Burn Before Reading(21)

"The things...I do..." I puffed. "To stay in this...stupid school -"

As I crested a hill, I saw a figure leaning on a rock, waiting. For me. It was Burn, his chest still heaving a little, though his eyes looked the opposite of tired - invigorated, even.

"You made it to the halfway point," He said. I collapsed on the pine needles, too tired to play proud anymore.

"H-Halfway?" I groaned, congealing into a lump on the forest floor. "Who invented this running stuff and how can I cram his head up his own ass?"

Burn didn't grace me with an answer, preferring to sip water from some bottle he had. For some reason, a ghost of an emotion crossed his face. I couldn’t pin it.

“Are you….alright?” I asked.

Burn’s ghost of emotion turned into a full-blown grimace.

“Don’t ask that.”

“What?”

“Are you alright,” He repeated, then scoffed. “It’s a pointless platitude. And I’m sick of those.”

“I’m just being –”

“Polite. I know. But think – how many people have you actually tell you their real feelings if you ask that?”

I was quiet. He shook his head.

“We all say we’re ‘okay’. Automatically. Like it isn’t alright to be not alright. That’s why I hate it. Because it’s a lie. All of it. Even if you mean well, no one will tell you how they really feel. So it’s pointless to ask.”

“I’ll tell you,” I offered. “Ask me right now.”

“No.”

“Come on!”

He was silent, and then; “Are you alright?”

“No!” I yelled at the top of my lungs to the air above. “I feel like shit!”

I looked down, only to see his face ever so slightly amused. Or maybe I was imagining it. Yeah. Probably that. Definitely that – Bernard Wolfgang isn’t the type to feel entertained.

We sat there for a while, me catching my breath and him staring out at the view. He pointed to the horizon.

"There," He said.

With huge effort I sat up, looking at the awesome view that peaked with the morning light. The halfway point was on an overlook, the two of us practically teetering on the edge of a cliff that hung above the city proper. You could see everything from up here; all the little cars, all the planes, all the incoming clouds and clear spots in the sky. My house looked so small from up there; Lakecrest looked practically insignificant. And for that brief moment, they were. Looking at the horizon and how gorgeous the sunrise was over it, my brain was washed clean. The worries lingering inside my house and my school evaporated, until only the beauty of the view was left.

"I get it, now," I managed through a dry mouth and heaving lungs. "I think...I finally get why some dude invented the whole running thing."

I expected Burn's silence, and I got it. After a serene half-hour or so of an empty head, Burn's massive hand on my shoulder shook me out of it.

"We have to go. School starts soon."

I stood up, my legs in semi-working shape again. "School. Right."

All the levity drained out of me as Burn and I walked down the path back to the parking lot. Apparently, he didn't want to run the other half of the path, at least not today. At the sight of my car, I staggered over to it with tears in my eyes, hugging the roof.

"I've never been happier to see a hunk of metal in my life!" I crowed.

The sound of a car pulling up behind me scared me. It was Burn, with the window rolled down this time.

"It's going to hurt." He said.

"What is?" I asked.

Everything," He clarified. "Everything will hurt. Put ice cubes in ziploc bags and keep them on your body if you can."

"You can't tell me what to do, Mr. Olympics."

He shakes his head again, rolls up his window, and leaves without another word. I stand in his tailpipe dust for a few seconds, pondering all seven billion of my life choices, but mostly just the one in which I tried to impress him and he ended up impressing me instead.

***

If you think I'm bad at sports and moving my body in a manner faster than a light potato-chip reach, just wait until you've seen my school-on-four-hours-of-sleep routine. It's a masterpiece. A comedy-tragedy worthy of Shakespeare himself. Heavy emphasis on the tragedy.

I didn't have class with Fitz until the end of the day, but I really didn't feel like sucking up to Wolf. It felt somehow dirty, like I was corrupting into one of those mindless zombies that swooned or glowered whenever he passed. Say what you will about Wolf - the guy knew how to make an impression wherever he went. Fans - enemies - he apparently didn't care which, as long as they were paying attention to him.

Which is exactly why I'd decided to give him a sum total of no attention. The second I saw his pissed-off, arrogant face walking across the quad in the morning, I did a one-eighty. There was no way in hell I was ready to drop hints I knew about motorcycles or some shit on him. God knows if it would even work. He was smarter than that. He had to be.

I opted for the next best thing - Mr. Francis, the auto body shop teacher.

Auto-body and Woodworking were both taught by Mr. Francis. Basically, if you needed a huge dangerous tool that could saw through your femur in point-seven-seconds flat, you called Mr. Francis. Or, more accurately, you waltzed into his classroom on a very early morning and demanded answers. Politely.