I don't belong in a high school now and even when i did i never belonged anywhere near teams or
athletic facilities; they make me ache and athletes scare me, they're foreign like policemen. So when i hear people wandering in i
hide in a closet. Through a cracked door, i hear and smell a girls' swim team gathering their gear to go to an
away meet.
I desperately hope they will be my cover as i try to escape, far enough behind that they won't notice me and close enough that no one else will. Also trailing behind is a pale thin girl, small and unhappy. I support her. Everyone stops (the van isn't ready to go, there's a delay) and we sit on the grassy bank. Despite the people in team uniforms milling about, she leans against me. I'm kissing her fingertips. I'm kissing her wrists. She wants more and more, but can't understand the impropriety of what she wants in this place. We have to get away. She never wanted to be on the swim team anyway.
I pick up my little girlfriend and start to cut across the field. We're stopped by a football team, coached by a drill sergeant, who tells us they won't hurt us here and they won't hurt us now. He tells us we have about a day to get a head start walking, because they have a game to go to and can't hunt us down just now. So go.
Meanwhile, i think she's been shrinking. I can hold her in one hand. I think she's a flower and my hand is too hot and i wonder frequently if her petals will fall off or, when i run for the woods, if i will grasp her too hard. I have to force myself to remember that she's not a flower really, but the way her head nods makes that hard. She has never said a word ever, and lies limp and bright in my hand. But she has no petals. I climb into the woods.
The river i remember is swollen and it's been too long and i can't remember where to cross even when it's low. Slogging through the marshes, i wonder how or where we can hide, and hope she'll live. I start climbing stairs that lead into other stairs, jump the rail; i wash her in water, i find a grassy spot, flatten grass, and lie her in the sun like a shipwreck survivor.
Then i find the sergeant lied. They reach the top of the stairs and start swarming across the field toward us, loud, large, uniformed and padded. She will not wake up. There is nowhere to go. I go nowhere.