Running Risks

Songshot Story#1. Just something I have been keeping in my head for weeks now.

- - - - -

Tanner found himself ducking into one of the empty classrooms. For someone used to running, sprinting down a hallway took out the energy out of him. He bent forward, his hands on his knees. His chest rose and fell with every breath he took, and his dirty-blonde bangs fell freely into his eyes. No. He couldn’t be caught. He had kept it a secret for this long, and he was going to make sure it stayed that way.

He heard a quiet click behind him, the perfect sound of a doorknob being locked.

Before he even turned around, he knew it was Eve.

“How long are you going to run away from me?”

Slowly, he straightened himself and turned, his deep blue eyes taking in her appearance. Even after three weeks of not seeing her, she was the same as always – blue hoodie, faded denim jeans, black sneakers. He raised his gaze to her face and found green eyes looking at him with an expression he knew all-so-well. The ends of her lips were curled downward, her eyebrows furrowed together. Her expression was stern, anticipating and chastising at the same time. She had crossed her arms over her chest and was leaning on the door she locked just a few seconds ago.

His lips parted to utter something – but what? What would he say? He was guilty, and he knew it. There was no denying it.

She raised an eyebrow at him, wordlessly prompting him to say something. When he didn’t, however, she resorted to words. “Well? Are you planning on explaining why you’ve been avoiding me for three weeks, Tanner? I thought you were going through your withdrawal issues again, but then,” she pauses to catch her breath, and Tanner spoke nothing, for he knew she hated interruptions, especially in a mood like this. “I find out from Hec and Bonnie that I’m the only one you’ve been avoiding.”

Her gaze turned more intense.

He licked his lips, eyes shifting around the room, on every object, anything but her. “Well, Eve, you see…”

She seemed pleased by his response, but she didn’t back down from her spot and relent.

Couldn’t she see that he was having a hard time? This wasn’t just something like Chemistry that he could explain.

“What? I see, what?”

He looked at hr, eyes conflicted and uncharacteristically forlorn. But even with what he was going through, he needed to make this right. The best way out wasn’t always the easiest possible, but he had to try. Eve was someone special to him, and he wasn’t going to just leave her like this. He wasn’t planning to, oh no; he was just prolonging the time he could call her as his girlfriend. But it was also prolonging the pain he was making her feel from his abrupt distance. He only realized that now.

He dropped to a chair, the wood and metal creaking from the sheer force of his impact.

And Tanner found himself explaining.

- - - - -

She was quiet as he spoke, but he couldn’t see her expression, for his head was in his hands. He was afraid of how she would react to what he would say.

“I don’t exactly know what happened, but four weeks ago, while I was walking home from school, I was attacked. Someone just came out of nowhere and pushed me into an alley.” He paused, his voice cracking. “I thought it was just one of those… you know, junkies that mugged people. I fought back, but he managed to pin me to the wall. The next thing I knew…”