Synthetic Maze

The air was like ice. It was freezing cold, true to usual British weather. Abbey Francis could hear her mother’s voice in her head. ‘We’d be complaining if it was warm though.’ Her feet were pounding against the frosty pavement. Her breath clouding over right before her eyes. Her lungs burned, her legs felt like jelly, and her fingers were numb.

Running was something Abbey always did. As a teenager, she frequently ran away from home after fights with her brothers. Sometimes she disappeared for days, hiding out at her best friend’s or her grandmothers. At first, her mother always worried, but after a few times, she caught on to Abbey’s usual hiding places and found her quite quickly. She always ran away from her problems, burying her head in the sand and pretending it wasn’t happening. Abbey had been on the running team at university, running circles around everyone else. It was something she had come to perfect over her twenty one years of living.

At the moment, she was running away from the biggest problem in her life.

Every girl’s biggest problem includes a boy. Boy’s are the source of all problems to girl’s. They create heartache and arguments. They don’t function in the same way, and it frustrated Abbey to no end.

Every boy she had ever dated had to go through the test of her two brothers first. Luke was the eldest by four minutes, fifteen seconds. He was the hardest, the one those boys had feared the most. Andy was the youngest, born six minutes and twenty nine seconds after Abbey. He was the one she had the most in common with, and even though Luke was the scariest, Andy was the most protective. If the boys survived the brother test, then the relationship could run it’s course. Usually just a few months, until some big bust up or cheating on her with some slutty girl from down the street.

These days all of Abbey’s problems were boy related.

Right now, she had tears streaming down her cheeks. Having found picture messages she didn’t want to see and underwear that didn’t belong to her. It was the final straw. She could almost hear Luke threatening him, and her mother tutting, rolling her eyes. ‘All those footballers are the same, look at Cheryl with Ashley.’

But Abbey wasn’t Cheryl Cole, and her now ex boyfriend wasn’t in the same league as Ashley. He was a wannabe, feeding everyone lies of how he was going to play for England one day and make millions. He’d be dripping in diamonds and designer labels. Of course, his head was full of fantasies. The biggest fantasy of all was that Abbey wouldn’t find out about his messages to Marissa Clark and her lacy knickers.

She came to a stop and caught her breath. There were two facts that you should know about Abbey Francis. One, she was going to carry on running, and two, she’d never trust a man again.