“Hey there, Delilah!”

What was it now?

I almost screamed out in frustration as whoever had called me to a halt used that song. I hated it so much...

I just wanted to go see my fiancé. But no, I had to keep getting interrupted. I just didn’t understand why we always had to get interrupted.

I was afraid that this person was going to be Kendra, because I definitely couldn’t take anymore of her annoying voice. Seriously, was that how she actually spoke? I felt really bad for Gabe right then… I sure hoped that he hadn’t gone deaf.

I turned around to see that it wasn’t Kendra who had called me to stop, but it was her brother instead. I looked at him in confusion, since I had no idea why he would want to talk to me. Did his sister get him to? I sure hoped not. She might have said that she wasn’t interested in River anymore, but I wasn’t so sure. You can’t get over someone so easily.

“What?” I asked, sounding a lot harsher than I had meant to. I was annoyed, I really was. I just wanted to go see River; I didn’t want to be bothered by the Harris siblings. Didn’t he have girls to woo or something? I was sure that he had better things to do than to bother me about something I didn’t want to hear.

“Can I talk to you?” he asked, and then glanced at my two friends that stood behind me. “Alone?”

I blinked as Alice came up from behind me. “If your prissy little sister got you to come and talk to us, just go away. We’re tired of listening to whatever sob story she has.”

Jay shook his head, laughing a little. “I’m not here because of my sister,” he told us. “I’m here because I want to talk to Delilah.”

Why did I not like the sound of that?

Marnie looked absolutely awestruck as she continued to stand behind me, and I knew she was shocked when she saw that it was actually Jay Harris that was talking to me. Were Alice and I the only girls in the entire school that didn’t care that it was Jay Harris? Apparently!

“You’re Jay Harris!” Marnie announced, as if he didn’t know. He let out a laugh, smiling charmingly at her. That smile would make any girl in the world melt, but Alice and I only stared at him flatly. Marnie, on the other hand, almost completely fell over.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, even though I didn’t even have anything to be sorry for. “But I’m going to go see River now. How about we talk later?”

Even though he obviously wanted to talk now and not later, he smirked and nodded. “Sure. But before I go, who’s that guy that I saw with Kendra just now?”

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “That’s Gabe, a friend of mine.”

Jay nodded. “I feel bad for him.”

… Why?

Before I could ask him, Jay turned on his heel and started away. “See you later,” he called over his shoulder, barely even giving me a glance that showed that he even acknowledged me. How did he go from wanting to talk to me to a guy who couldn’t care less?

I had a feeling that Jay Harris was going to be a very confusing guy.

And I definitely wasn’t looking forward to that.

As Marnie, Alice, and I made the rest of the way to River’s dorm, I wondered what was happening to Gabe right then… I hoped it wasn’t anything bad. I didn’t know what Kendra was going to do, and I didn’t think I wanted to find out anytime soon…

“Right now I am so thankful to Gabe,” Alice grumbled under her breath as we made the rest of the way toward River’s room. “I feel bad for him, though. Who knows what Kendra could do when they’re in her room? I hope he comes back with all his clothes on.”

“Agreed,” I said flatly, knocking on River’s door.

Alice didn’t know about what had happened with Gabe, and neither did Marnie. I was sure that I would tell them one day, but I didn’t think it was so important. I didn’t want them hating Gabe over something that had happened months before.

They liked him now, and I wanted to keep it that way, since we were such great friends. I didn't want to ruin the friendship that we had just because some of my friend didn't like him. That almost happened with River, Rex, and Seth, and I wasn't going to let that happen with Alice and Marnie...

What he did was wrong, I knew, but that didn’t mean that I wanted them to hate him. Because Gabe was a great friend of mine now, and not someone who had been harassing me for months.

It wasn’t even his fault; it wasn’t his idea. Arianna had used him as a pawn in her evil game. She would have used anyone that had come to pick me up that day so many months before. She would have tried to use Seth, Rex, or River if they had come along, she even would have used Avery if he was there. As long as she got what she wanted, Arianna Devon didn’t care about who she had to use. She just needed to get what she wanted and have her way no matter what.

