Running Shoes (The Shades of Northwood) (15 page)

“Make you
breakfast in bed every birthday.”

“Oh, the
romance of it all,” Lainy said without much sarcasm. Clearly, she
thought it was a little bit sweet. By all accounts, remembering
special dates was a cause for celebration for most blokes. “Fine,”
she sighed. “But Mr Tedward won’t thank you for kicking him out of
bed. Just so’s you know.”

The couple fell
into a comfortable stillness, interrupted by Lainy fidgeting and
the Adam getting up to make tea. Katie refused one, suspecting that
she wouldn’t be able to keep her eyes open long enough. “I’m going
to love you and leave you.” She thought about Leo, in the room next
to hers, shut away the way he spent almost every night, and decided
she couldn’t be bothered to be scared of him – not when he had
never done anything to her. She thought he was a freak in need of
serious psychotherapy with dangerous fantasies, a man it was risky
to know, but he personally was innocent. “I just know the type,”
she whispered. His bedroom door was open and popcorn music from a
video game was drifting out. In contrast, a bit further down the
hall, her door was mostly closed. Hadn’t she left it open to air
out after tidying it? Didn’t matter. The wind blowing through
windows and doors had been blowing a riot through the old house
today.

“You never said
anything.” The voice that greeted Katie when she pushed open the
door was harsh, rough, accusing. It took her a second to place it –
Leo – her thoughts elsewhere. “At all.”

The edges of
her vision showed his dark shape holding out the police letter. It
was mostly her own fault for leaving the page out on top of her
desk. She couldn’t even moan at him for creeping into her room when
she had done the same to him a few days ago. “It’s not your
problem.” Katie rubbed her hands over her face and went over to
draw the curtains. The moon was a few nights away from full. It had
been much cooler today, if still not cold, and a few wisps of cloud
had dared to tarnish the sky, giving the moon a blurred look and
obscuring any stars that might have twinkled. “It’s late and I’ve
got another long day tomorrow, so…” She waved her hand at her back,
giving Leo the chance to leave. When he didn’t, Katie looked out
once more at the inky sky, wishing for some rescue from the hard
conversation that was coming. “God, you really don’t like doing
things the easy way, do you? I gave you the chance to leave in
blissful ignorance.”

“Why should I
get that choice? You didn’t.”

“You read
that.” Katie pointed at the paper he held and sat on her bed,
preferring to look at her knees rather than him. Those dark blue
eyes would be hard and brittle. “All the details in glorious
Technicolour.” Katie pushed herself back until she was leaning
against the headboard, half aware that she was also putting some
distance between them. “You want to know how I got picked off while
running in my local park? How I was absolutely terrified this guy
would kill me if I didn’t let him take what he wanted? Maybe how
the only people to hear me scream were the junkies in Heroin
Heights and how I was eventually found by a blind man and his guide
dog? But honestly? None of that matters. I wasn’t picked off, I was
unlucky. He didn’t threaten to kill me, the man never even spoke. I
wasn’t found by a blind man, it was just a guy to stoned to see.
There’s no juicy story, no lifelong trauma-“

“But they’re
dropping the case. You’ll never get justice,” protested Leo. Funny
– he didn’t seem like the caring type.

“I don’t want
justice, I want escape. I thought making a complaint might help but
there were so many questions and stuff that it was as though the
police were just trying to prove it was my own damn fault.”

“What if the
same thing happens to another girl?”

“He knows who
he is.”

Leo looked down
at the letter again. Katie, against her better judgement, shuffled
over to him a little. Since he seemed to be in a pleasant mood and,
more importantly, hadn’t called her a bitch, she felt a bit silly
about hunching into the far wall. “What’s the plan?”

Plan? “Get some
sleep and then carry on.”

“I meant to
catch this freak?”

“Leo Pointer –
moral crusader. Look, I don’t want…” she let the sentence trail
off. There were a thousand things she didn’t want in this world,
but catching her attacker was not one of them. Katie wanted that
very badly. Just not yet. Maybe not ever if it meant going through
all that trouble with the police again. “I want it to be over, not
to start again. I have a new life now and I’m gonna shop and run
and study and be a girl for once this year. Not a victim.”

