The Tales of Flesh and Blood

What A Wonderful World

Gallin was a complex little town. It was nowhere near small enough for everyone to know each other, but it was small enough for there to be only a single public high school. There was a private one, but it was located downtown, and every citizen in Gallin knew that nothing good ever happened downtown. Not that it mattered near the Harver area, but still. Parents who didn't want their children hanging around a bunch of delinquents tried.

The area surrounding Bancro High School was nice enough, though, if you ignored the crazies that were about ten blocks down - which was where the apartments were. The neighborhood surrounding the school was built with actual houses, not the frail, beat-down trailer homes that surrounded my street. Grass was planted in the front yards, and there was a park a little ways up the street. 

This was my actual destination, not the school. The tricky part was being able to pass off as an innocent young woman enjoying an early morning walk. Over here, if people thought you were suspicious, they called the cops. It was amazing how different the rules were in contrast to where I lived, and a damn pain in the ass, too. There wasn't a bus stop that wasn't riddled with druggies and shady people near the apartments, so if I wanted to avoid them and still go places, I had to walk all the way to Cedar's Park for the bus stop there. It wasn't perfect, and if I came here in the bright of day, I was susceptible to wary stares and cautious whispers, but it beat having to fight some crazy old man off my arm for one reason or another.

No one was ever really active on an early Saturday morning, so there wasn't much to worry about. Cars passed me as they turned into the school; athletes, most likely, meeting up for practice of some sort. I cut the corner turning off of the street and walked to the beginning of the property line for the park. A big, stone sign read 'Cedar's Park', and a small hill with a stream at the bottom prevented me from continuing my straight path. 

Most people, if they wanted to cross safely, normally walked halfway down the street to cross the bridge in order to access the large park. However, if you were daring, or you just did not care of the potential danger, you could climb over a giant boulder that clipped the shoulder of the park and make way over the wide opening of the drain's walls that the stream ran through. Having done this so many times before, I didn't even need to take my hands out of my pockets for balance.

My feet back on the grass, I kept my head low, listening to the soft chirps of a few crickets hiding in surrounding bushes. The stream that surrounded the perimeter of the park cut halfway through at the section closest to the street, where it stretched across a good deal of the park to form a large pond. There was another wooden bridge a little ways in to cross the water - there had to be, if you wanted to avoid walking a half-mile around the pond to get to the other side of the park. I headed to this, my chest growing tight as I neared the water, but not because I was some sort of hydrophobic. There were ducks in the water, swimming and kicking out their paddled feet without a care in the world. Watching them stirred something deep inside, and, stumbling on tears, I couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with me, until I realized:

These stupid birds were more protected by legal services than half the kids I'd grown up with, myself included. I clenched my fists and bit my lip, crossing the bridge as quickly as I could in order to get away from the pond.

The bus ride to the place I wanted to get to wasn't all that bad. I sat near the front with my head leaned up against the window, dozing off here and there while only a few others slipped on stop after stop. I'd paid the bus driver the few coins I had left in my pocket, not wanting to have to break the fifty I had on me. He accepted the change with a tired nod; the poor guy must be nearing the end of his shift, or it just started.

"Birch Park," I had said, and then shrugged when he said that it was going to take an hour before he went that way uptown. It was fine by me, seeing as I was the first one on the bus, which meant that I wasn't being followed. An hour's worth of not having to worry about someone watching me wasn't going to draw any complaints from me.

Birch Park wasn't anything fancy. It was one of those places out in the more . . . spread-out portion of Gallin. There were a few houses here and there, but this area was dedicated solely for environmental purposes. It was a large section of land filled with grass, trees, and sidewalk paths to walk or bike. No playground, no swings, and it was cold enough for only the most dedicated of athletes to want to go out on a run. And me.

I took off my hoodie and tied it around my waste, exposing the bruises and bandages I had wrapped around my right arm and fists, before pulling my hair up into a loose ponytail. I had roughly ten hours before I was expected to meet up with Jaxon. Plenty of time to clear my head. I stared up at the sidewalk that interwove in between trees, which were shadowed by the sun's rising rays. Then I began a steady jog.

Okay, so I didn't normally go out on runs in the middle of nowhere on Saturday mornings, but it was something I did when the stress was high and I didn't feel like drinking. My body was sore and achy from last night - not to mention the pain crawling up my shoulder - and every breath squeezed my chest just a little tighter than the last, but there was something about the cold air that stung my lungs and the rhythm of each step that allowed me to relax. My heart was racing, and for once, it wasn't because I was in danger.

Still, for the hour-and-a-half I spent running, I couldn't shake the feeling of expecting something to happen after I turned each bend. I kept thinking that any moment, I was going to find myself in a situation I couldn't get out of. Once, I let my mind stray so much that I almost mistook a pile of leaves as a person curled up in a ball. I stopped dead in my tracks, the first of my thoughts being,

Did I just find the boy?

I didn't run much further through the trees after that. I turned my happy butt around and kept glancing over my shoulder until I reached the place I'd started to begin with. By now, I was well and truly exhausted, and I barely caught myself against a nearby tree. I was covered in a light layer of sweat, and my breaths were shallow and frantic. My legs momentarily useless, I sat up against the tree and looked at my phone. It was almost nine in the morning. Hadi hadn't texted me yet, which meant that she wasn't awake.

I closed my eyes, concentrating on the cold weather and the effect it had on my bruised self. Goosebumps snaked up my arms, but I waited to put my hoodie on until I noticed a couple of joggers nearby. It was a useless gesture, as one look at my face would tell them everything, and I didn't have any gloves to hide my bandaged hands.

Time to go, I thought before they could get a proper view of me, slowly rising to my feet. Yet . . . I glanced up at the tree beside me. The branches were wide and spaced out, with one being low enough for me to touch the sides with my fingers. I should probably avoid placing as much pressure on my shoulder as possible, but I didn't know when the next bus round was going to be, and I didn't want to walk around a neighborhood that was home to some of Gallin's wealthier residents in my current condition.

Well, I did tell Jaxon that I would meet him at a park.

Bracing myself, I wrapped my arms around the branch and jumped to slide my feet through the space where the branch met with the trunk. I nearly lost my grip at the sudden pain that sparked in both of my arms, but I gritted my teeth and dug my fingers in between the crevices. Then I flipped myself over, and viola, I was in a tree.

After climbing up to a high enough place to not stick out, but low enough for me to be able to safely jump out of the tree if I needed to, I eased myself against some of the branches and flipped my hood over my head to shield my eyes from the sun.

I barely had enough conscious thought to text Jaxon to meet me at Birch Park when he was ready before I fell asleep.