Four years prior - flashback to show character dynamics
River heard Malcolm's voice as she approached the door to her friend's birthday. Malcolm's laugh to be specific. She thought she would be imagining things. Hearing Malcolm's voice. The voice of the person that for some reason was most important to her that particular moment. But also the one person with who'm things were just a tad complicated -as he seemed to be rigid, and look down certain kinds of people. People like her: presumed white trash.
River, entered back into the birthday living room carefully - not really wanting to be seen. Like the background house cat she had learned behave as from a young age. Her steps were discrete and precise, as she scanned the room looking for the familiar eyes that had caught her attention weeks ago.
Through the glass door she could see him. Malcolm. She had not imagined anything. She felt that familiar electric bolt down her spine. Intrigued. She was intrigued very rarely, and by very specific things. Malcolm, had somehow managed to make that list. She wondered if it had anything to do with the fact he seemed familiar. Too close to a family trauma - maybe the loss of her family unit. Maybe he represented an illusion of something that would have evoked safety for her during the hardest years of her life when Lawrence and her had to figure out how to pull their own weight, and grow up faster than regular children are expected. Whatever it was, Malcolm felt: safe, distant, enemy, familiar, bystander and friend - all the same time. It was Overwhelming.
River opened the door slowly, and entered the living room. Malcolm and Noah were gravitating around the people present at the party. Saying hi. River wondered if he would even acknowledge her. Which of the many hats he wore would he pick in for the next 10 minutes. River walked in, choosing to pick her safest hat: indifferent. She gravitated towards Wilson, and engaged him in small talk. Before she knew it though, Malcolm had gone around saying to everyone he cared for, and happened to gravitate back exactly where Wilson was. Exactly where River was.
Will smiled, surprised to see Malcolm. He didn't really often joined parties like this one - River didn't even know he cared enough about the birthday girl to show up. Malcolm then turn to River to greet her. A reserved facial expression waring on his face. Yet the mere action of choosing to turn and talk to her was telling. He had picked his hat for those 10 minutes: kind. River smiled, and hugged Malcolm as she greeted him. She allowed herself that. She allowed herself that acknowledgment: I think I know you. I think I understand you, and I think you understand me. It was a bold thing to do, and as she pulled away she gravitated somewhere else entirely at the party. She couldn't dare stay.
Before doing so, she saw Will's expression looking at her. It was the expression of someone that had just been witness of something that went a bit beyond the norm. Someone who managed to see the, ever so slightly, true feelings behind a gesture - and someone who had also managed to examine them from the distance. Trying to figure out if they should be rendered inappropriate or not. River could not care. She trusted Will. She walked away, and abstained from talking to Malcolm for the rest of the party. Shy as she was. She did not want to give all her cards away... in spite having already given at least half with that hug. But she gravitated around him every once a while. Her eyes would follow him. Would be aware of his surroundings. Would be aware of his conversations. Would always be aware of him. It was an inception to her brain.
In spite of avoiding him for the rest of the evening -as she did not dare face him after what she had done - she did wonder if that had been one of those gestures we humans run away from because they are scared of ourselves, but go a long way in retrospect. The gestures we think about the next day because those moments break the mantle of what reality should be, and for a glimpse of a second, show the real foundation of where our hearts partially lay.