I was glad that I was no longer speaking to her, because I knew it was for the best. She was mean, and I wished that I had realized that when she said hi to me on the first day of freshman year. If her locker wasn’t next to mine, my life sure would have been different. I wouldn’t have ever come into contact with her, and then she never would have come into contact with Gabe. But would I have gone to Bentwood if it wasn't for Arianna? She was the one that had gotten me in trouble and egged the teacher on when she made me sing in front of the class... And Mr. Higginson had heard me sing, which only started his obsession with me.

Would I have not had to sing if it wasn't for Arianna? If I didn't sing, Mr. Higginson would have probably never been obsessed with me, which meant I would have a normal high school experience with no stalkers or schools with all boys. But if I didn't go to Bentwood, I never would have met Seth, Rex, and River. And if I hadn't met them...

So maybe I was thankful to Arianna, in the same way II was thankful to Mr. Higginson. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have been happy and in love now. I would have probably been alone.

I hadn’t called Julie yet, but I knew that I was going to have to soon so I could get an update about what was happening. I hadn’t talked to her in weeks, and I wanted to know if Arianna had the entire school terrified of her. She had managed to do that the year before when we were only juniors, but now she was a senior, and probably even more terrifying.

When River opened the door, he smiled broadly when he saw that it was me standing before him. All of our friends would always tease us and say that River only ever smiled like that when I was around. I wouldn’t be able to know, since he only supposedly did it when I was around, but I didn’t really believe them. I wasn’t the only thing on this planet that made River smile.

“Hey,” he smiled, leaning over and kissing me lightly on the mouth. My lips lingered on his for a few seconds, not wanting to pull away, but I knew that I had to since other people were in the dorm room with us right then. I would just have to get River alone later…

“Who’s this?” a new voice asked, startling me slightly. Not enough for me to go into a panic attack or anything, but enough to make me go stiff for a few moments. I looked over at the person that had spoken, and I didn’t feel scared anymore when I saw that it was only Mountain.

“I’m Delilah,” I introduced, holding out a hand for him to shake. He did so, and I continued to smile at him. “I’m River’s girlfriend, or fiancé.”

His eyes went wide after I had said this, and he looked at River. “The girl you never shut up about?”

River hid under his hair, looking at the floor. I felt my face flush slightly, but I didn’t say anything as I now smiled at River. Everyone always said that River never shut up about me, but I didn’t believe them until now. Since Mountain was like the fiftieth person who said it.

Mountain now turned toward me. “He talks about you like you’re a goddess or something. It’s actually pretty sweet, he’ll go on and on if someone asks a question about you. He obviously loves you a lot.”

I nodded, biting my lip in embarrassment. I never understood why I always got so embarrassed whenever someone mentioned about River loving me as much as he did. I knew River loved me, but I didn’t like when people talked about our relationship. It just made me feel uncomfortable.

Mountain then burst out laughing, startling me a little once again. “I just realized that your name is Delilah, and you live in New York City! Hah, that’s hilarious!”

I didn’t find it very funny.

“Hey there, Delilah, what’s it like in New York City? I’m a thousand miles away, but girl, tonight you look so pretty—” Mountain started to sing, until River elbowed him in the side after he had seen the look on my face. I couldn’t hate that song anymore than I already did.

“Not a good idea, dude,” River told him, shaking his head. “She absolutely despises that song.”

Mountain blinked, turning back toward me with a sheepish grin. “Sorry.”

I shook my head, trying to smile. “No worries. You didn’t know.”

It reminded me of what Jay had said earlier, how he wanted to talk to me... What did he want to talk to me about?

It was silent in the room for a few seconds until a shrill ringing of a cell phone broke it. Marnie dug through her purse, pulling out her phone and pressing it to her ear, smiling as she said, “Hello? Oh, hi, Jesse!”

Jesse was her cousin, who I had met once before back in late April, right after I was kicked out of Bentwood and had to be sent home. It was a fun time visiting, except I thought that I had seen Mr. Higginson while I was there. That wasn’t a good thing, since most of the people that we were with didn’t have any idea who Mr. Higginson was or why I was so scared of him.

And there was a pretty girl there, whose name was Jordan, and it seemed like Jesse had a huge crush on her. But they were supposedly enemies that fought all the time, and Jordan was supposedly having some kind of a fling with some counselor named Dallas, and it seemed like they absolutely hated each other. But there was something with Jesse that I didn’t understand.  

