The Runaway (On Hold)

The Runaway

Looking through our old photo albums, I remember all of my childhood memories. The good, the bad and the ugly. Dad always told me that all of the bad situations would make me stronger and prepare me for later on in my life. But he was wrong. Nothing could prepare me for the soul crushing events that happened. Nothing.

I thought back to the events of last year, when I was a normal high school girl. Partying on the weekends, relying on my best friend, Carl to help me hide my hangover from my dad, still waiting for my Prince Charming to come and whisk me far, far away. But that didn't happen. I still remember the morning when everything changed, crystal clear. Logging onto my Facebook was routine in the morning; updating my status, checking my messages, uploading as many mug shots of my friends doing the robot as I could. I looked in the corner of my screen and saw the message notification. I clicked on it, praying it would be a cute guy from school, asking me to be his girlfriend. Of course, it wasn't. Instead, it was a message from a man I had never seen before. It read:

"Dear Madison,

Looking through your photos, I knew I had to talk to you. Your diamond-shiny baby blue eyes and soulful blond hair was too beautiful to resist. I'd love to get to know you and eventually become friends. Please accept my friend request. Mike xxxxxx".

I was flattered. I only ever got remarks like that from boys who thought I was promiscuous or that I would be up for a cheap one night stand. I started to feel special, like I actually meant something to someone. The truth is, I would act like the wild party girl, oozing with enough

confidence to last a lifetime, but I wasn't. My 'best friend', Carl, was my only friend. He was the complete opposite of me. His personality would shine like the sun, and everybody liked him. He was a grade A student as well as being one of the best players on the school football team. He was the only person that I could be myself around. We had been best friends since we were five, but sometimes I would wonder why he was best friends with

someone as unpopular as me, when he could be friends with anyone he wanted. Well, I guess I wasn't the most unpopular girl in school, just the one who would blend into the background, and never put their hand up because of the skin crawling moment when everyone looks at you. I was just Madison, but he made me feel like more than that.

As I clicked on Mike's profile, I was instantly drawn to the date of birth in the top left hand corner. His profile read:

Name: Mike Swanson.

D.O.B: 28th October 1989.

Friends: 17.

He didnt seem ti have many friends. "Maybe he's just joined" I thought to myself. It took me a while to realise that the friends list wasnt the only peculiar thing about him. He was in his twenties! And he was five years older than me. I thought to myself for a while. Did age really matter? After all, there was nine years between my own parents, and they were happy before Mom's death when I was six. Mom and dad were always happy together. In fact, the last time I saw her alive, she had a huge smile on her face, laughing, being happy and just enjoying her last moments. No one had made me feel the way Mike made me feel, since my mother's death. So I instantly accepted his request, and replied to his message.

"Hi, Mike!

Thanks for the message, you're not so bad looking yourself ;)", I lied. The truth was, his pictures were amazing. Words couldn't describe how hot he was. It was like staring at an Abercrombie model. He had a healthy, sun kissed tan. His hair, dark and lustrous,

was neatly swept back and made his serene, green eyes pop.

"Anyway, I'd love to get to know you as well. You seem so nice and you're nothing like the other guys who message me! Talk soon, Madison xx."

From then on, everything changed. I would wake up, check my Facebook, talk to Mike, go to school, come home, lock myself in my room and talk to Mike until the early hours of the morning.

A month passed and I would still talk to Mike daily, as if he was my diary. If I was having an off day, I'd be sweetly reassured by him that everything would be OK. If I was having a good day, we would romantically talk about cute couple like topics. I didn't tell anyone about him. I couldn't. I couldn't begin to imagine the anger in my dad's face if I told him that I was in a relationship with a twenty year old man on Facebook! The only thing was, we weren't actually a couple. Well, not officially. I started to get nervous and started asking myself questions about why he didn't ask me to be his girlfriend yet. I mean, it had been a month of constant Facebook kisses and winky faces, so why hadn't he asked?

"Did he not like me anymore? Was there another woman in his life? Of course there wasn't!" I reassured myself. "The bond we share could never be repeated between him and another woman".

I decided that enough was enough. It was time for me to grow a pair and just ask him. After all, he was the one person I thought I could talk to, who would understand me. I slowly started typing.

"Hey Mike! I have something to ask you...

Well, we've been talking for a while now, and we've gotten pretty close. So... I was just wondering where we stand with each other? You know, just to make sure there's no confusion". I sat by my computer for what seemed like hours, just waiting for a reply. Nothing. Again, more and more doubts and question a filled my head. Finally, after anxiously waiting like a maniac, I received a reply.

I nervously clicked on the message. Hands tightly covering my eyes, trying to avoid any possible rejection. I hesitantly tried to remove them. Peeking out of my fingers, I saw a blurry one line message. Finally focusing on the computer properly, I saw what it said. This was one of the lines that genuinely changed my life.

"Madison, will you be my girlfriend?", it said. My jaw dropped in awe.

"YEEESSS!!!!!" I replied, physically unable to contain my joy and excitement. I repeatedly ran around my room and spun on the chair until I felt light headed. I had a boyfriend! I finally had a boyfriend!

The next day at school, I realised that I could finally tell Carl about Mike, now that we were official. Partially because it's a part of the girl code to tell your best friend about your boyfriend, but mostly because I wanted to brag!

Glaring at him in Biology, I nervously wondered how I was going to tell him. Eventually, I decided to just get it over with. "Carl!" I whispered to him from the next seat over, throwing a scrunched up piece of paper at him to get his attention "Meet me by the lockers after class" I continued, praying that no one heard me.

"OK, but why?" He asked.

"Don't question me, I'll tell you later!" I squealed, trying to control the butterflies that were uncontrollably rampaging around my stomach.

And so I did, squealing with the relief of finally getting the news off my chest. Carl didn't look happy at all. I could tell by the way he shut his locker. Usually, Carl would gently close it, trying not to break the lock, which he actually did once! But this time, he slammed it. His eyes opened as wide as they could and his breath started getting heavier and heavier until he looked like he was going to hyperventilate.

"Madison, I need to tell you something". The bell rang for third period literally within two seconds.

"What is it? I need to get to English quickly" I rushed, hoping to not get another detention from Mrs Bell. He rolled his eyes back and sighed.

"Nothing".

I scurried of quickly, wondering why that didn't go very well. He was always rooting for me to get a boyfriend, and now that I finally had one, he didn't care?

Carl was acting different recently. He stopped coming over every day, which he had done since we were five. He never called, Skyped, or texted me. It was like he had disappeared off the face of the earth. Something was clearly wrong, but I couldn't seem to figure it out.