Running Shoes (The Shades of Northwood)

by Wendy Maddocks

  “Now, it just so happens that there’s a race next Saturday to raise money for the baby group. Quite a few of the stew-dents is running. Shall I put your name down?” Roy rummaged through a drawer and pulled out another clipboard. There were so many boards and random papers scattered around this tiny office – little more than a cupboard with a desk really – that it was a wonder he ever kept track of them all.

  “As in tomorrow Saturday?” Katie asked.

  “No, you doof. As in Wednesday Saturday.” Only Jaye had been invited down this morning. The adults had protested, thought one of them should go with her but it seemed a bit like overkill for an entire gang of them to file down to the athletics ground. Besides, just the three of them – Roy and the two girls – were a tight squeeze. “It’s the Saturday after tomorrow. I did it last year. Damn near killed me.”

  “Here. Fill this in and then off you go.” Roy held out his clipboard which Katie scribbled her name on and filled in the entrance form. It was a five kilometre race for the support group for new parents and babies. It seemed like a good cause and she was pretty sure she could drum up a few sponsors. Jaye started the ball rolling straight away by tugging the form away and making her pledge. It was not much but it was a start.

  “Hey, I’m a student. I would put more but I think student finances want me to pay my fees.” Jaye shrugged. “They’re funny like that.”

  “How about running again – keep me company?” Katie held out another form but Jaye pushed it away with a disdainful look. “So, when and where?”

  “Saturday at half nine. We meet by the gates.” Roy saw both girls to he door and Jaye went out first. Katie was about to follow when she turned back to Roy.

  “I need a job. I know my friend lifeguards and some of the other students work around campus…” she knew that the Levenson Academy only let people work for them if they were over the age of 18. But she was still a student of theirs and she had to pay the bills somehow. The scholarship covered her tuition and a portion of her academic needs like books and so on but living in Northwood did not come for free.

  “I’ll see if I can do anything, miss. I have your details.” Roy waved the paper at her and shooed her out of the office before Katie could think of anything else to ask him.

  She met Jaye leaning on the chain link fence separating the athletics stadium from the rest of campus. “I guess you’ll be training all the time now?”

  Katie could hardly keep the smile from her face. Her first race in months, the first one she wanted to run and win, just signing up for it had been a huge step and her proud grin was making Jaye give her funny looks. Which only succeeded in making Katie want to laugh. She slapped her hands over her mouth to keep the giggles in but they spilled over the edge and Katie clawed at the fence. Laughter truly was infectious because, with no explanation as to why, Jaye joined in. And there they stood. Two teenage girls, howling away and clinging to each other like they might fall down if they let go. “Oh my god. I can’t believe I just did that.”

  “Yeah, you need your head checked.”

  Katie checked her phone – reception in town was extremely patchy – and saw that only one signal bar was registering. She tapped out a short message to Dan – SIGNAL BAD IM FINE CALL WEN I CAN – and sent it off. Reception at the house was better but she was hoping a text would satisfy her family for another few days. If she heard any of their voices, so full of empty empathy and sorrow, Katie was sure she would start crying again. There had been enough of her own private tears last night. “My first college level race. Just hope I can keep up.”

  “Ad said you barely broke a sweat yesterday. I don’t think you’ll have much of a problem.”

  “Show me some more of the old town and I can train there a bit. Get used to it.” She let Jaye take her am and tow her through the open campus grounds. The main college was closed off still but, today at least, it looked as if some-one was inside. A few lights were on and there was a figure leaning out of one of the windows and sticking some coloured discs outside. Katie decided not to think about what they were, looking instead at the dozens of students lounging on the grass and chatting. To her eyes, they looked like the same groups that had been there a few days earlier. And then they were out of the campus grounds and walking along the pebbly bank that came out on the main road. If it could really be called a main road. A few people rode along on bike, there was a half-full bus where the destination reel read MILLFORD CENTRAL, children played football or kiss chase down the street making the most of the last few days of summer holiday. She had not yet noticed a school but the town obviously had much more than her first few days out had shown her. As the girls walked along the street, the whole environment seemed to change from the relatively modern college and shops to older but not exactly ancient residential areas to something resembling the gothic. The huge stone and brick buildings so briefly glimpsed on the way in to Northwood suddenly dominated the area.

