Running

This is the first chapter, hope you like it!

Dylan started to run.  The air seared his throat as he gasped for breath.  Tears streamed down his cheeks, making it impossible to see where he was going.  He couldn’t hear them behind him, but he didn’t dare to turn around and look.  He couldn’t stop until he was safe, until he got there.  He couldn’t stop until he passed through those doors.

He saw a flash of bright light right beside him.  They had caught up with him.  He pushed his legs to go just a little faster. He was almost there.  Just ten more yards and they couldn’t get him.  Nine more, eight more, seven more, six more, five, four, three, two…

 

                Penelope stared into nothingness.  It had been a month since Dylan had been found, body unrecognizable.  She glanced at his still empty desk, and the tears started to choke her.  He had been her only solace in this hell of a school.  She had come into this school with her heart and mind closed to everyone and everything in it, but somehow he had been able to get past that.  He had been a friend to her when she hadn’t even known that she needed one.  And now he was gone.

“Ms. Welch?”  Mr. Dillard called to her.  She didn’t answer.  Sure he would yell, but what could his angry words do to her at this point.  “Ms. Welch…” nothing.  “MS. WELCH!”  He yelled.  Penelope slowly rolled her head to look at him.

“What?”  She asked in a dull voice.  He puffed out his sweater vested chest and frowned at her.

“You obviously have the answer since you don’t feel the need to pay attention.  Will you please enlighten the rest of the class?”  He growled.

“I haven’t the foggiest.”  She said, then continued to stare out the window.   She watched the rain trickle down the glass and puddle on the windowsill.  Dylan loved this weather.  Everyone else got depressed when it rained, not him.  He’d smile and drag her out into the street and they would dance to the music that only they could hear.  He said that this weather was life.  It fed that plant that fed the animals that eventually fed them.  It was magic.

“I’d like to see you after class.”  Mr. Dillard huffed.

She sighed.  “I can’t…”  Penelope started, but he interrupted her.

“After class.”  He hissed.  He walked back to the chalkboard and started scribbling something that she didn’t care about.  While he wrote, she went back to staring out the window.

As everyone else filed out of the room, Penelope trudged up to Mr. Dillard’s desk.  He glared at her with angry eyes.  “I think that I have given you more than enough lean way this past month.”  He said in all but a whisper.  “I know that Dylan was your friend.  I know that this must be very hard on you, but Penelope, it’s been a month…”  He gave her a tired look.  “Before the incident, you didn’t talk much, but at least you were a good student.  You did your work, you answered the questions given to, and you were respectful.  Now you’re like a robot.  You don’t pay attention, you don’t do your work, your grades are slipping, and I don’t know what else I can do!”  He sighed and leaned back in his chair.  “I need you to do better or you won’t pass this class.”  He waited for her to respond.  “Penelope?”

“I understand.”  She whispered.  He gave a relieved sigh.

“Good, so you’ll try to do better?”  She nodded, not looking him in the eyes.  He gave her a small smile.  “Okay.  Now get going before you’re late for your next class.”  He put on his wide rimmed glasses and motioned towards the door.  She glided out of the room knowing that nothing would change.  Nothing could dull this pain, and until it did, Penelope would continue to stare out windows.

Logan waited for Penelope outside of the school.  She walked up to slowly.

“You know you really don’t have to drive me home every day.”  She said in a small voice.  He gave her a sad little smile.

“Well… with my brother gone, I sorta figured that you’re out of a ride.”  His eyes crinkled at the sides like Dylan’s used to when he smiled.  Lately she often found herself scouring for little similarities between the two brothers.  “So, do you want the ride or not?”  She smiled and hopped into the convertible.

“So, how’s Kelley?”  Penelope asked.  She thought of the bouncy blonde she had seen multiple times at their house.  “She make head cheerleader?”  She smirked.

He laughed.  “You know, just because you’re a little cynic doesn’t mean that everyone else has to be.”  He smirked.  “And anyway, she didn’t even go to tryouts this year.”

“Tired of rejection?”  Penelope asked in a calm voice.  Logan burst out laughing.

