Read My Lips

Read My Lips: Chapter 25

Chapter 25

We ran for what seemed like hours. My legs were beginning to hurt from the non-stop distance that we had somehow managed to run. After a while, I had to stop Zach in order for me to be able to catch my breath again.

I didn’t quite understand how Zach had managed to keep running for so long yet I was already out of breath. Maybe it was all the fighting that he done that somehow managed to keep him so fit.

“Stop!” I demanded, throwing my arm in front of Zach’s body to stop him from moving. I bent over, placing my hands on my knees, taking deep breaths in an attempt to regain my breath.

“Are you ok?” Zach asked, stopping from running and standing beside me.

I nodded, too tired to try and talk to him. Allowing myself to fall to the floor, I put my head on my knees. A position I’d grown all too familiar with. My head was still aching however trying to catch my breath allowed me to take my mind off the pain in my head and focus on something else.

“Can we stop running?” I asked after a moment of silence. I’d managed to breathe normal again, no longer was I gasping for breath. My breathing was still heavy but now, it was a lot more even than previously.

Zach nodded whilst chuckling as he sat down on the floor beside me. There was snow on the floor which meant that my butt was now wet. I didn’t mind though. I was safe and I was with Zach. That’s all that mattered in that moment.

We didn’t sit there for long. Snow began falling, slowly gaining speed and becoming more rapid as we sat on the cold ground. Without even realising it, I began to shiver. The cold seemed to hit me all at once; one minute I was warm and the next… freezing.

“Want to go back to my house?” Zach suddenly asked, breaking the silence between the pair of us.

I nodded, watching as he stood up and held his hand out to help me up. A mall smile etched its way onto my face as I gratefully grasped his hand and allowed him to pull me up from my position on the ground.

As we began walking, he didn’t let go of my hand. I didn’t mind at all. It felt natural to hold his hand… again. It made me feel safe and I liked it. It didn’t matter at that moment that we were only a pair of teenagers, running away from two men that had managed to hold me hostage. (If you could say that). It didn’t matter that we weren’t together anymore yet being around him still felt so natural and normal. It didn’t matter that I loved him and he didn’t know.

All that mattered was we were together and we were both alive. Zach had found me and he’d gotten me out of the house without being hurt too much.

It didn’t really take that long to arrive at Zach’s which only made me think that he was heading in that direction anyway. It didn’t bother me that we were here. I was just glad to be somewhere that wasn’t that small cottage.

Entering the house, we both pulled off our shoes that were soaked off running back in the snow. Walking in the snow drenched your shoes as it was but running somehow managed to make it ten times worse.

As we entered Zach’s bedroom, he sat down on the bed pulling me down beside him. “Are you ok? Do you need anything?”

My parents suddenly entered my mind as I realised how late it was. They were probably wondering where I was, they were probably worried. “Actually, yeah. Can I borrow your phone? To call my parents?”

Zach smiled and nodded whilst standing up and taking his mobile phone from his pocket and handed it over to me. “I’ll be downstairs, take all the time you need.”