The Law of Attraction [Chris Beck]

Chapter 11

                Alice sat cross legged on her bunk, her fingers pressed to her lips. Her video chat had ended with Patrick almost half an hour earlier and yet she couldn't stop thinking about what she saw. Her mind ran in circles between thinking the worst, and trying to come up with a reason to what she had seen. First it was fear that hit her, then anger slipped into her veins like a drug. She wanted to hit something, but there was nothing here that wouldn't do more damage to her own fist than she could do to it, and she wasn't about to hit a crew member that had done nothing wrong. As she settled down to a calm state, she ran it through her mind again, and then again, and once more just because it was all she could think of.

Johanssen popped her head in. "Hey, want to run with me?"

Alice jumped up from her bed; running as fast and as hard as she could was what she needed right then. To clear her mind, to get all the adrenaline and worry out of her system as she tired herself out. "Yes, please. Thank you."

"You seem... antsy..." She observed.

"Just feeling a bit cooped up," she lied, and Johanssen shrugged. 

They made their way to the gym and both took a treadmill. Johanssen started off at a nice jog, while Alice upped her treadmill to twelve kilometers an hour, and her feet pounded hard on the treadmill. The whirring of the machine drowned out her thoughts, and Johanssen periodically glanced over at Alice. She said nothing, though, and the two ran for a good while.

After a half hour, Alice was dripping sweat, her lungs were feeling the burn, as were her legs. She upped her speed for her last sixty seconds and ran until she was nearly breathless. Tears slid down her cheeks as the thoughts insidiously crept back into her head, and she simply shut her eyes and ran faster. 

Closing her eyes was the mistake she had made. As her foot landed, she stepped too far ahead and stepped on the plastic at the front of the machine. This tripped her and twisted her ankle. As she cried out in shock and pain, she quickly gripped the bars of the treadmill and lifted herself off of the fast moving track. Stepping off to the side, she repeated "ow" over and over, along with a healthy handful of curses. Johanssen had already stopped both the treadmills and was down on the ground beside Alice in a few seconds.

"Blake, you okay?" she asked as she knelt down beside Alice.

"Shit." Alice groaned. "I'm fine, I'm fine. No, I'm not fine."

"I'll grab you an ice pack." She was on her feet quickly, turning back and pointing at Alice. "Put your ankle up on something."

Alice leaned back and put her ankle atop the treadmill that had sabotaged her; she knew the treadmill had done nothing, it was an inanimate object and it was her crowded mind that did this to her. Her own fault, her own stupidity for running too fast while distracted. As she put her hands behind her, she leaned against them and hissed in pain as her ankle throbbed. Already it was swollen to double the size it should have been and when Johanssen returned she gasped lightly. "I'm going to get Be-"