in hand into the church, and River stopped in his tracks at the entrance. “What is it?” I asked him.

“It’s just…that I haven’t been here in a very long time.” He told me, “It feels different.”

“We don’t have to stay if you don’t want to?” I reminded him.

“No, it’s okay, I want to.” He assured me, grabbing hold of my hand and I smiled leading him inside with me.

We sat down in the front row beside Genevièveand Merilla, with Fabian and Keomi seated far away from everyone else in the corner of the third row, looking down as if in shame, I couldn’t help but feel bad for them.

I looked at Gene and she smiled at me, tucking a strand of her strawberry-blonde hair behind her ear.

“I may not have realised it before.” She spoke in whispers, “But you and River, you’re almost eerily perfect for each other.”

“You think so?” I answered with a slight laugh.

“I know so.” She nodded, “You’re going to paint a very beautiful life together, I just know it.”

“Thank You, Geneviève.” I smiled, placing my hand over hers, “I mean it.”

“She’s right.” Merilla mused with a wink, just as Muleya sat down beside her kissing her cheek.

“Sorry, I’m late.” He apologized.

“You’re right on time, thank you for being there for me today. It means a lot.” She thanked him.

“Cute,” I whispered to River.

“We are…cuter.” He joked, he was getting good at those lately.

The church hushed after that and a priest made his way up to the podium and spoke on a few Bible verses that moved the congregation. The next person who went up to speak was Jace’s father.

“One of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do was stand in front of you today to bid our son Jace farewell. I shall make an effort to put into words the sadness and loss I am experiencing. Jace was a great, kind boy. He was calm and collected even as a baby, and as he developed into a young lad, he always handled things well. I recall how anxious I was on his first day of school compared to how anxious he was. Jace calmly turned to me and stated, ‘This is going to be great, Daddy,’ as I took his little hand and walked to the gate expecting him to start crying. “Will there be a large number of kids here that I can play with?” He asked me and I assured him that it was certain that there would be. That there would always be people around him, because he was simply just the kind of person who was destined to never be alone.”

Then after that, his mother attempted to speak but broke down into tears halfway through, and my heart wrenched for her. No mother deserves to outlive their own child. It is an aberration.

And then it was Fabian’s turn to speak, and I sat up straight to hear what he had to say.

“Dear Jace, for a long time, losing you never quite felt real. I repeatedly told myself that perhaps you’d just moved away to Italy and told no one about your plans, just like you always dreamed of. That you weren’t six feet underground you were just playing chess on a beach somewhere in Venice, that you weren’t withering away you were just painting on a balcony in Rome. Your absence has left a gaping hole not only in my heart, but in everyone else’s. Your loss was felt deeply, experienced in magnitudes.” Fabian spoke, his voice trembling from crying, his tears falling on the paper he read from. “Jace, I want you to know that I’m sorry. For everything that I did and most importantly for everything that I did not. I wish that I could go back in time and fix things, I wish I could’ve been a better friend to you. I know…I know I’m a bad person and I fucked everything up and it’s all my fault and—”

“Hey, that’s enough. Come here it’s okay.” Keomi interrupted running up to the podium and leading him away. “Sorry everyone, it’s very overwhelming for him.”

The crowd cooed and watched as they went back to their seats, Keomi holding him close as he sobbed uncontrollably. Genevièveshook her head slowly in pity.

The last person to speak, was the last person that should. I watched as River’s hands stared at the paper in his hands next to me, then scrunched it up and discarded it.

“Are you ready?” I asked him.

“Yes, love.” He nodded, “I’m ready.”

He then walked up to the podium, lifting the microphone to meet his height. He held his head high, he was not afraid, he was the furthest thing from it.

“Hi.” He said into the microphone, speaking in English, which was a lot for him and I was happy he had the will to do so. So that everyone in the room could understand him, I could tell that today was different.

Today was the day that River Kennedy would be heard.

“I had planned this speech through, many times in my mind, reversing it over and over so that it would be perfect. But it was disingenuous and scripted, and I am a lot of things but I am nothing of the sort. I was prepared to get up here and wax poetic about how much you will be missed and how shattered I was when you passed.” He spoke and then looked to me, almost as if in need of encouragement so I pressed two fingers to my lips, then to my heart, nodded silently and mouthed you can do this.

“But that is not the case anymore. Jace Claude Monet, I loved you, and I am certain that I really loved you. In secret, for a very long time, you were my first love, the first time I looked at a person and saw an eternity beside them. Losing you was like losing keys in the backseat of a car, like parting away with fragments of my mind, you melted away like snow in the summer sun, slowly, and then all at once. I have chosen not to grieve you any longer, but to celebrate your life— like you would’ve wanted. Because at the end of the day, as Richard Russo once quoted; one’s life is like a river, eventually it goes where it must. And I may not know where you are now, but I know that it is someplace both near and yet far away, someplace fitting for a soul like yours, a place that is good.” He spoke and I noticed that many cried at his words, Genevièvewas sobbing beside me and then I realized why.

River had just admitted that he was in love with Jace, right here in front of everyone.

Afterwards, I made my way over to him and I wrapped my arms around him tightly.

“Did I do well?” He asked me.

“I’m so proud of you, your words were beautiful.” I assured him, “I love you.”

“You did well today, Kennedy.” Genevièveapproached us giving him a side hug, as Merilla came around too, she was tear-eyed.

“We’re so proud, so happy you have no idea,” Merilla affirmed and I could’ve sworn this was the closest I’d ever seen my friends since.

“Thank you.” River smiled and so did everyone else, it was almost like bright roses had bloomed in the middle of a barren field, bringing hope where there was none.

Just then River turned to look at Fabian and Keomi who were standing by a portrait of Jace, still teary-eyed and seeming miserable.

“They seem distraught,” Merilla commented.

“I’m going to talk to them,” River told me, slipping away from my grasp.

I watched as River made his way up to the two, and said something to Keomi that made her burst into tears, he reached out and hugged her as she cried. I placed a hand over my heart, and then watched as he did the same with Fabian, embracing him.

After that we all knew it was our queue to join them, we all lit a candle and stood around the portrait of Jace, with bright brown eyes, a charming smile and a presence that encapsulated us. A memory that would never truly die.

I knew that in this moment we were not just saying goodbye to Jace, but we were burying the parts of ourselves that plagued us always. Genevièveher stubborn walls, Merilla her passiveness, Keomi her love for what did not love her in return, Fabian his cowardice, River his constant disposition to hiding in plain sight and lastly myself. My constant need to please, my need for validation, be it academic or anything else.

I was able to celebrate Jace’s life, and the splatter of paint, the bright red mess he left behind because it was the map that led me to these five amazing people and solidified the bond between us all, despite how tattered it was a masterpiece and it was irreplaceable.

“What did you tell Keomi & Fabian?” I asked River on the way home.

“To live.” He told me, “To not bury themselves alive with him. But to live despite it all.”

And alas, it was certain that what was once dead would live again.