“Brandon, you have to move.” My voice was low and sounded foreign to me.
“I’m not letting you storm out of here without telling me what’s going on.”
He looked like a mountain in front of me.
I did the only thing I could think of. “Please, Brandon,” I said in the sweetest possible voice. I moved close to him and pressed my chest against his. His body softened. “I just need you to trust me.” My voice had never been so convincing before. Then I closed my eyes and kissed him again. When I felt his body completely relax, I broke free and pushed him aside. Then I ran to my car and drove to the mall.
Once I arrived at the mall, I went into my favorite overpriced clothing store and began grabbing clothes off the racks. As I did I didn’t even check sizes. After gathering a pile of random clothing, I went to the accessories table and grabbed a pile of scarves. Then I added fistfuls of necklaces and rings. With my arms overstuffed, I carried my haul to the cashier. While she rang things up, I realized I wasn’t even sure what I was buying. I was having trouble seeing straight. When she read me the total, I paid the two-hundred-dollar bill with the emergency credit card Gram had given me. After that I made two more stops while in the mall. One to the shoe store for a one-hundred-dollar pair of boots, and one to the bath and body store where I grabbed stacks of whatever was closest before I dumped them down at the check-out stand, seventy-five dollars.
As I left the mall with my purchases in hand, I still felt wrong. My brain was crazed, and my forehead felt hot. The bubbling feeling was creeping up again. I’d blink and see my mom sick in the hospital bed. When I’d blink again I’d see Marc sitting in the pew at Mom’s funeral. Blink. Mom laughing as she tried to blow out the candles Marc and I put on her birthday cake. Blink. Marc pouring gelatin on my head after I called him a booger. Blink. Gram in her hospital bed looking whiter than her bleached sheets. Blink. Marc standing before me for the first time in over a year, not knowing what to say. Blink. The red heart-shaped balloon floating up to Heaven to meet my mom.
When I blinked again, I was at the YMCA. There I sat in my parked car with the keys still in the ignition. The scary thing was I didn’t even remember driving there. I turned off the car and grabbed my spare gym bag from the trunk. There was a cool breeze in the air, and my skin tingled as it brushed against me while I ran the track. My left shoelace came untied, and I could hear that stupid plastic piece, the aglet, hitting the pavement.
“Shoe’s untied,” another runner said as he lapped me.
Shut up. You don’t know me. Who are you to be talk to me? Ignoring him, I imagined I was running on an open road. Running on a beautiful, open road to nowhere, or to anywhere instead of this stupid circle. Everything in front of me was blurry. My head felt like it weighed fifty pounds. My breathing was short and shallow. There was a burning sensation in my chest. But I couldn’t stop. If I stopped, I’d have to deal. And I couldn’t deal. There was no reason to deal; I just had to keep running. My heart was racing faster than ever. Each time I tried to slow my breath down, it was like trying to slow down a locomotive. No matter what, it just kept racing and racing. Faster down the track. The world around me began to spin, then I hit the ground, and everything went dark.
I awoke to the scent of ammonia. “What is that?” My hand swatted the scent away from my nose as I pushed myself to sit up.
“Easy now,” an unknown female voice said. “Don’t move too fast just yet.”
As my eyes focused, I realized I was sitting on the track. My head felt like a two-ton brick, and there was a pain behind my left eye. “Do you remember what happened?”
“What?” I rubbed my temples and tried to remember. Running. Falling. “Oh, yeah, I… fell during my run.”
“Do you have any medical conditions?” she asked.
“No, no medical conditions.” By the way she was looking at me, I was worried she might want to bring me to the hospital or something. “I didn’t eat enough today.” I switched my tone to the classic teenager. “I’m an idiot. I was just up late last night studying, and today was super crazy, and I totally forgot to eat something so I’d be strong enough for my run. My bad.” By the way she looked at me, I could tell she was buying it. “It totally won’t happen again.”
“Promise?” She still had an apprehensive look on her face.
“Cross my heart.” I made the gesture of crossing my heart and added a big, sweet smile.
“Okay, but no more working out for you today. I’m going to walk you to the locker room, then you are going to go home and take it easy, right?”
“Totally,” I stood up and had to force myself not to sway, even though I felt my body pull to the left like a misaligned car. She walked me to the locker rooms and patted my shoulder before she left. I grabbed my stuff and headed to my car.
As I drove, my body slowly returned to normal. The pain was ever present, both physically and mentally. I felt the heat in my eyes and the prickling sensation of wetness, but the tears were too exhausted to even push themselves out.
When I pulled into my driveway, I half-expected to find Brandon there. But I didn’t. He probably thought I was insane. I sure felt like I
