Run. Just Run.

Chapter 14

"Can you reach it?" James asks, standing on his toes.

"Almost...a little higher...perfect! Hold still!" Ashley says, reaching as high as she can to get the red apples, high up in the tree. "Got them!"

James kneels down and then reaches his hands up and picks Ashley up off his shoulders and sets her on the ground. Ashley hands him some enormous, bright red apples. They run up to the trunk of the tree and sit together in the shade, biting into the juicy apples. They each eat three, until they feel go full they can't eat any more.

"Those were the most delicious apples I've ever eaten!" Ashley sighs as she leans back against James.

"They were really good!" James agrees. "We must have been really hungry."

"I know I was hungry!" Ashley states. "Breakfast was way too long ago!"

James furrows his brow, deep in thought. Ashley looks up at him, then turns around and sits crosslegged to face him.

"What's wrong, Jay?" She asks.

"Well, my mom was shot. But what about my dad? Was he....shot too? What happened to him?" James says slowly.

Ashley gasps. In all the pain of losing James' mom, she completely forgot about wondering what had happened to his dad!

"I have no clue!" Ashley blurts out. "Do you think he could have been out of the house or something then?"

James shakes his head. "He wasn't feeling great. He was gonna stay in the house all day." Then his eyes grow huge and his throat tightens up. "What if....if...if my dad was in the house when..." Tears streamed down his face. "What if dad was in a different room...d..d...dead like mom?" He starts uncontrollably sobbing.

Ashley jumps up and clutches James as tight as she can.

"It's okay James. I'm sure he's not dead." Ashley whispers into his ear as she sobs. "Just have a little faith."

James wraps his arms around Ashley's stomach and pulls her closer, still crying. Ashley starts running her fingers through James' hair, trying to calm him down. He's got great hair to play with, she loves the feeling of running her fingers through it.

James slowly stoops sobbing, and realizes how tight he's squeezing Ashley's stomach, that he's been crying against her chest, and now she's just running her fingers through his hair. He looks up at her with red eyes.

"Thank you, Ash." He says as he forces a smile. "I needed that. I'm sure my dads fine, it's just the thought of..."

"Shhh." Ashley puts her finger up against James' mouth. "Don't even say it. He's fine."

James nods. Then he glances down and he gets a small grin on his face.