Marnie stepped outside to speak to her cousin, and Alice got into a pretty livid conversation with Mountain about tambourines. I rolled my eyes, turning toward my fiancé and smiling. “You want to go back to my dorm?” I asked, an eyebrow rising on my forehead. River smirked back at me, nodding and taking my hand, pulling me away and out of his dorm.

“So, we ran into Kendra on the way over to your room,” I informed him as we made our way back to my dorm, hand-in-hand. “She was trying to get us to feel bad for her or something. She was crying and telling us this sob story about how you were her only friend… I didn’t feel bad for her at all.”

River smirked at me, pulling me into his side and wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “Jealous?”

“Yes,” I muttered begrudgingly, looking down at the ground.

River stopped dead in his tracks, causing me to stop as well. He turned be toward him, both of his hands on my shoulders. He looked shocked, and it only confused me. What was with the look on his face? He looked like he didn’t even recognize me or something…

“You’re jealous?”

“I just said yes, didn’t I?”

River pulled me closer to him, hugging me tightly to his chest. His actions were confusing me, since I didn’t know what I had done or said to make him act this way. He was acting like I may never see him again, and I didn’t understand.

“R—River, are you okay?” I asked, my voice slightly muffled from being pressed against his shoulder. “What’s wrong? What did I do?”

River pulled away from me, smiling as he stared down at me, his hands still on my arms. “Nothing’s wrong,” he answered, his hand running down my arm and taking my hand. He turned, continuing to walk in the direction of my dorm. “It’s just kind of surprising, is all. I mean, you’re jealous? It’s always just me that’s jealous. You’ve never been jealous… ever.”

“Yeah, I know. I didn’t even know what it was at first because I didn’t even know the feeling… But how can I not be jealous?” I sighed, shaking my head as I continued to walk beside him. “She said that she was your fiancée, River. If you were to ever marry someone else, or do anything with anyone else… I think I might die or something. I can’t live without you.”

River chuckled, wrapping his arm around my shoulders again. “You sound like me.”

I nuzzled into his chest. “I know. And I hate it.”

He chuckled again, tightening his hold on me. We got to my dorm only a few seconds later, and when we got inside, I was totally looking forward to making out, but River was focused on what was lying on the table a few feet away from us.

Now, before you get your hopes up, it wasn’t a note. I hadn’t gotten any notes ever since Mr. Higginson had gotten caught, and all the notes that I had gotten were locked away in the closet behind Alice and my clothing. So there was no way River was going to find them unless he wanted to step into girl-land.

“The Outsiders?” River read, blinking at the movie that he held in his hand. “Don’t we have to read this in Mrs. Roberts’s class later in the year? Why do you have the movie?”

“It’s Alice’s,” I excused with a wave of my hand, making my way over to the couch and plopping down onto it. River followed, the movie still in his hands. “She heard that we were going to have to read the book, and you know how she hates to read, so she bought the movie and thought that she could just watch that instead of reading it. I’ve never read the book, so I have no idea if that’s going to work…”

“I’ve read it,” River told me, wrinkling his nose as he put his arm around my shoulders. “I hated it.”

“I liked the movie,” I shrugged, snuggling into his side. “The actor who played Dally was cute. And Sodapop… And Ponyboy.”

“Hey,” River said, and I couldn’t really tell if he was joking or not. I was teasing him now, because I knew that he would have gotten jealous over something stupid. I rolled my eyes, hoping he was joking along with me, and I snuggled into his side even more. If he really thought that I would choose some actor that I thought was attractive when he was thirty years younger, he really did get jealous easily.

“That was almost thirty years ago, stupid,” I smiled, bopping him in the head lightly. “If you’re getting jealous over that, you have problems.”

River rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “I guess I do.”

“Why don’t we watch it?” I suggested, taking the movie from his hands and looking down at it. I remembered watching it in school back in eighth grade… I didn’t really care for it back then, especially since pretty much every girl was gushing about how cute all the guys were. “I haven’t seen it in years, and it would be nice to know what we’re getting into when we have to read it in a few weeks.”

“Are you sure you just don’t want to see Dally, Sodapop, and Ponyboy?” he asked, obviously teasing me now.

I looked up at him, sticking my tongue out at him and ready to tease him right back. “Maybe.”

He rolled his eyes, this time bopping me in the head. I couldn’t help but smile at him, like I always did when he was around. If River always smiled when I was around, then I guess that I smiled whenever he was around, too. We were happily in love, and we weren’t going to let anyone ruin it. Not Kendra, not anyone. Mr. Higginson was almost able to ruin it, but that wasn’t going to happen this time.

