Close Behind || Aaron Minyard

6

They spend the next morning together walking around campus and memorizing the area. Or, Neil needs to do extra laps to remember and Naomi is trying to push away her mounting anxiety by walking.

After that Neil was itching to run and it felt like Naomi was letting a dog off his leash when she waved him away. She ran just as much and just as fast but her chest felt too heavy for that nonsense today.

Instead she went back to walking around, acclimating herself fully to the area before walking down Perimeter Road and towards the town that was near the campus.

She stepped into one store after another buying nothing and looking at everything, eyes peeled for anything that might be useful later. Her hand was stuffed in her pocket the entire time, wrapped around her knife and fingers grazing the small amount of money she'd brought with her.

Naomi checked the clock in one store and saw she had a half hour left til they were expected at the court for summer practice that she didn't want to go to, so she stoped into one last store for a look around.

On the back shelf they had things that looked like they belong in an airport convenience store, but they had books so she wasn't complaining.

Her eyes light up a little just looking at all of them, when she was young, before they left home, Naomi would sit for hours in the library at home and read until her eyes went blurry. Some people read to escape and Naomi was one of them, in the most literal sense, of course.

In their time on the run she didn't get to read as often. She only had one book in her bag at a time, always one she'd stolen, that would have to be dump when it got too battered to read anymore. Right now in her bag all she had was the news articles she'd printed about everyone on the Foxes.

She could spare some money for a book, Naomi didn't have one right now after all and if they needed to leave she had to do something on the buses.

Without trying to convince herself against it, Naomi grabbed a copy of Frankenstein and wandered up to the front counter. She grabbed a pack of gum as well to seem a little more normal.

The teen behind the counter didn't care, didn't even look at her, which was perfect. He wouldn't be able to ever say he'd seen her.

She grabbed the book after she payed and walked calmly, not at all, to leave. Naomi shoved some gum in her mouth and wandered along the path to the court while reading her book at the same time.

It was a great distraction from her thoughts, really.

When she got there, everyone was there except Neil but she just shrugged off the questions of where he was and sat on a couch to keep reading her book. It wasn't their business even if she knew.

"When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?" Andrew voices broke through her dedication to the book.

Naomi looked up with a scowl and folded the book at a bad angle, his eyes narrowed slightly at the action. Not that she cared. "I haven't read it yet so don't quote at me until I'm finished."

"Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful," He keeps saying to mock her.

"Jackass," Naomi mutters, picking her book back up and holding a glare for a few seconds. "Can't wait til you're off your meds."

"Oh, you won't like it," Nicky calls from the locker room. He comes wandering out with Aaron, both changed out to play. "He's all silent and judge mental, and then everything he says hurts a million times more because it makes sense instead of being riddled. Plus he's somehow more violent."