ESCAPE (Discontinued)

Opportunity

The sun is starting to set when the king and the other five start to leave. I have no time to think of how Alex lied, so I push my way through the crowd and head home. I have to go before he tries to find me. Of course he'll try to find me.

Gray, dark clouds are starting to hover above my head even though it was sunny half an hour ago, during the choosing ceremony. Raindrops start to fall when I turn a corner, my house a few yards away. It's even closer when I see him. "No."

"Maximus, please, let me do the talking. You don't have to," he begs.

"Go away," I snap. All the anger I ever tried to keep in me is about to erupt at his face. I stop abruptly in the mud beneath my feet. His eyes are pleading with me. I don't care what he does. Tears are starting to form in his eyes when I look at him. Suddenly I feel sympathy towards him- just a little bit though. Giving him sympathy at a time like this with what he did shouldn't be possible. I'm sixteen- is this being over-exaggerated? Are we being over-exaggerated? I don't know.

And then a million thoughts flow into my head. What if he accepted his spot to give it to me, knowing that I had no chance of leaving after that? But it's too late. He should've given it up right after he got chosen, but he didn't. What if he didn't know that he could reject the offer- maybe he thought the king wouldn't allow him to reject his spot. But I immediately remember the huge grin on his face as he stood up onto the stage next to the king- and plus, three different people strangely said no after the king had chosen them. I start to head back home, but then I think, 'What if he wants to apologize, or maybe explain why he lied to me?' So I quietly ask, "What do you want?"

It takes him a moment to sentence what he wants to say, but after a while he answers, "I thought maybe...Well, it came up to me that if I got chosen I could leave this village once and for all, like how I wanted-" he doesn't say we, "to. And I like, changed my mind, because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, y'know?"

That's enough. I snap, "Oh, you changed your mind? Wow! Never thought that was possible! How about when I was talking to you earlier about leaving? Did you 'change your mind'? Did you think about it properly at that time? All your life, you have had me standing next to you, supporting all your decisions and choices, no matter how stupid and dangerous they may be. All my life, I have had to push people aside and support you when you had gotten in argument with any of them, whether it had been with a stranger, or with someone close to me. Do you know how many people had their feelings hurt because of ME?! No, you don't, because you-don't-care."

Alex has a blank expression on his face, and I can see his foot tapping the ground in annoyance. Oh, so he's annoyed? I kick mud all over his shiny new boots and stomp my way back home. My ears and face are red and burning from my anger, so I cup my hands. Raindrops fill the bowl I made with my hands and I splash the slightly dirty water on my face, rinsing my ears, nose, cheeks, and chin.

By the time I reach home, I can no longer see Alex standing there frozen behind me. Mother is sitting down on the old couch taking a nap, so I decide to go upstairs and take a shower. I'm ungrateful for the coldness of the house, for I am wet with rain. My clothes are stripped off of my body and I stumble to the bathroom. A bucket is waiting for me there under a small faucet dug in the ground with water pipes underneath it. The tiny drops of water stop leaking into the bucket when I open the faucet all the way. While the bucket is filling up with water, I retrieve dry clothes from a drawer in my room and put it over the towel I had put up on the toilet seat. Water is up to the edge of the bucket in a few minutes, and I pull the bucket as hard as I can to the small bathtub to my left, my veins popping against my skin in the process. A loud thump is heard when I place the bucket in the tub, and I freeze, fearing that I had woken up Mother from her deep sleep. I grab the bar of soap on the ground near the faucet and slowly step in the bathtub.