But Mr. Higginson didn’t try to ruin our relationship by jealousy or a sob story, or anything that Kendra could have done. Unless she was going to shoot me, Kendra wasn’t anything like Mr. Higginson. He had actually shot River because he had told me that he loved me out in the open. River was in the hospital because he was shot in the chest, all because he was in love with me. I didn’t want anything like that happening ever again.

But since Mr. Higginson was in jail, I knew that I didn’t have to worry about anything like that happening again. The only thing he could do was haunt my nightmares, and that wasn’t going to ruin my relationship with River. The only threat that I had now was Kendra, but River wasn’t interested in her at all. Even though Kendra had said that she was going to get over River…

But could I really believe her when she said that she didn’t like River anymore? I didn’t think that I should. You don’t get over someone so quickly…

I wished I didn’t have to worry about these things. I wished that my senior year was perfect, and that it didn’t have anything that would worry me. But it seemed like that wasn’t going to happen. Even though it wasn’t as bad as having a stalker, it was definitely something that was going to bother me.

I pulled myself away from him, walking over to the DVD player as I took the disk out of its case. When I had watched it back in eighth grade, my teacher had it on tape, so she had to rewind it every single time and it got really annoying. I’m sure glad we had DVDs now.

“I cried when I watched this movie in eighth grade,” I informed River with a small laugh as I sat next to him one again. “I was the only one in my class, and I got a bunch of weird stares… It was sad! I hate movies or books without happy endings…”

River chuckled as I pouted, putting his arm around my shoulders once again and pulling me to him. I smiled, making sure that I got comfortable in his arms as the movie began.

And we watched it for the next two hours, in complete silence. I didn’t know if River liked it or not, but I was totally into it. It wasn’t as good as The Phantom of the Opera or anything, but it was a good movie, even though it was made almost thirty years before.

We were at the part after Johnny had died when the door opened, and in walked Alice. She looked at me in confusion, shutting the door behind her as she said, “Marnie’s with Seth and Rex.”

She then looked at the movie screen and rolled her eyes. “You’re watching that stupid movie.”

“Stay gold, Ponyboy!” I quoted obnoxiously, just to annoy her. It obviously worked, because she turned around and gave me a small wave before making her way back toward the door.

“On second thought, I think I’ll go hang out with Marnie, Seth, and Rex. Oh, yeah…” She turned around to face us now. “River, I bet you ten bucks that Delilah’s going to cry at the end of the movie.”

“Too late!” I cried, tears pouring down my cheeks as I watched my favorite character get shot.

Alice rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she turned back toward the door. “You cry for pretty much every movie! This one, West Side Story, The Phantom of the Opera…”

“Those were sad!” I defended, sniffing as I wiped my eyes and the credits rolled. I hated being so damn emotional. I cried over the most stupid things…

After Alice had left, I laid down so that my head was resting on River’s lap. He looked down at me in amusement; he had obviously been watching me the entire time. If I had been crying over something serious, like Mr. Higginson or being harassed, then he would be upset. But since I was crying over something as stupid as a movie that wasn’t even real, I knew he was amused.

“So,” he said once I was finally done sniffling, “are you okay?”

I wiped my nose with the back of my hand, avoiding his gaze. “I’m fine. Don’t mind me, the emotional girl crying her eyes out.”

River rolled his eyes at how dramatic I was being, and I felt myself smile. I sat up, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him closer to me. Our lips locked and we sat there for a few minutes just kissing, my arms continuing to be around his neck and his around my waist.

“I love you,” I smiled at him when I finally pulled away. “I can’t wait to marry you.”

River smiled right back at me. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

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If you have a song that you think fits a character or a couple, comment and tell me please! I got this idea from a comment that I got from the last chapter... :D

If you've read There's a Thin Line Between Love and Hate, you'll know that the characters from this story were in chapter eleven of There's a Thin Line Between Love and Hate and probably chapter twelve... >.> And you'll know that I'm kind of, sort of completely obsessed with The Outsiders right now. :D But hey, it gave me an idea for this chapter! >:L

I'm sure it'll pass... Hopefully. ;)

Please COMMENT, VOTE, and FAN! :)