  “It looks kinda freaky round here but it’s fine. There’s a library, a couple of bars and things, a jewellers. Like Roy said, it’s the old part. The council can’t modernise it – heritage and all that.” Jaye turned to the left and started tracking through side streets and patches of waste ground. Katie tried to pick out one or two landmarks to remember, like the tree which looked like a forked snake tongue or the old rusted out motorcycle, knowing full well she would never remember where everything was. As they exited yet another scrubby yard behind a café, Jaye headed towards a dirt track and started to follow it. “Never noticed this before.”

  “Don’t follow it.” Katie squinted along it to see where it led but it seemed to trail into nowhere, away from town. “It could go anywhere.”

  “Exactly.”

  Jaye started walking down the trail. Katie drew a deep breath of dusty air, adjusted her baseball cap and started after her. She did not like this feeling of being on a road that went God-knew-where. Too many late night B-list horrors with Dad made her think of deserts cabins in the middle of nowhere and monsters who dripped goo on her as her skin ripped open. Then, just as terror threatened to grip her and make her cry out to Jaye to stop! I’m scared a complete calm washed over her. Katie could feel eyes on her and a hand curled in hers, but when she looked to her side nobody was there. The hand in hers slid away as she tried to wrap her fingers around it. The eyes were far away enough that she could not see them. But they were there,, watching her and Jaye and ready to become real and close if anything should happen. A thought came to Katie’s mind and she remembered following the bus down the road and round the bend.

  “I think this road goes down to Millford,” she said. The other girl was too far ahead of her to hear though and Katie had to jog up beside her. “Hey, I said this road goes into Millford. I don’t think it’s far.” Katie took a step further when Jaye put out an arm and gently pulled her back, a resigned but wishful look on her face. “You’ve never been down there either?”

  “No. And I’m not about to either”

  “Why not?”

  “I… We’re just…” a shadow flashed across her pale face. It was a look that had no place on such a pretty girl but a quick smile chased it away. It had been there though. “We’re not supposed to.” The shadow hung behind Kaye’s delicate features, just waiting as though there were secrets that desperately needed to be shared.

  “Is this about that moron who ditched you?”

  “Sort of. It’s hard to talk about.”

  In a silence that was anything but easy, the two girls headed back the way they had come and then to the house on Newton Street. Half of Katie wanted to call it home, for it was were she belonged and lived with people she already cared about, though the other half of her balked at the suggestion, reminding her that home was a place to feel totally at ease and living would never be easy as long as Leo lived there. The urge to ask Jaye about this reluctance she had to go to Millfo
rd was strong. Katie could tell the girl wanted to talk about it almost as much as she wanted to know but she did not really want to pry. “Hey.”

  Jaye nodded. She knew Katie was ready when she needed to talk, although it really was not her fault she couldn’t answer the questions hanging between them. The main road was almost right ahead of them now and they followed it almost a mile to the first residential streets. A corner shop at the end of one street had a few seats outside. “Wait here. I’ll get us a drink.”

  “Are we okay? I didn’t think you’d mind that I called your ex a moron. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I called him worse.”

  “Still…”

  “He was an idiot, you know. I just never thought he’d actually leave.” She disappeared into the tiny shop, Katie straddled one end of the bench and waited until Jaye emerged a few minutes later with two cans of pop and a bag of crisps. She was laughing over her shoulder, evidently on good terms with the owner. “Anyway, that’s the old town. You’ll get to know the ins and outs of it all in time. It takes the fun out of it if I show you every little thing.”

  “Hmm, I’ll maybe run down there in the week, get used to the ground.” Jaye frowned and asked why she couldn’t just train on the track. Running on track was different from running on road which was different from running on grass and so on. Since she had only really done a few half-hearted circuits of her old park, getting used to hard surfaces again would take a little time. “Practice makes perfect, or so they say.”

  “Bet you put all the other runners in the shade.”

  “On my first college race? And I haven’t raced all summer.”

  “Come on, Katie. Levenson doesn’t give out scholarships lightly. Maybe five or six in the whole student body. And do you know how many under 18s they take? 20. Out of 700 first years. You’re special girl.”

  “Right. No pressure.”

