Heart Beat

I haven’t been running in three days, and I feel restless. It’s around noon, and I feel like the heat is about to become unbearable. I think I’ll go to Sandcastle…maybe talk to Alex…I’m nervous though. I’m sitting on my back porch, looking at the woods. It’s not much as far as scenery goes. It’s the same pattern of trees over and over again for miles. I hate it. I need to get out of here and see something different for a change. I get up and walk over to the road, rimmed on one side by forest, and on the other side by a sprinkle of a few houses. All the houses are spaced so far apart that if you blasted Fade to Black by Metallica out of the attic windows, you couldn’t hear it from the house next door. I scuff my sneakers against the dirt, glad that I’m already wearing my bikini under my shorts. Drawing a line in the ground with the tip of my beat up running shoes, I imagine the voice of the announcer, “Ladies and gentlemen-men-men! Please take your seats-seats-seats! The race is about to begin-in-in! Runners, take your marks-arks-arks!” I bent my right leg behind me, leaning into the soil and digging my left heel into the road. I lifted my head and squinted into the bright sun. I imagined the sound of the starting gun going off. “BAM!” And I sprinted down the twisting path, dogging cars and pedestrians with the speed of a silver bullet seeking to embed itself in some vampire’s chest. I’m going to be the next Cathy Freeman! Laughing wildly, my eyes watering, I take the well-known route to the watery palace, faster than I could have ever gotten there by car.
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I’m leaning against a clear blue tube, floating along the slow drifting turquoise river. My head is tilted to the side, my eyes closed. The sun is hot and creamy on my skin, tracing delicious patterns on my cheek. I’m wandering into a numb sleep, when an icy splash throws itself against my back. I open my eyes and gasp. A chuckle to my left makes me turn. Alex is standing there, holding an empty red water bottle and laughing. I glare at him.
“Alex Young, you’re gonna pay for that!” I try to look mad, but I’m sure he can hear my heartbeat thumping like a drum. He looks at me, the riddle in his eyes nearly driving me insane.
“Really now, Yana? Seems to me like you have some explaining to do. Why did you lie?” He says, his tone turning on me and biting at my heart. He doesn’t sound mad…
I chew on the end of my pinky fingernail and hang my head at an angle, letting my hair fall into my eyes. “Would you have looked twice at me if I hadn’t?” Oh yeah Yana, way to flirt. Way to flirt.
Alex grins mischievously at me and says, “I had already looked twice before you told me how old you were.” My heart dives into my throat and I smile softly, my cheeks glowing like the inside of a watermelon…minus the seeds. I wave good-bye at him and go on floating (literally) down the river, a smile on my face the entire time.