Slated

Chapter 22

Song; oh fuck i'm drunk by guccihighwaters
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Sunday morning the sky is a brilliant blue, but so cold my breath is a white shroud about my face. I shiver and wrap my arms around myself as I wait for the bus that will take us for cross-country training. More students arrive, and a teacher with a clipboard.

The bus pulls into the school, followed by a car behind: Ben. I wait for him while the others climb on the bus.

Ben's smile is surprised. "I didn't know you run," he says.

It was that horrible closed in feeling at the hospital yesterday that made me decide to come. I know why Ben runs; I used to, too, on the treadmills in the hospital gym. Endorphins, they are called: chemicals released in your brain when you run and run, past the point of exhaustion, past the point of aching muscles. Into a zone where you don't feel what you are doing to your body any more, just exhilaration coursing through and you never want to stop; everything inside becomes calm and clear, in icy focus. And maybe, just a little, I want to run because of my dream, when I can't run any more and collapse. I want to be able to run away from that.

Mum took a little convincing that I was serious and wanted to go, and had to be reminded that Dr Lysander said to let me do things on my own. Amy just smirked and teased me about Ben when Mum wasn't listening.

The cross-country coach, Mr Ferguson, gives me a funny look as we get on the bus. "Not another groupie," he says, and rolls his eyes at Ben. Some of the other boys smirk and I start to get what he means.

"I can run," I say, and scowl at the pink rising in my cheeks.

"Well, we'll see, little lass," he says, and laughs.

There are a dozen or so boys and almost as many girls. They all seem to know each other, and "little" I am, smaller than any of the others.

I slip into a bus seat by the window; Ben sits next to me. As the bus pulls away from school, he leans down and whispers in my ear: "Is it true?"

"What?"

"Are you just here because I am?"

"No!" I say, indignant, and punch him in the arm.

"Ow!" He rubs it. "I was kind of hoping you were."

I look away, confused. Does he mean it? What about Tori? I don't know what to say, so I say nothing.

The ten kilometre course is multi-terrain through Chiltern countryside: footpaths over fields and woodland, with a few hills, ditches and creeks to scramble across. Not exactly a treadmill, and I start to wonder how I'll be. They've all done this course before. Ferguson shows me a map, and says there are course markers – small orange flags – all the way. I scan the map, several times: it only takes moments to commit the route to memory.

The boys start, first: I watch them take off across the field. We must wait ten minutes. I do stretches and warm up. Ferguson walks over.

"You haven't been to any of the other training sessions," he says.

"No. I just joined the school a week ago; I couldn't."

"Fair enough. Just watch your step, and pace yourself, all right? Ten kilometres is a long way to go. I get in shit every time I have to call an ambulance."

"Your concern is touching," I say.

Surprise crosses his face, and he laughs. "Ha! You're all right. Let's see what you can do, eh?"

A few of the girls look less than pleased.

He starts us off.

We run across fields at the beginning; unused to the uneven ground, I take it easy, getting into a rhythm. We're spread out with me somewhere towards the back of the middle, the boys well out of sight.