  Drinks finished and cans neatly crumpled inside crisp bas and them into the bin, they headed home. Katie felt for her key but Adam poked his head over the fence and ordered them straight into the garden. He was setting up a folding table and chairs as a barbecue waited expectantly in the corner. “The girls are making salad, coleslaw, all that healthy crap. Though you’d like to see a real man at work.”

  Katie eyed him, topless but with an apron covering most of his muscles and watched his muscles flex as he wrenched seats into position. “Tempting. Very tempting. But alas not.”

  “I’m just waiting for this real man to show up.”

  Adam grabbed a spatula from the pocket of his apron and chased them both back up the garden and back into the house.

  “We could use another pair of hands if there’s any going spare!” called Dina from the kitchen, where she and Lainy were making more noise than the Muppets’ Swedish chef.

  “Go ahead,” Katie said, humbly giving up her kitchen expertise for her friend. “Mine are firmly attached to the rest of me.” And the rest of her was determined to go upstairs for a quick shower and a rest before Adam set the fence on fire.

  The shower was an ugly old metal spray head which hung over the bath but worked far better than it looked like it should. Katie stepped under the cool water and knelt down to let it rain down on her back. A few minutes more and Katie was wrapped in a towel and padding back to her room. Through the window drifted the squeals of youngsters setting up a night of fun. It didn’t feel like living with other students or having adults taking care of her – though she knew Adam and Lainy were likely paid quite well to do just that – it was more like staying with friends on a really long, hard holiday. She dressed in her thinnest pyjamas that covered her backside and boobs and lay back on her bed, fully intending to go downstairs dressed this way. The room was cooler than it had been all week, the window open and the curtains closed. Katie reached out for her mp3 player and flicked to a dance mix Dan had put on for her. The driving repetitive beats were not her cup of tea but she closed her eyes and let the pounding drums chase away any lingering thoughts of what if..? she needed music so loud and boring it would both keep her awake when she honestly wanted nothing more than to curl up and drift off – just walking and seeing new places where ever she turned was exhausting – and would stop her from slipping into that deep well of depression and stress she was so near to. The first she knew of some-one in her room was when an earphone slipped out of her ear and she opened her eyes to look for it. A dark shape stood in her open doorway. Katie sat bolt upright and scrambled back on the bed. Dark blue eyes and grabbing hands, grabbing arms and legs and pulling her this way and that until there was only dirt and depravity, such depravity, raw and animal and basic – want, take, have – filled her mouth.

  “Get out!” Just two words, lonely and mild, but ground out with the force of a ten ton truck.

  “Nice. I only came to tell you the barbecue will be running soon,” said Leo stepping into her room. Hadn’t he just said running with the tiniest hint of a grin?

  “Okay.” She wondered why he was just standing there and looking at her. Katie hugged her knees to her chest, feeling suddenly naked and vulnerable as Leo’s dark eyes roamed over every curve and angle of her body. “I heard.”

  “You don’t like me, do you?”

  “Give me one reason I should.”

  “I have to live here too so let’s just have this out and done with. We’re not friends. We’re not ever likely to be friends but you could at least be civil.”

  Civil? It was a matter for debate whether Leo had much concept of socially acceptable behaviour. “How long were you there?”

  He shrugged. Katie swung herself off the bed and walked towards Leo, back pedalling until he backed into the door frame before correcting himself and getting through the open door. “I’m way beyond kidding, Leo. Get out.”

  “Feisty little bitch, aren’t you?”

  “Better a bitch than a sociopath.”

  “You want to watch that dirty little mouth of yours. It could get you in trouble one day.”

  Katie backed him out of the doorway and slammed it behind him, leaning against it for a moment and spinning the lock. Jaye shouted something up the stairs as Leo thundered down them but Katie was too shaken to pay much attention. “I’ll be down in a while,” Katie called back, deciding she would at least put a wrap over her pyjamas. She also decided that today had been much too good a day to let him destroy it now. A lot had happened in just the few days since the move but none of it had made her want to turn tail and run back to her family. This was her moment to be free and independent and just another teenagers with dreams of academic and sporting success.