“Don’t take the
help when it’s offered then. Saves me the effort,” he shrugged,
definitely back to the grumpy Leo everyone knew and disliked. “Is
that why you don’t really care about being spiked the other
night?”

“Leo, I was
actually
raped not too long ago. Having some-one only get as
far as drugging me and then chickening out…” Katie peeled off into
fits of giggles and only laughed harder when she realised he was
looking at her like a loon.

“What the
hell?!” came a shriek from downstairs. Two sets of feet came
thundering up the stairs and Lainy and Adam swung themselves into
her room, hovering in the doorway. “Katie?”

“Sorry, sorry,
sorry,” she kept apologising, trying, and mostly failing, to stop
up her mouth with her sheets. “I shouldn’t really laugh.”

“We thought
something horrible was happening up here.”

“She’s gone
mad,” Leo offered. “The bitch has flipped.” But he didn’t leave the
room. They all noticed that. Maybe he was finally turning into a
sociable human being.

“Oh God! We
were talking about the first attack and then there was this drugged
out hallucination and a chicken and- oh you had to be there.” Katie
started laughing again. It was pointless trying to stop because
then she had to think about why she was laughing in the first place
and that just made everything seem funnier. “Oh man, my ribs
actually hurt!”

Lainy, not
knowing quite what to do, started folding then re-folding the
pyjamas on the bed. She evidently had not been expecting this
reaction from the girl who’d been so subdued all night. Adam put
his hand on Leo’s shoulder and propelled him out of the room,
knowing in that strange way some people had, that his presence
really wasn’t wanted. “Come on mate. I think they need some girl
time.”

The two girls
were silent for a handful of seconds – seconds that seemed like
days. Just when Katie was beginning to think her PJs might fall
apart at the seemed after being stretched and creased so many
times, Lainy broke the hush. “So you’re okay?”

“Uh-huh. More
than okay, I’m… I’m happy.”

“Even
though..?”

“Lainy, you
remember that first day when I told you how everything got dark and
sad? Well, I’m done with being sad. It’s a pointless emotion for
me. It doesn’t get you anywhere.” She sat back and fiddled with the
strap of her watch. Not for the first time, she wished for an
analogue watch so she could turn back the hands until none of this
had ever happened. But no. If none of the bad things had happened…
“I’d still be in school with the airheads and the freaks, sitting
through mindless lessons, running mindless races.

“Here, I‘m just
Katie Cartwright, the scholarship girl. And that’s the only person
I’m gonna be.”

“You know we
all love you no matter who you decide to be.”

Katie made a
face. She’d had enough of sharing her feelings for one night – that
last comment had just been too saccharine sweet though. There was
no doubt that Lainy meant it. “I’m tired now.”

“Okay. I’ll let
you get some rest.”

“Wait,” she
said as the door started to swing shut. “I’m making dinner
tomorrow. Any requests?”

“Use your
imagination.”

And then the
room was darkness. Katie slid out of her cargo trousers and vest
and pulled on her pyjamas in the muted moonlight. Then she pulled
the chair away from her desk, placed it by the window, slid one
curtain open and straddled the chair to watch the moon journey
across the night dodging and fighting with the breaths of cloud.
Unconsciousness threatened to claim her more than once but she
resisted the pull. Sleeping would be too easy. Sleep was a sure
fire way to miss… miss what? She folded her arms on the back of the
chair and leaned her face down. Her muscles were tight under cheek.
Her shoulders and neck were hunched together and ached when she
moved. It was stress. Truthfully, there was a lot to be anxious
about again. A light pressure touched the small of her back, making
her jump and bite her lip against the scream that wanted to follow.
Suddenly, Katie became aware of every muscle in her body relaxing.
The touch trailed up her back and tickled her neck before going
down her crossed arms and into her left hand. She uncrossed her
arms and held her left arm out, palm up. A weight that felt like no
more than a feather rested on top. She curled her own around it,
expecting it to crumble into ashes and dust beneath her finger,
expecting it to turn into a hand of bone. As she looked around the
room for some draft or door left ajar, something began to happen in
her hand. The only description was a swirling, changing, moving,
whirling sensation and even that many verbs would not be accurate.
As she watched, the invisible hand in hers gained colour and shape
and then she was holding a real hand with weight and skin and
ridges of flesh and blood vessels. Then, from the wrist inwards,
the shape of a boy started to appear. Katie was starting to feel
light-headed. She was glad that she had remained standing by her
chair. What was going on? She tried to form the question but the
words just wouldn’t come, her mouth working uselessly.