“Stop bashing my girlfriend!  It’s not nice.”  He scanned his surroundings.  “And if she heard me laughing about it, she’d kill me.”  Penelope gave a small smile.  She never really used to hang out with Logan before Dylan died.  When she used to go over to their house, she and Dylan would go straight to the basement, while Logan and Kelly, if she was there, would stay upstairs in the living room.  Then one day, about three weeks ago, he had seen her trudging home, not willing to ask one of the harpies in her class for a ride and refusing to take the bus.  He told her to hop in.  When he asked her why she was walking the five miles to her house, she was silent, he knew what it meant.  It meant that the loss of his little brother had left more than emotional gaps in her life.  When she got out of school the next day, he was there.  It surprised her how cool he was.  She had always known that he was nice, she even poked fun at him, and his girlfriend at times, but she never really got to know him until he started taking her home.

“Ryan’s coming in tomorrow.”  He said casually.  The only Manson brother she didn’t know.  He was the oldest and was still a mystery to Penelope.  “He’ll be in at around three.  Mom wanted me to ask you if you wanted to come over for dinner and meet him… She misses you, you know?”  He gave her a side glance.  He was trying to make her feel guilty.  It was working.  She hadn’t been to their house since the death.  She didn’t know if she was ready for it.  But, she would do it.  She would do it for her beloved Mrs. Manson, the amazing replacement for the mother that she had lost so many years ago.  She would do it for her.  She would do it for the mystery Manson.  For this family, she would do anything.

Penelope curled herself up on the couch.  As she watched her show, Snapped, she heard the front door open and close.  Her father was home with her elder sister, Mia.  She sighed, whether it was out of relief or frustration, she didn’t know.  She loved being alone, especially at night.  She loved that control, something that she rarely had in her house.  It was something that even her father rarely had in that house.  It was Mia who was in charge.  Tall, fat, strong body and minded, Mia took over everything.  The one TV in the house was always at her disposal, even if someone else was already watching.  She’d plop right down and say “gimme the remote!” and if you said no, she’d hit you… hard.  Penelope used to go to her father for help, but he was useless when it came to Mia.  He thought that him letting her do anything she wanted would make up for the lack of everything.  Sure they had a house and food, but barely.  They didn’t have the money for anything else… anything.  No doctor appointments, no Christmas presents, forget movies and shopping.  It drove Mia mad, though doing so wasn’t hard.  Just say no to her and she’ll throw a fit.  Her dad was horrible with confrontation, so he just let her be.  He just let her walk all over him and Penelope. 

Why he thought that doing this would make her happy, she had no clue.  Maybe he thought that if he could get Mia to forgive him, then Penelope would too.  Maybe, if Mia could let go of the fact that he had abandoned them at such a young age, or that he had chosen the booze over them, that he wasn’t there for them while they grew up, that he only took care of them now because their mother couldn’t anymore, that he couldn’t even really take care of them, that he live on their social security instead of actually trying to get a job, that he had to deplete both of their college funds just to get by, that he moved them around and around because he was dodging debts, that he lied to them constantly, and that he took them away from people who actually loved them, everything would be okay.  But what he didn’t know was that Mia wasn’t ever going to forgive him.  If he knew them at all, he’d have known that.

Despite all of that, Penelope loved her family.  They were all she had left and they weren’t as bad as they sounded.  She couldn’t bear to lose either of them.  Another death would have driven her insane.  She had lost her mother, her first boyfriend, and her best friend in the world.  One more and she didn’t know what she would do.  It wouldn’t be pretty though.  Every time her family was out without her, she held her breath, praying that they would come back.  She would imagine them, lying on the side of the road, bleeding, dying.  She would rather be in that car with them, than be left all alone, but she didn’t have to do either.  They always came back, and every time Penelope sighed a sigh of relief for not having to be alone.

But, them coming back meant Mia got the TV… so it was goodbye Snapped and hello Full House.  Mia thought that most of the shows Penelope liked where stupid, gory, inappropriate, or immature.   “Just like you.”  She would say with a bright smile.  Oh how Penelope wanted to smack that smile off of her face.

