Lure To The Woods

II

When I say I hadn't gotten even a wink of sleep last night, I mean it. My eyelids hadn't even touched once. I'd spent the last few hours staring at the ceiling, tossing and turning. I've always had problems with sleeping, which is one of the reasons I go out every night, but it had never been quite that bad. I couldn't stop thinking about that guy. Had I left him for dead last night?

A strange feeling ate away at my chest for hours, whizzing around my brain, so that I couldn't sleep. I wasn't one hundred percent sure what it was, but I would bet that it was guilt. I felt guilty for running. It wasn't the first time I had ran away from something like that, but I didn't know the guy this time. What if he couldn't protect himself?

Something about the way he was fighting yesterday told me he could handle Dug, but that didn't matter. The feeling still refused to go away.

When the angry, red clock numbers read eight in the morning, I decided to just accept the fact I wouldn't be sleeping anytime soon and dragged myself out of bed. I looked in the mirror and cringed at my reflection. My hair looked pretty greasy and the bags under my eyes were prominent; I looked like I hadn't slept in a month.

I didn't feel like it, but I knew I had to shower. I doubt Heather would appreciate me showing up smelling like sweat and ciggies. I stepped into my en-suit, pulling off my clothes and turning on the steaming hot shower. Washing my hair didn't take long, but it was much needed. It just seems hard to muster the effort to shower sometimes.

I pulled on some boxers, wandering back into my room to find clothes. Mum did all my clothes washing, which I was pretty grateful for, so everything in the drawers was neatly folded and ironed. I fished out a clean pair of black, ripped skinny jeans and a grey, long sleeve band tee, pulling it on quickly and heading for the front door.

The walk to the skatepark wasn't very long, since everything in this small town is close together. I had come here to find Heather, hoping she'd be able to offer some kind of advice about how I was feeling. I knew talking to the twins would be useless, especially when they had ran off before anything had even happened.

Heather was my best friend, always had been. We'd had a brief stint where we'd tried a friends with benefits thing, but I didn't want to string her along when all I felt was love for a friend, so we ended it as quickly as it began. I was grateful for the fact that our weird experimental phase had never effected our relationship. In fact, it had made us better friends. We were as thick as thieves, now.

I waved a quick hello to a few mutuals hanging out on the skate ramps and scanned for Heather; she usually hung out here because it pissed her Mum off. Plus, she had some kind of thing going on with one of the guys who frequented here. It wasn't long before I spotted her leaning against one of the ramps, with said guy leaning over her, flirting.

"Cameron? I feel like I haven't seen you in a while! How's your girlfriend?" Heather exclaimed as she saw me, dismissing her guy and rushing over to give me a hug hello.

"We broke up, actually. Don't worry about that, though. I came here because I need to speak to you about something else. You got time?" I asked, rubbing my neck anxiously.

"Always for you, hun. What's wrong?" Heather frowned, pulling me to sit down on one of the benches away from everyone else.

"Last night, something happened. Something bad. The twins and I were in the park, minding our own business, when Dug came out of nowhere accusing me of talking shit about him." I began, making Heather quirk a knowing brow, "Yes, I was chatting shit, but who told him? Anyway, he pulled out a fucking knife."

"You're joking!" Heather shrieked, her eyes full of concern as she raked my body for cuts, "Are you okay? The twins?"

"We're fine, but I'm not so sure about the guy who intervened. He came out of nowhere, decided it was a good idea to take on the maniac with the knife... I ran off before the fight ended, so I don't know if he's okay or not. Called the police, though."