PURE HEROIN

IX.

O9 | Pure Heroin

Running.

Exodus had always been very good at running. At both long distance and from her problems.

What she learned over the years is that there aren't any rules to running. No checklist of things to cross off, no instructions. Just eeny, meeny, pick a path and go. Well thats how she'd always done it anyway, because apparently there's no age limit to running away either.

After she had over dosed on the tours last showing in Berlin, scaring her colleagues half to death, the American Ballet Theatre had silently annulled her contract with them. Until she was better they said. And for a long time Exodus wondered if she would ever be better.

With a heavy heart and developing drug addiction, she packed away everything she owned and was on the next flight back to America. Exodus had never told her parents the real reason she had left ABT. Only that she felt like she needed to 'find herself' -which she hadn't.

During her two years of running she learned that there was no specific time frame about how long it takes for the problems to catch up with us. Just that they will-that much is a given.

Exodus rose early in the morning, before anyone else, and poured herself liquid through the sunrise streets. One moment she was ambling down the sidewalk, and the next second she was sprinting. As if the wind had suddenly propelled her body forward, like a hand pushing against her back. Her feet had started running without her even willing it, even knowing it. And she ran faster and faster, feet slapping against the pavement. Even though she couldn't literally runaway from her problems anymore, this was close enough.

It felt good to spend herself like this. Her long arms and legs moved flowingly and flawlessly, her body floating as if her feet weren't touching the ground. Exodus ran and felt like one of the animals, as though her feet were growing up out of the earth. As if she knew what they knew, that sometimes you ran just because you could. To remember the way the rush of air felt on your face and how your legs reached out eating up longer and longer patches of ground.

Exodus loved the pain, the hurt of the running, the burning in her lungs and the spasms that sometimes gripped her calves. She ran until the blood pounded in her ears, so loud that she could hear nothing but her own staggered breathing.

Exodus wondered if it was possible to run straight out of ones skin, until she was just a blemish blending into the background. As if she could outrun fear and sadness and worry and shame and all those losses that had lined up against her like a column of soldiers with their guns shouldered and ready to fire.

In that moment, If she had to, she felt like she could outrun death itself.

With her mind on auto-pilot she kept running, in her cozy homemade void, her own nostalgic silence. It was a pretty wonderful thing. For the first time in forever life was simple.

Exodus let her self into the pent house quietly shutting the door behind her. Her legs ached a little but it was nothing she couldn't tolerate. Heading into the kitchen she was greeted by Juels who was in the middle of eating a bagel.

"Morning." Exodus said pouring herself a glass of water.

Juels glanced over Exodus appearance before taking another bite from her bagel. "Morning! How was your run?"

"It was..nice. I haven't ran like that in awhile."

"I'm so excited about today. No one has any idea that you're coming."

Exodus managed to give her a small smile. She wasn't ready for this at all.

"Do you need anything? Leotard? Tights? Stockings?"