Running Wild

Part Nine, I Love You

A few months later

With sweating hands I pressed the door bell. I still wasn't entirely sure that it was the right house, but I hoped it was. It made me even more nervous. As the door opened I saw him, he looked sleepy, then surprised and confused, in the end sad. He hugged me and I swear he started to cry.
    "I missed you." I said softly as Chris pulled me tighter to him.
    "Where the hell have you been? We've searched you for months." I knew he was crying.
    "I've been around." I whispered back. He laughed a bit, but it sounded depressing.
    "Come inside." He said and we stopped hugging.
It was a small house, small but spacious. I doubted that he lived alone. As I came into the living room I already found his roommate. A little girl played with a stuffed toy on the floor. She looked around one or two. She looked confused at me until Chris came.
    "That's... my daughter." He said, he looked a bit embarrassed. I almost wanted to hit him, for keeping quiet about her. But there was no way he could have told me.
    "Her name's Rae." I looked speechlessly at him. He smiled sadly. I walked over and hugged him again. I felt his arms holding me tight, as if he'd never want to let go.
    "You don't know how much I've missed you. All of us." My mind wandered to Grandpa.
    "I've met up with Grandpa to get your adress." I said. We slowly let go of each other and sat down.
    "What did he say?" He took Rae up and sat her together with her plush ion the couch between us.
    "He said that he didn't want to know where Ive been and with whom. He's just glad I've overcome what happened." I touched her little fingers and she held onto mine. I smiled at her.
    "Where's her mother? And who is she?" I asked him, he smiled awkwardly and scratched the back of his head.
    "Do you happen to remember Antoinette from high school?"
    "My high school years or yours?"
    "Yours..." He said, looking a bit embarrassed. Antoinette Louise Page, she was the queen of everything, she's got the looks, the brains and the special something. She's been with my brother once before, as he still went to school with us, after that they broke up and everyone wanted her.
    "She apologized and somehow tried it again." To hear Antoinette Page apologize would have been that long lost bet worth a million.
    "Is she at work or something?" That's when Chris' look saddened.
    "No, she's in hospital... she had an car accident and they want to keep an eye on her. That's why Rae and I've been alone these past days." He sighed at looked at her. She was so small and chubby.
    "Do you live in the city again?" He asked suddenly.
    "No, I.. I really just came back, I have nothing to stay. I wanted to ask you if you'd let me stay here, until I found something." He nodded without thinking twice.
    "Sure, if you don't mind sleeping with little Rae. We've got a guest bed in there because she had trouble sleeping alone, we just left it in there." He looked at his watch.
    "Well it's late already. Are you hungry? Do you want to eat something?" He asked and I agreed. After we ate, and fed Rae, he showed me where I would sleep. He brought Rae to bed and I put my stuff down next to her crib.
I fell onto the bed, sighing. I finally did it. I saw him again. I was happy to see him, but I had a bad feeling. It all felt so... temporary. It didn't feel 'normal' to me. This wasn't coming home. This was visiting.
I shook my head. I am where I should be, with my family. My brother and my niece. Only thinking about it made me happy.
I sat down next to her crib and watched her. I touched her little tummy and her fingers. She was so small. As I noticed how tired I was, I let go of her and laid down.

As I opened my eyes, I stood in the woods. It was strange, I felt normal, as if everything was fine. It felt like I would watch myself, because I walked through the woods. I saw a little cabin. I opened the door and went inside; it looked like the room I shared with... nobody. I thought I'd saw a boy, but in the end it was just my imagination.
I looked around and saw me talking to the wall, to the other bed with nobody talking to. But as there was a noise I turned to the gate where the man with the food was.
Looking back the boy was sitting on the bed, just like I had seen him. But it wasn't Walker. It was Toby instead. He stared at me, but not at the me sitting on the bed staring at the food, he stared at the 'me' who stood there watching them. He smirked at me. He walked over to me.
    "I wouldn-n't eat that, who knows what they put into it?" he said to her while looking at me. He was taller than me. He stared directly into my eyes. Suddenly the girl looked up.
    "What?" He smiled wickedly at me. As if he wanted me to know that he was playing with me.
    "The soup, easiest to put drugs into it, you k-know." It felt so wrong. Was this how it happened? Have I gone insane not to see that no one was sitting in front of me?
    "Who are you?" She said. He touched my cheek and opened his mouth.
    "Toby. And you?" Why was it Toby and not Walker?
He stared at my lips and kissed me. I couldn't breathe. But I just let it happen, I didn't know why. We kissed until I felt a sharp pain in my stomach. It was burning, I felt like throwing up, I could feel the blood coming up my mouth and out of my stomach. He stopped kissing me and looked at me with his insulting brown eyes and smirked. He turned the hatchet's head he rammed into my body around. I fell to my knees. He came close to me and I heard his voice sharp next to my ear.
    "They put you in-n here to calm down. They don-n't let you out until they t-think it's okay." He whispered. I could hear the hate for me and the love for my pain in his voice.
    "Are you alright? You're shaking a lot." She said.
    "I love you." He whispered before it all disappeared.

Shocked I woke up. My heard was racing, I breathed heavily and thought I would choke. I reached out my hand to something to grab, but I couldn't breathe, the air wasn't getting into my lungs at all. I choked and heard footsteps outside I prayed that they would come in, and they did. My brother came to me asking if I was okay. I closed my eyes and held my throat. I heard him running, but I didn't know where to. A minute later he came back and put something in my mouth, suddenly I felt the air reaching my lungs again. I coughed and hugged him, still breathing heavily.
    "Thank you." He rubbed my back.
    "Breath slowly." He calmed me down until I could breathe normally again.
    "How did you know?" I asked him.
    "The Baby Phone, you were throwing something in the floor that's why I came to check." He handed my the inhalator and I used it once more.
    "Why do you still have this?" It was my inhalator from my middle school years, that's when my asthma attacks became the strongest.
    "I always carried it around and never thought of throwing it away, so I just took it with me as I moved." He smiled gently.
    "You know what, I'll just take Rae with me. So that you get a little privacy to calm down. I'll leave the baby phone on, just in case okay?" I nodded and thanked him. He took little chubby Rae with him and disappeared.