Sanity // s.m. [IN EDITING]

[7]

Shawn

***

As I run down the street, I try to look at every single face I pass, careful not to let them see me in return.

It was getting dark and my hope of finding her was emptying almost as fast as the sunlight.

New York is a big city. It can cause all kinds of pain.

I walk up to the side of a restaurant and go behind it into the alley, where I race all the way down to the other side. When I come out, there was a group of people talking about going to the park.

The park.

I can't believe I didn't think of that.

I wave down a taxi and tell the driver to take me to Central Park, and he gives me a weird look before starting down the street.

When we were about halfway there, I catch a glimpse of a dark-headed girl out the window walking down the sidewalk, and I realized we were in Times Square, which was buzzing and glowing.

I'd seen it so much in pictures and on tv, it didn't feel real that I was right in the middle of it.

I look out at the girl and watch in my horror as she turns, and we speed forward, away from her.

"Elliot!"

I don't think, I just swing open the door, get out of the cab, and run through the busiest street in the world without looking both ways.

"Shawn?" she yells, by the time I'm in the middle of the street.

Honks were coming from every direction, and I was being yelled at, flipped off, and one guy even threw an empty soda can at me, which hit a car to my right.

"What are you doing?" her eyes widen.

When I finally reach the other side, I just run straight to her and wrap my arms tightly around her body.

I enclose my fingers and pull her to my chest, my head leaning on her shoulder as I took one long, steady sigh.

She doesn't force me off of her or pull away herself, instead, she just slides her thin arms over my shoulders and around my neck, standing on her tip-toes.

"I was kind of hoping you would come back," she admits, talking into my chest.

"You know me," I say squeezing her even tighter against me, "I don't give up easily."

*

"This is one of my favorite places in New York," Elliot says as we walk along the bridge over the river. "When I first moved here, I didn't really know anyone, and I found this place. You can feed the pigeons here because they always come up to you, but they never hurt you. And you can see the Statue of Liberty in the distance," she points out over the water, and I follow her gaze until I see a small, bluish-grey figure standing about as tall as a lego piece might on a hill across the river.

"Wow," I mumble, "That's amazing. I've never seen her in person before."

"I thought the same thing when I saw her. Though it wasn't like I'd hoped," she laughs, leaning against the edge of the bridge.

"What do you mean?" I ask, the feeling of safety and familiarity returning to me gradually as we conversed. There was just no denying it. This girl was my home.

"Like, you know that story of the dog that spent hours digging for that bone, and when he finally found it.. he didn't really know what to do with it?"