“Shush.
Everything’s okay now. You’re safe,” said this figure who was
almost a young man in front of her. He had obviously thought that
Katie was about to yell or scream that she was in danger. She
didn’t feel threatened. Just confused and a little bit sick.

Katie grabbed
onto the chair back with her free hand and tried to focus on the
moon. It was fading and blurring and then jumping back into sharp
focus for a moment before the cycle began again. Holding her hand
and doggedly refusing to let go, the impossible boy eased her away
from the chair and further towards the window, wrapping his arms
around her waist. “Relax Lady Katie. I won’t take more than I
need,” he murmured onto her ear, feeling her start to sag in his
arms. “Forgive me for this. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have
to.”

The voice, the
touch, even the warm breath on her neck – it all seemed so
familiar. But, in the next instant, as she vaguely decided to turn
and see who had invaded her dreams – it had to be a dream, right??
Her real, rational thoughts seemed so very far away – the need to
breathe came crashing in on her and Katie realised that part of the
reason she could not speak, felt so dizzy, was lack of oxygen. She
took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It didn’t make anything
seem right or normal. Katie reached behind her and stretched out
her fingers until they traced a face. She stared down at the hand
in hers and brushed over the knuckles. “Something’s wrong,” she
found enough of a voice to whisper and turned to face the boy she,
all of a sudden, knew was waiting for her with green eyes and
leather boots. “You’re wrong.”

“About
what?”

No reply. What
response could there truly be? Katie had absolutely no idea what
was wrong, why things were wrong, who was wrong, anything. All she
felt was something… out of place. Her world was – what was that
word everyone used – fractured. And she chewed the inside of her
lip, wondering if she should do anything.
Don’t.
The word
pressed into her mind.
Don’t do anything to spoil this
moment.
The advice crept through her consciousness and Katie
listened to it, unsure whether they were her words or not. Katie
gripped the hand in hers and pressed it to her stomach forcing her
breath in and out underneath. There was a tugging sensation in her
abdomen now, right underneath, but she thought that, without the
contact, she might not have the energy to breathe at all.

“Remember me,
Lady Katie,” the boy breathed into her ear, blowing strands of
light brown hair this way and that.

“I do,” she
replied, still uncertain whether she was lying or not. “I know you.
At least, I think I do. I have this funny feeling in my stomach – a
bit like but butterflies only bigger. Puppies.”

“Puppies?” he
grinned. “We’re gettin’ a puppy?”

“Who needs
puppies when they’ve got you?” Katie grabbed his wrist and put it
to her lips, speaking against the flesh and kissing it as lightly
as she could. “Nervous around you but –“

“Don’t do that
or we’re gonna have problems.” Green eyes fluttered and the boy
shivered.

Katie giggled.
This feeling was familiar. She was in complete control of whatever
happened tonight. The feeling was coming back to her and, man, it
was good. The ability to choose for herself, to make others bend to
her will for once, had been on a break for a while but now it had
moved back in and she felt like… well, like Katie again. “I’m just
playing. That’s what puppies do.”

“Katie, sit
down a minute.”

Stop. Don’t
stop. Do whatever you have to to keep this as play. Nothing more.
It can’t be anything more.
The thoughts rushed around the room,
seeming so loud it should wake everyone else up only no-one
appeared to even have stirred. Not through the noise of their
midnight conversation. Not through the squeaks and creaks the
floorboards must have made when this boy climbed the stairs. Funny
how she didn’t remember hearing anything.

She threw his
arm away from her face and stomach and rushed over to her door to
check the latch. It was still twisted into its’ locked position. A
hand slammed onto the door inches from her face and Katie turned
around to face a young man with green eyes that flashed with
emotion. It was hard to be scared of a man who was no taller than
you in bare feet but Katie found that she could manage it. But that
terror soon dissolved into confused curiosity when she realised
that that the shine in those beautiful eyes was just sadness and
his own confusion.