Runaway

III

The picture is how I imagined her tree house but a lot less torn apart!
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"You want some?" I hand him a plate of the dinner I cooked up. He looks at the cooked deer, back at me, then back at the deer. He shook his hand in front of the plate gesturing that he doesn't want it.

"Um, no thanks. I think I have a granola bar or something in my backpack." He says as he starts searching through the endless junk he's got stored in his bag.

"It's here if you change your mind."

"Thanks." He smiles at me.

We're sitting by the river enjoying the sunset. Although the trees are covering most of the sky along the river, there's this one spot where you can see the sun and the stars perfectly. I come here a lot and just think. I can't sit here for long or else I'll start overthinking and that's never good.

Time passes by as we sit there in silence, eating our dinner. Well, he was eating a granola bar and that's not really dinner. Anyways, it started getting dark. These woods aren't safe at all when its dark.

"I'm going to start putting everything away. We should get back to my tree before it gets too dark." I say as I put out the fire and tuck everything under the tree.

He started trying to get up.

"Hold on, let me help." I jog over to where he was sitting and pull him up, moving one of his arms over my shoulder to help support his ankle.

"Thanks." He looks at me and smiles.

We make our way back to my tree and he looks up. I notice a puzzled look on his face.

"How am I supposed to get up there?" He scratches his head.

We just sat there for a few minutes thinking. I started rustling through my bag looking for the rope I used to tie the deer.

Aha!

"Come here." I demand as I start tying one end of the rope securely around myself. I tie the other end around him and throw the bag back around my shoulder.

"Climb at your own pace. If you slip, I've got you... or I'm going down with you. Hopefully the latter one isn't the case." I say quickly as I start climbing, him close behind me.

"How the heck do you climb this every day?!" He yells up at me. I could tell he was tired; You could hear it in his voice.

"I've been doing this for a while. Suck it up, pretty boy." I yell back. He was a pretty boy. In fact, he was jaw-droppingly gorgeous.

Focus, B. I don't care how gorgeous he is! You need to focus on why you're in the woods isolated form everyone in the first place. No trust. No slip-ups.

After what seems like 20 minutes we finally make it to the top. I could easily make it in 5.

I move the plank of wood covering the entrance of my tree house and we both enter. I walk towards the back wall and then turn to face him.

"This is it." I shrug and gesture to around the tree house.

He limps around a little examining what I have. I keep a close eye on him. He walks over to a wood shelf and he reaches for a photo that was propped against the wall. I quickly walk over and snatch it before he could take a closer look.

"What was that for?" He looks at me confused.

"That's private." I say quickly and turn my head to look at the floor, tucking my tangled hair behind my ear. There was a long pause before he moved on to observe the rest of the space. I place the picture in my pocket and sit on the floor against the wall.

It was getting dark. The sun had already gone down and it was getting chilly. I looked over at him as he let out a long yawn.

"You should sleep on the bed. I'll take the floor." I offer making sure there was no trace of empathy or pity in my face.

"I'm not tired, just cold." He says running his hands through his hair. I get up and light a few candles I have laying around.

"It should warm up in here. Get some sleep," I gesture towards the bed, "You have a long walk home." And with that he trudged to the bed, stripping himself of his boots and any gear he had attached to himself.

I turn off the few lanterns that were the source of the limited light in the tree house and I lay down on a few blankets that were placed on the ground next to the bed. Usually, I would change into pj's of some sort but I figured I'd save myself the trouble of hiding myself from the boy.

Before I try to fall asleep, I pull out the picture I hid from Dakota. I miss these days. It was a photo of a gorgeous woman with soft brown curls and ocean blue eyes. There was an arm around her. I can only assume it was my fathers, however, he had been ripped out of the photo. I stood in front of them. I looked at myself for a while, gliding my thumb ever so gently across the photo, wiping away any dust that gathered on it. I was so young; My front tooth was missing and my hair was pulled into pig tails. I looked so happy then.

Now, all I can ever think about is how much has changed and all the heartbreak I went through. Sure, it made me stronger. But it also made me weak and broken.

Go to bed, B. You're gonna work yourself up. Don't let the boy see any signs of weakness or emotion.

"Good night." He whispers.

I turn over to look at him, wiping a small tear from my cheek.

"Yeah, goodnight."