My Last Year

The Adventure

Hey folks. Okay, I feel exTREMELY guilty. Over this summer I've been updating "Running Blind" on a somewhat normal basis (okay, every 2-4 weeks) but I've left y'all hanging! I am so sorry! I got a bit of a "writer's block" (I don't like to use that term, I don't really believe in them), but I just didn't know how to go on at one point in the chapter. 

BUT because of your encouraging comments, I sat stubbornly at it and refused to give up. So here it is. I really do hope you enjoy it. I leave for college on the 22nd, so if I don't update before/after then for a while, you'll know why. :) God Bless. 

It was time for things to change. The way I looked at life, the way I thought about and judged people: everything. I realized Jason had risked his high school education to stop me from being disrespected. I treated him like trash--didn’t even give him a chance to explain--and he ended up in the hospital, probably paralyzed for life.

I wanted to go back to the hospital and beg Jason to forgive me. Did he remember what I had done to him? Most likely. I remember the cold gaze his eyes gave me. But those hadn’t been his eyes. Those had been the eyes of a medicated teenager who had been coping with a lost limb.

I sat up in my treehouse, my breath billowing in clouds from my mouth. I wasn’t sure what I was doing up there, but I had been there for ten minutes already.

Suddenly, I wanted to be back in Haiti. I wanted to be with the carefree children who could throw their troubles aside and swim around. I wanted to be happy like they were. All I felt now was tired, cold, and overwhelmed.

I climbed down from my treehouse and made my way back up to the house where Mom was making supper and Dad was reading the paper.

“Where’s Peter?” I asked Mom.

She briefly glanced up from her chopping. “Basement.”

I grabbed a slice of cucumber and made my way to the staircase, informing her we wouldn’t be here for supper. Even as I came down the basement stairs I had no idea what I was doing. It was like my body was being controlled by some sort of remote.

“You,” I said, pointing at my twin brother who was staring at the tv screen as he thumbed at the controller in his hand. It appeared he hadn’t combed through his brown hair in a few days. “C’mon, we’re going on an adventure.”

“Moll, it’s ten degrees outside.”

“C’mon,” I repeated. “We’re going on a coldadventure,”

I turned off the television and dragged my brother up the stairs, where Mom met us with two sandwiches in her hands. “The thermus is in the car,” She said before waving us out the door. She didn’t do so willingly. I saw the worry in her eyes as I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

I rushed to the car, trusting Peter to follow me on his own, jumped in and started the engine. The boy slumped in the seat next to me. I hadn’t talked to him since we saw the video in the conference room at school; he looked like he was dealing with stress. Me too, Bud, me too.

I backed out of the driveway and turned down the gravel road. It was dark out and I stared at the packed snow we were driving over, thinking about what seemed like everything…

“Watch out for that deer,” Peter spoke suddenly.

I nearly jumped out of my skin at his hushed voice, lost in my own thoughts. Glancing up from the road, I saw the very deer that had wandered my dreams the night before, standing in the middle of the road.

My feet slammed on the brakes before I could process what I was seeing. The sudden movement caused Peter’s head to swing forward and smack on the dashboard, but my attention was on the animal ten feet in front of the vehicle.