  She went back to her bed and lay down again,, turning the music up just lloud enough to drown out the squeals from the garden, turned herself away from the window and threw her arms over her face to cover herself in darkness. Too much was rushing through her mind right now; nerves, anger, hate, enough to make her whole body vibrate with the strength of it all. Then there was the letter from the police, stabbing Uncle Billy, getting spiked at the party. Leaving her childhood home and knowing, for some inexplicable reason, that going back might never happen. It came as a shock to realise that her body was shaking because all of these things and more were making her cry. Huge shuddering, yet virtually silent, sobs rocked her. She made no attempt to stop weeping, just letting tears pool on the sheets by her head. This was precisely what Katie had not wanted to do, get so over-whelmed by emotion and exhaustion that crying was the automatic response. And she tried. Tried every trick she knew from distractions to confrontation to actively forgetting. None of it had worked.

  “It’s okay now. You don’t need to be frightened any more.” A hand brushed her bare shoulder. Katie rolled over and found herself peering up at a blurry face. The hand moved from her shoulder leaving a sudden cold patch and gentle fingertips wiped at her damp face. “There’s nothing to be scared of.”

  K
atie turned back over and twisted her hand in his. She was so tired. A memory seeped through her mind – at least it felt like a memory. It could have been a dream, a nightmare, a fantasy she never waned. There was a skeleton wearing a Stetson and when she looked at it, it would hold its arms out to her and she would go to it. “Who are you? Why are you following me?” And why does it feel this good?

  “I’m Jack. And you’re safe.”

  The way he said that, so patient and tender, made the tears rise up again. No matter how hard she blinked them back, they fell freely down her cheeks. Jack didn’t seem to mind but Katie wanted nothing less than to cry in front of him. But after a minute she forgot that her emotional breakdown was being observed and just clung to him as everything she was worried about streamed out of her. “And I’m damaged, Jack. I’m so, so damaged.”

  “You’re doin’ fine.”

  The unbridled crying had faded to occasional whimpers and now Katie scrubbed at her face and tried to dab at his shirt where she had wept on it – though it was completely dry already – with a sudden thought. Maybe she looked weak and childish. One look at Jacks’ face only told her that he had barely said a word as she cried because he had no idea what to say. And there was nothing really that could be said that would not make her feel worse. “You could have stopped me crying.”

  “You looked like you needed it.”

  “What I need is not to have any reasons to cry.”

  “Can’t help with that one. We all cry sometimes, I guess. And when you do, when you get scared or worried or are in danger, I’ll be standin’ right next to you.”

  “You were here – there – earlier. When we found the road to Millford. When Jaye said we shouldn’t go down, I felt a hand in mine. It was like some-one didn’t want me to be on my own. Was it you?”

  “If it helps to think so.” It didn’t. Not really. It just raised more questions of how he got there and why she couldn’t see him. Questions like those were… how had he got in? That was another question – one that seemed to take over from all the other. Had she not locked the door after her altercation with Leo? And yet, with Jack holding her hand, it seemed not very important at all. “Don’t worry, Lady Katie.”

  “I’m not.” And she found it was eerily true. Eerie because she thought she had felt this way before although exactly when was a mystery. “It’s just… I’m sixteen. And I feel like I’m a hundred.”

  “One day, Katie, I promise you’ll be able to enjoy being young.”

  It was nice thing to promise even if it was one she knew he couldn’t keep. She turned to him and stared into his deep green eyes, wondering just what was going on behind them because there was definitely something there. “You sound very sure of yourself.”

  “You’ve got time to be a kid, time to forget all of this.”

  “I don’t want to forget you. I barely know you, and there are so many things I should be asking you but all I know is I don’t want you to go and I won’t ever forget you because then I’ll be scared again and I don’t think I can take being scared again.” And, boy, was that the longest and most jumbled sentence she had ever uttered. “Breathe. Should really have done that when I started.”

  “You will forget and you will be scared but why did you cry?”

  “Because I was sad and angry and if it wasn’t tears, it’d be blood.”

  “Exactly. You can take anything the world throws at you and then just cry the hurt away.”

  “But it doesn’t go away,” she told him. “Not ever. It gets worse and it doesn’t stop. I want it all to go away.” She looked at him – at the fingers of one hand scratching his head and frowning, eyes unfocused as thought considering some otherworldly possibilities, and then his hair brushed backwards and exposed a perfectly round blemish almost dead centre of his forehead, the skin slightly darker than the rest of his face. Katie reached up and brushed her fingers over it, marvelling that his skin felt so cool and dry in the muggy early evening. Then she leaned close and touched his cheek with her lips. It felt like laying a kiss on crepe paper. She pulled back, shocked. “I don’t… I’m not… that wasn’t like me.”