“We’re home!”  Her father yelled down the stairs.  Penelope yelled hi back.  On cue, Mia traipsed down the stairs and flopped down on the couch cushion next to her.  She smiled at her and Penelope smiled back.  When she saw what she was watching, her smile flattened.

“How can you watch this?  It’s so stupid.  It’s just a bunch of middle-aged women running around with guns pitying themselves.”  She scoffed.  “Give me the remote.”  she handed it over without a fight, too tired to object.  She flipped to Disney channel just in time to see the end of Suite Life of Zach and Cody.  Penelope sighed. And she says her shows are stupid?  

“What did Dad get for dinner?”  she asked casually.

“The usual, you know… fried chicken and mashed potatoes.”  She said with a sigh.  Ah yes, the cheap fattening recipe that had become her father’s new favorite dinner choice.  They had had it at least twice a week for two months.  Penelope was getting very sick of it.  No wonder she couldn’t lose weight… she couldn’t afford to!  She was weighing in at around 160.  Granted, it all mainly settled around her chest and hips, so she just looked curvy, but she felt out of shape.  She could barely run half a lap around the track.  She hated the way that she looked.  She was born with chubby cheeks, but she hated them.  She had died her naturally very light brown hair, black so that it slimmed her face.  To exemplify the effect, she had it cut so that it framed her face and flipped out at the bottom.  Mia continuously told her that her hair made her look even paler than she already was, but she liked it.  Even though she had curves, she tried to cover them up.  She wore dark colored shirts, and baggy pants.  The one thing that Penelope liked about herself was her eyes.  She had deep black eyes, so that you couldn’t tell when the iris ended and the pupil began.  She had only seen one other person with eyes like hers.

Donny, Penelope’s father, called for her. She groaned as she got up.  When she got up the stairs, she saw her father sitting at the kitchen table.  “Hello.”  She said with a smile.  Donny just looked at her.  He looked so sad.

“I don’t think that you’ll be able to go see your movie on Sunday… we just can’t afford it right now.”  She just stared at him.  Slowly her blood began to boil.  She didn’t know if she wanted to yell or cry.  Probably both.

“Dad… I haven’t been to see a movie in half a year.  I don’t go shopping, I hardly even leave the house!  It is based off of my favorite book!  All I want is $7.50 for the ticket!  I mean, come on… I’m sure we can afford eight stupid bucks!”  I begged.

“Penelope, I don’t know if we’ll even be able to make rent this month.”  Her father snapped.  Penelope stared at him and thought about how much she hated her life, how much she wanted to just be someone else.

“Whatever…”  She whispered as she walked towards the stair.  As she walked up to her room, she thought of a quote she had read once in a magazine.  They had interviewed a psychiatrist who worked with suicidal patients.  She said that most of the people that had come to her had the same problem.  It wasn’t that they wanted to stop living, it was just that they didn’t want to live the life they had anymore.  Penelope understood.  For that exact reason, she had once held a carving knife in her hand.  If her father hadn’t walked in when he did, she probably wouldn’t be where she was.  Was that a good thing or bad?  Her father didn’t notice, or at least he pretended that he didn’t.  He was an expert on that, ignoring things he didn’t want to acknowledge.  Penelope never really thought of herself as suicidal, but then, maybe the people who were in that article didn’t think of themselves as suicidal either.

She opened the door to her room and slid in.  She shut the door and plopped on her bed.  She looked at the solitary decoration hanging on her wall.  It was a picture of her mother when she was nineteen.  She caressed the frame.

“I miss you,” she whispered.  A tear rolled down the side of her face.  “I miss you so much.”  She turned onto her belly and cried into her pillow, wondering what life could have been like if her mother hadn’t gotten cancer.

Reviews

[Chloe..Across the Unive..]

I really really enjoyed this and hope to read more. You began well with the mystery of Dylan. You have well developed characters i can picture them. The grammar is tight - the story easy to read. Donny sounds a little like me, just letting things be and people running over .. Mia sounds obnoxious and down right hateful.
Penelope seems not to fit into this family.. I feel something might happen between she and Logan or maybe Ryan .. maybe Ryan has something to do with Dylan... a good story! Let me know when you have more up.. Please.I am in suspense lol ..

Chloe