"River, why are you acting so weird?" I asked as I tried to rub the aloe gel onto his back.

"I'm not," He said before squirming away from me.

"You keep flinching every time I touch you."

"It just hurts," He said, which made sense.

"Okay. Everyone else has already gone to bed. Are you going up soon?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, let's go," I said, reaching for his hand, but the moment my hand touched his, he quickly pulled it away, causing me to frown.

"What?" I asked, looking at him.

"I just don't think it's a good idea to hold hands," He said before leading the way upstairs. I was a little confused, but I knew that he was ultimately right about holding hands. I trailed behind him, and we each got ready for bed in silence. When we got in bed, I scooted over to lay my head on his chest, and as soon as I lay down, he tensed.

"What now?" I said, only slightly annoyed.

"Maybe we shouldn't cuddle anymore either," He said, crushing my heart.

"Why?" I whispered.

"Since we aren't actually dating, maybe we shouldn't act like we are. Cuddling is something couples do."

"Okay. I guess you're right," I said, pulling back from him and moving to my side of the bed.

I felt defeated. I knew that I wanted more with River, and before today, I was starting to think that maybe he wanted more too, but apparently not.

"Good night," I whispered, gaining no response.

*****

When I woke up the next morning, River was gone. He usually woke me up whenever he got up so that he wasn't lonely, but he didn't this morning.

I got ready for the day by myself. After I was ready, I walked downstairs and found that I was the last one up.

"Good morning!" Nadia exclaimed, taking a sip of her coffee.

"Good morning," I responded before going to get the cereal.

"How'd you sleep?" Nadia asked.

"Good," I lied. I slept horribly. I was up thinking about why River was distancing himself from me.

"I think we're almost out of cereal," Victor said as I opened the cheerios box.

"We aren't almost out. We are out," I said, causing my mood to worsen.

"We're out of bread, too," Jess said, looking for bread to toast.

"Someone needs to go to the store and pick up a few things," Nelson said.

"Not it!" Everyone except River and me yelled.

"Damn it," River cursed.

"Alani and River will go," Nadia said.

"Do we both need to go?" River asked.

"Yeah. Unless you want to go by yourself."

"No, I'll go with him," I said, thinking it would be a good opportunity to talk.

River grabbed some stuff, and we headed out to the car. The trip over to the store was silent as River drove the van.

"So, how did you sleep?" I asked River as we walked inside and grabbed a cart.

"Fine," He said.

"Good."

It was silent again. When we got to the bread aisle, I had had about enough of his moodiness.

"What is your problem?" I exclaimed.

"What do you mean?"

"You won't let me touch you, you didn't wake me up this morning, and you won't speak more than a few words to me."

"Alani-"

"No. Tell me why you're acting like this," I demanded.

"I already explained it to you."

"Did I do something wrong?"

"No," He said firmly.

"You said that we shouldn't act like a couple. Look me in the eye and tell me that you don't want to be my boyfriend."

He was silent and shocked for a while before looking at me and saying, "I don't want to be your boyfriend."

My heart plummeted. All this time, a small part of me thought that that was what this whole thing was heading toward, but I guess not.

"Do you want me to be your boyfriend?" He asked hesitantly.

"No," I lied. "I was just seeing if you did."

We were silent for the rest of the trip.

*****

"We're going surfing!" Nadia yelled as soon as River and I walked in the door. I was still feeling depressed about River showing me how he actually felt, so it was a bit tense between us right now.

"What?" I asked.

"Surfing!"

I was not in the mood for surfing right now.

"We're in Florida," I said, knowing that the waves were not that high here.

"The waves are high today! And there is a surfing place ten minutes from here," She said.

"Okay," I said, not wanting to rain on her parade.

We all got ready in the next few minutes and then hopped in the car. River was still not talking to me, but I don't think anyone noticed. They were busy in their own conversations.

When we got to the surf place, I went through the motions of signing the paperwork and picking the right-sized surfboard. It wasn't until we sat on the sand with our boards that I noticed the instructor was an attractive boy who looked to be about our age.

He told us how to stand up once we hit the wives and how to dive under the water. I was struggling with where to put my arms, so the instructor came over and helped me.

"So, what's your name again?" I asked because I wasn't paying attention when he told us the first time.

"Ben. And you're Alani?" He asked.

"How did you know that?"

"It was on the paperwork."

"Right," I said as we both laughed.

"You want to hold your arms like this," He said, coming up behind me and placing my arms in the right spot. There was something intimate about how he did it that caused me to look over at River, who was staring at us.

Usually, I would feel like flirting with this guy is something that I shouldn't be doing because of River, but he had made it very clear that he wasn't interested in dating me, so I decided to flirt a little bit.

"Your arms are big," I said.

"Thanks," He said. "Your arms are small."

"I guess I'll take that as a compliment," I giggled.

"It is a compliment," He said, pulling my arms back into the right position.

I took another look over at River, and it looked like he was ready to kill someone.