  “Everything you do is right, Lady Katie. I wish that mattered more.” He turned to her and moved around until he was kneeling in front of her. “You’re amazing and beautiful and fabulous and-“

  Katie held up her hand to stop him. “I think the flattery’s meant to come before I invite you into my room.” She must have invited him up, right? She didn’t remember it but parts of her memory seemed to be fading away with those blade sharp eyes slicing through the brain. “Tell me what happened.”

  And there it was. That flicker of uncertainty she had seen on Jaye earlier today only this one… the doubts dancing behind his eyes felt older. Doubts about secrets she may never know could not have feelings attached to them but, one way or another, these did. And Jack, for his part, looked as though he was truly wrestling with the part of him that wanted to talk and the part that knew he really shouldn’t. Finally, he gave in.

  “You’ll forget this anyway.” That seemed to cut deep and she thought she saw his bottom lip quiver as though he had his own tears hidden very deep inside. So deep they just could not come out. “Many years ago – when I was just a bit older than you – I lived in America. There were two guys havin’ a fight in some bar and then it spilled outside where I was. They pulled guns and I got in the way.” He looked up at Katie, wondering if she believed history. “It was a long time ago. But I remember every little thing like it was yesterday and I… I’m sorry.” I’m sorry everything I just told you was a lie. I’m sorry I can’t even let you hold on to that little piece of me. I’m sorry no-one ever told you why all this hurt came to you. I’m sorry I can only make you forget one thing. I’m sorry that one thing is me.

  Jack took her hand and then balanced it on his shoulder and held it there. Then, as she watched him, Jack grasped her face and crushed his lips down on hers with such urgency Katie thought her heart might stop. “Jack, stay with me,” she murmured against him, managing to get her words out without her lips ever leaving his. It felt like this had all happened before. It felt like another goodbye. Why did she feel like that? Katie opened her mouth and let his tongue explore inside. He was almost shy about it but Katie, on nothing but instinct, went first and tasted his mouth, marvelling of how it could be so urgent and gentle, hot yet cool, familiar yet new and thrilling and all at the same time. Katie had no explanations for letting him go. She knew she didn’t want to. She knew he didn’t either. But, one moment, she was kissing him, this beautiful boy who she had met just twice – though she felt she had known him for much longer – and the next the pressure on her lips had gone.

  Frowning, she opened her eyes and glanced up. A young man in a cowboy had was staring at her with bright green eyes from opposite where she was sitting on her bed. “Who are you?”

  He smiled at her a little bit sadly, stroked her face. Katie grinned back, not quite sure why she was not screaming blue murder, and let her eyes flutter shut. Had she been tired earlier? Somewhere in the frayed edges of her consciousness she felt rather than heard him breathe the words, “remember me, Lady Katie,” into her neck and then everything was gone.

  Some time later, when it was getting dark but still light enough and just about warm enough to be called evening, Katie opened her eyes wide, as if waking suddenly from a wonderful dream which had held her tight and snug in its; grasp, and swung her legs off the bed. She recalled touching something before – her hand still held the sensation of skin on skin- and noticed a rumple in the sheets she lay on. Voices were still coming from the garden and she jumped down the stairs.

  “You think I’m brilliant at barbecue. Admit it. Go on, there’s no shame inletting a guy be better than you.”

  “Except for the actual shame of letting you be better.”

  Katie recognised Adam and Lainy s
quabbling again. But she also heard I love you really and as if you’re better in their voices.

  “Lainy, don’t tell him he’s talented. We can barely get his head through the front door as it is,” laughed Jaye. “Besides, that would be lying.”

  “Hey, little white lies are good for my fragile ego.”

  “That’s a dirty, great black lie.”

  “Hmm… Yeah, I think I’m okay with those too.”

  “For God’s sake!” Jaye chucked a wad of napkins at him and flumped down on the edge of the wall. “Oh, hey stranger.”

  “The food’s mostly gone but I’m sure there’s some burgers still knocking around the freezer,” Lainy told her, almost apologetically. “But Dina and Leo are on the beer run. I could ask them to pick something up.”

  There was a bowl of salad on one of the tables which looked as though it had been hardly touched. She picked up some cutlery and headed for it. “I guess I fell asleep.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT