Don't Go Into The Woods

Chapter 8

I stopped stretching and spun around to see who was talking to me. I found the guy from the night before standing there in a grey pair of shorts and a matching grey gym T-shirt which had marks of sweat on it showing me that he had been running just as fast as I had been. Probably even doing some more endurance and uphill running considering the fact that he was all sweaty. My mouth went dry at this awesome sight of a man. He was no doubt the sexiest man I had ever seen. I tried my best to not allow him to catch any hint of what was racing through my mind as we stood there staring at each other. Instead I just tried to act cool. That was amazingly hard for me to do all of a sudden.

"Yes I do." I said. My mouth slowly started to regain its natural fluids after I said my first very short sentence. If one could even call it a sentence. Still, it was a relief as I did not want to be one of those easy looking desperate girls that this world seemed to be littered with nowadays. Kacey was a prime example of one of them. I had not even bothered to go like the rest of the pictures she had posted on Facebook and I was not sure if I was even going to after my run. Especially after my run in with this guy.

"Did you ever do track?" The guy asked.

"Used to, but I quit." I replied honestly.

"Oh. Why? You are a natural." The guy said, almost sounding disappointed after hearing my answer. I found it a little strange that he came across as caring so much about the fact that I had quit track, but I did not allow him to pick up what I was thinking. Instead I kept the conversation going between us. It was surprisingly not so hard to do so.

"I had my reasons for quitting. Personal reasons." I replied. My father had died. That was big enough reason for me to quit a lot of things including having faith in ever having another beautiful relationship like the one my dad and I shared. "You run pretty well too I assume judging by your current sweaty state. Track as well?" I asked.

"Not really. I am mostly into football, but I have to keep my legs in shape because I enjoy cross country as well. Also, as captain of the school's football team I have to lead by example fitness wise." The guy explained. He sounded quite proud when saying that. I noticed that there were girls whispering and blushing profusely as they stared at this guy while hurrying past him. I was completely invisible to them as this guy was all they noticed. He was the captain of the school's football team so something like girls checking him out the way they were must be so normal for him. It was not normal to me. I have never been attracted to the school's golden boy. By experience, they were purely spoilt brats with big egos who behaved like major jerks. Also by experience, they only ever wanted something sexual from a girl with chocolate brown hair and medium sized breasts, not to forget a brain. For a relationship they went directly to the airhead bimbos who found it amusing to not have an opinion on anything except hair and make up. Even selecting what movie to watch at the cinema took far too much brain power. So that brought me to one question. What was this guy doing standing in public talking to me, the new girl? Was it simply because I was the new girl and still had that cloud of mystery hanging over me? Or was it because he wanted to see how easy I was? I truly hoped that it was because he genuinely wanted to get to know me, but I did not hold on to too much hope for that as again, talking by experience, I knew better. The guy seemed to notice how silent I fell after those girls had left and made an attempt to keep the conversation going in a far more interesting way. "Do you want to race?" The guy asked.

"Race?" I said, double checking that I had heard him correctly.

"Yes. A few laps around the school. If you are not too scared of being beaten by me of course." The guy said with this smirk I wanted to smack off his face.

"I am not scared of anything." I said, folding my arms and giving him a firm look.

"Good. Try to keep up." The guy said before taking off. I briefly pondered the question of why this guy was doing this, but I could not dwell on that for too long before taking off after the guy. I did not even know his name yet I was racing him. Oh well. I was determined to win. Even with the head start, I still managed to catch up to the guy and when I looked again, we were running side by side across the grounds. Anyone who we were passing during our race looked like nothing more than blurs. We had reached a very familiar place. It was the back of the school and the view from my bedroom window. I decided it was time to break free. This guy clearly had no clue who he was messing with when he dared me to race with him. I was so determined to win that I did not notice in which direction I was running to. I just kept going and going till eventually the sun disappeared and I found myself in some sort of shade. That was not all I noticed. The guy was no longer at my side. I stopped rather harshly in my tracks and turned around. Panting kind of heavily, I searched for the guy. Had I succeeded in beating him? I spotted him standing there in the center of the field. He had stopped running for some or other reason and was just standing there staring blankly in my ditection, but not at me. Rather through me oddly. There must be something wrong. Some sort of reason for this strange behavior. The blood had rushed out of his face and his body seemed frozen. What had him so worked up? I turned back around to see what it was that he was staring at only to be met with a dark shrouded wall that as the wind blew through it, the leaves rustled and a slight stir of whispers filled the air. My heart skipped a beat as I could not believe how far I had run and how I had not noticed where I was running to till I had stopped right in front of the woods. The very thick and dark woods which amazingly had rather luscious green vegetation growing inside. The wind suddenly picked up and this rush of a cool breeze came passing over me through my air. I could swear I heard actual whispers traveling across that last breeze. That was not all. I also got the feeling that there was someone or something watching me from within the woods. The sound of a twig snapping in two definitely enhanced my belief that I was not alone standing here. I thought of the girl that had supposedly been dragged into the woods to her death and immediately I begun to back away from the edge of the woods. I had taken only a few steps away when I glanced backwards over my shoulder to find that the guy had completely vanished. So he just left like that leaving me here alone? What a jerk! I knew it! I made it to the center of the field when I spotted a bright yellow figure approaching me. Much to my disappointment, it was the one and only Carmen that had finally found me. She looked like she too had worked up quite a sweat. As she grew closer to me I could tell that she also did not look very happy. Something told me that her look had nothing to do with being left behind during my run.

"Why are you standing so close to those woods?" Carmen asked as she stopped before me, very out of breath and scowling at me from head to toe with her dark brown eyes. "Did you not read the rule book? You are not allowed to enter those woods. None of the students are." Being scowled out by a big light bulb was not exactly delightful to me so I decided to start walking back to the school's building at a fast pace which Carmen had to almost jog just to catch up to me. I hoped to accidentally ditch her again, but I was not so lucky this time.

"Relax. I did not enter the woods and I was not planning on to. Just like I am not planning on reading that stupid rule book." I said.

"How can you not read the rule book?!" Carmen gasped. I was not sure if she was just naturally gasping for air there seeing as she sounded somewhat out of breath.

"Simple. I just won't." I said, shrugging my shoulders with this non care attitude.

"But - but then how will know what the rules are?!" Carmen said, gasping yet again.

"I don't need to know the rules. Hopefully they will get me out of this hell hole sooner."

"But why do you want to leave? You just got here and we are still busy getting to know each other!" Carmen said. She sounded close to tears. I could not help myself here. I rolled my eyes before stopping abruptly and spinning around to face Carmen. She had to pause in her tracks quite harshly just to avoid crashing into me. Her whining was officially too much for me. I had had enough.

"Look. I don't want to be here! Unlike you, I was forced to come here and just leave everything behind! Alright! Now stop going on about a stupid rule book! If I had it my way, I would have myself thrown out here by the end of this week!" I shouted, letting loose. My voice echoed through the area we were in and caught a number of attention from the passersby. I did not feel bad for shouting at Carmen in public. To the say the least, the shouting made me feel better. Carmen did not say anything. She just fell silent and gave me this rather sad expression with the bottom lip drooping a bit too. I rolled my eyes again before letting out a massive sigh and marching off into the school with Carmen hot on my heels. This girl was clearly not going to be shaken off as easily as what I hoped she would be. What was with these people at this school? I had a girl who did not want to leave me alone and a guy who clearly ditched me to avoid tarnishing his golden boy statue at this school. I just wanted to leave.