Forever Running

Forever Running | Chapter Ten

Destiny's POV

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Stella stood up, her face shocked by James's sudden appearance. She lowered her head and walked out of the room.

As soon as James let her out, he walked up in front of me, his green eyes looking down, shooting darts at my eyes.

"You weren't supposed to socialize with her." he stated with irritation. "You're kidnapped. Remember."

I felt nervous all over again. My hands were freezing and my lips were impossibly chapped. Sweat made its way down my back as I took a deep breath of air.

"I know about everything," I spat, "how this started, your life, your family,"

"You don't know anything!" James yelled. I yelped in surprised fear. His large chest heaved up and down, his eyes wandered around for a split second then locked back on me. I leaned farther away from him. Suddenly realizing I was no longer tied up, I glanced at the door.

"You don't know anything about me," he said with a low pitch tone. "you don't know what I've been through."

The door was only a few feet behind James. If only I could get past him...

"You're disgusting." I said trying to sound strong, but came out scared and vulnerable. James stared at me surprised.

"You had everything. A family, money, you had a good life." I looked away, he had everything I wanted and that idiot threw it all away for nothing. He was a psychopath.

"I listened to your chat with Stella." He turned away from me, his voice shaking. "You never mentioned why you left home."

The tension in the room grew more and more. What did he want from me? I glanced back at the door.

"I left because there was nothing there for me." I started. "I was living poor, with my family. My mother worked as a maid for some rich family and my father ran a woodshop. He ended up getting sick and told me to run it for him. They pulled me out of school which was my only chance of getting out of this city and making something out of my life."

When I looked up, I noticed James's face staring down at me intensely.

"Did they love you?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

"What?" I asked confused.

"Did they love you?" he repeated. "Your family."

His words sunk far into my thoughts. Did my family love me? They never told my that they loved me. What exactly is love then? They never hurt me physically, or psychologically. When they pulled me out of school, it wasn't to ruin my life, was it? It was to help them. Because they needed help. We needed help.

"Well?" James persisted.

They knew they were hurting me when they pulled me out, but they had to. Imagine how hard it would be for a mother to tell there daughter that she had to leave school, even thought that school meant everything to that girl.

"Destiny." James called somewhat irritated.

They were always nice to me, at least my parents were. Then again, Troy apologized to me, when he knew how hurt I was. Despite Alania's attitude, she was a good sister too. She never complained like I did. Even Troy liked it at home, he stayed there longer during the day than the rest of us.

"Hey, I asked you a question," James lowered himself to look me in the eye.

None of them complained about the way they lived. They didn't care about how they lived, as long as they were together. That's why when Brooke left, we fell apart, because we needed each other together. What kept us together?

"Destiny!" James yelled shaking my shoulders, attempting to pull me out of my deep trance.

Love.

Love kept us together.

I stared at James's face, which was plastered with a worried expression. His face was inches from mine, studying mine up close. His hands tightened my shoulders when he realized I was pulled back into reality.

It was then I realized the mistake I made. When I realized I was looking at everything the wrong way.

"They did," I whispered. "They did love me."

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I finally stopped crying after my eyes could no longer produce the tears. It felt like more than a half hour since I began crying. I heaved over and over trying my hardest to calm down. During all this time, James watched me, placing one hand on my back and trying to comfort me.

"Why are you still here?" I said covering my face with my hands and knees.

"Because I still didn't tell you why I ran away." He replied softly. I slowly lifted my head from my knees and looked at him.

"I was adopted into a rich family," he started. "My real parents gave me up because they couldn't support me. Apparently my mother was a teen mom, and her boyfriend demanded that they let me go. They didn't want me." James lowered his head a little, slowly getting lost in his memory.

"In my adopted family, I had an older brother and sister. They were both high achievers in everything, sports, school, socially, but I wasn't. I was bullied a lot, my grades sucked and I was the biggest cluts to walk the Earth." he smirked a bit, laughing at himself.

"But they hated it. They hated me. For not being like them. My adoptive father told me I was going to run one of his companies one day, but then knowing me that will never happen if I kept this 'act' up." He put air quotes around the word 'act'.

"I couldn't take it anymore, being ridiculed for my whole life. It was bad enough my real family didn't want me, but on top of that, they one I had didn't want the either. I was never loved by anyone, and I thought I never would be."

I sucked in my breath. I sincerely felt bad for James. He lost two families, neither of which wanted him, or loved him.

"My family had money, but didn't love me so I left. Your family was poor but they loved you, yet you ran away. We both left for the opposite reasons." James concluded. I felt a cold shiver travel down my spine at the sound of the truth.

"I ran away, then almost immediately my dad sent a search team out not just for me but for every run-away. I couldn't go back, I couldn't stand being yelled at again for being stupid, or inconsiderate or for just being me."

His voice was raised higher now.

"Then I met others, others like me, who ran away because they weren't accepted or treated right. I felt more at home with these people then I ever did in my life." He smiled to himself, letting his shining teeth show more and more.

"We found a hide-out and helped other kids with the same problems. Our group grew and grew. But the government found out somehow. He found out somehow." He put emphasis on 'He' assuming he was talking about his father.

"They started sending out kids to report us. Like Stella told you about." he said.

"What about the boy...that you...um..."I was too afraid to say "killed" but he knew what I meant.

"He was a friend of my brother." He said, his face creating a dark shadow. "I was so pissed that he came back. He always pretended like he didn't know me my while life, and now he shows up and tries to ruin me again." James started shaking, and his face glowing red.

I was so scared that he might do something terrible but instead I pushed that felling aside. James never had anyone in his life, he was always on his own. He had to fight for himself, for not being accepted.

I watched him as he sat there silent, not moving. So, I crawled over to him, and hugged him.

He sat back in surprise first, but then I felt his strong arms wrap around me.

And we sat there in comfortable silence knowing that despite the mistakes that we've both done, at that moment we had each other.

And that was enough.