I Just Wanna Run - The Downtown Fiction

He stands in the middle of the empty road and takes a deep breath. He still feels like he’s suffocating, in shallow broken breaths.

He puts one foot forward, then another one, then another and then he’s running, lungs bursting, and head pounding to the rhythm of his feet on the pavement.

He doesn’t notice the person standing some way ahead, even as he gets closer and closer and his cloudy brain realises he knows her.

He passes her without a thought. He might know her, but she doesn’t know him - at least, she doesn’t know all the stuff that’s swirling inside of him like a storm waiting to blow.

The accompany pound of feet against pavement doesn’t register in his brain until a few seconds before cold wiry arms wrap around his torso and he awkwardly stumbles to a stop as she clings onto him. He can feel her face pressed into his back, between his shoulder blades.

He can’t breathe. His chest constricts as it rises and falls, trying to pull oxygen into his desperately gasping lungs.

“Stop running,” she gasps out, and he’s not sure if it’s because she was running after him, or because of the tears he can feel beginning to soak through his shirt, but her voice quivers. And he knows how she hates to appear vulnerable. She cries, but she never lets anyone see it. She hurts, but she always smiles. She’s strong. He isn’t.

He takes a deep breath and then his legs give