Run

Chapter 18. Why Not?

For the first time since arriving here, I had a dream-less sleep. Nothing appeared, no visions, no dreams, no voices. Nothing.

Just timeless darkness. I didn't know how long I had been sleeping for, no way to tell for sure.

In the midst of my slumber I felt someone touch my arm and begin to gently shake me.

I slowly opened my eyes to be met with the familiar blonde hair and brown eyes.

"Hey," Newt whispered. "It's almost time for dinner, sleepy head."

I sat up and looked at my watch, 4:45.

I sluggishly go out of bed and laced up my boots. Newt and I walked out and got dinner, pork with apples and carrots.

As we sat with the others and ate, I just had to ask.

"What job am I going to try tomorrow?"

"Track-hoes, then Med-jacks, Cooks, and Builders." Alby said.

"What about the other jobs? The Sloppers and Baggers?" I whispered to Newt.

"Those are only if you're not good at any of the other jobs. Plus I don't think you want to take care of dead animals like the Baggers, or clean the toilets, other boys clothes and gross stuff like that like the Sloppers." Newt answered.

I thought for a moment, then it came to me. Like a spark lit up inside the darkness of my memories, something I was supposed to do. There was one more job that they didn't mention for me to try.

"What if... I wanted to be a Runner?" I asked.

Frypan choked on his water, Winston coughed, and Minho dropped his fork. Everybody stopped eating to looked at me.

"What?" I asked.

"You can't." Newt mumbled looking down at his plate.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Why do you want to?" Alby questioned.

"I-I don't know, it's just, I feel like that would be a good choice for a job. Sorry for asking." I mumbled, looking at my plate, awkward to make eye contact.

Alby, Newt, and Minho all shared a look before Alby said, "Look, we want you to try out all the jobs that we are giving you at the moment. If you ain't good with those, we'll let you try being a Runner."

"But-" Newt started before Alby cut him off.

"She hasn't tried any of the other jobs yet, Newt. That's ONLY if she hasn't found one by the time she's gone through them all. Your fine with this Minho, aren't you?" Alby asked.

Minho just shrugged. "If you're good with it, Alby, I am."

Newt just sat there and didn't say anything else for the rest of dinner, refusing to make eye contact with me. Once dinner was over we went back upstairs grabbing clothes to change into.

I changed first and he did after me, this time he wore his hoodie to bed.

He faced away from me but I could tell he was still awake. I sat up and looked over, his eyes were closed but i could see his mouth move a bit and his nose twitch.

"Newt, are you awake?" I whispered lightly shaking his arm. He mumbled a small "yes" under his breath and turned to look up at me.

"What do you want?" He sighed, clearly tired of me keeping him up.

"I was just wondering, why don't you want me to be a Runner?" I asked, tilting my head a bit trying to persuade him to tell me.

He looked at me, took a deep breath and sighed.

"No," He said. "I'm not getting into that conversation now."

"Why?" I nagged. I wanted to know more. Why wasn't I allowed to be a Runner, and why did he care so much?

"It's a long, personal, story. And I don't like to get into it." He answered trying to turn away from me, trying to end the conversation that I didn't want him to stop.

"Newt," I started.

"No. I don't want to talk about it. Can we please just let it go?" He asked.

"Alright. I'm sorry." I whispered laying back down.

"It's alright." He mumbled.

After that we just went to sleep. Leaving the rest of this dramatic day behind us.