The Lonely (The Lonely 1)

She sticks her tongue out and grabs the extra fluffy blankets, "At least you're getting your shit. Mine isn’t arriving for like days."

I look at down at my phone and send a quick text message.

'Sorry to bug you again but, can I get her stuff? Her parents sent it, but it's not here and she won't have much anyway. They can't afford to send huge amounts of crap.'

'Yes. Stop asking ridiculous questions.'

'Thank you.' I hate being nice to him when he's being a dick.

'You are welcome. Please remind Miss Monkton that I would like her to go easy on Stu ;-)'

'Ok…' I feel weird about the text, his winky face is strange for me. He has never been cheeky to me before. My face is blushing.

'Also remind her my car is off limits for any extra curricular activities she has planned with him!!' He never uses exclamation marks. For him it's like jazz hands, extra flashy. He really means it.

I scowl at my phone and text back, 'No. Ewwww. No. Leave me out of it.'

She nudges me, "What's he saying. You're all flushed."

I frown at her, "I don’t even want to know how he knows about the date, but he says go easy on Stuart and no nasty stuff in his car."

She smiles deviously, "No promises."

My heart stops, "I have to ride in the car. You know you can't do that in there right?" My voice has the slightest hint of panic in it.

Her smiles fades, "I know. I wouldn’t. It was a joke."

I reach into my bag and fish around. "It's not here. It's not here." I see it in the back of mind. I've left it on the desk in the room. I squirted some on my hands and placed the bottle down. My heart starts to race.

"It's okay, they sell it here." She tries to calm me down.

I'm almost shaking, "I don’t have it."

"They have it here. They have it in the soap section." She grabs my hand and pulls me, while pushing the cart. She drags me to the aisle. She cracks open a bottle and squirts it on me. My breath regulates as the cold of it soaks my skin and the alcohol fills my nostrils.

She smiles and dumps some on her hands too. She puts the opened container in the cart, "See. Crisis averted."

I swallow and feel the heat on my cheeks, "I can't do this. I can't do school. I can't do cafeterias and bars and pubs and desks. Oh god, desks. I forgot about desks."

She rolls her eyes and grabs my shirt, leaving indents in the cotton. "Come the frig on nutbag."

I laugh nervously.

She looks back and smiles.

Chapter Two

"You and Stuart were having eye sex in the car." I mutter.

She laughs, "No, we weren’t. He was just looking. He likes the merchandise." She puts up the last picture we bought, that I called frivolous, and stands back to appreciate the work we've done. It feels homey. I knew it would. She's good at this.

"I like it."

She smiles at me, "You okay with this all?"

I nod and look around, "The clutter is a lot for me but it feels like a room should. It looks lived in. Not like I'm hoarding and guarding everything like a dragon. It's weird to have everything out where we can see it and use it. But I like it."

She crosses her arms and gives me a worried look.

I shake it off, "I'm going to the gym to run. You coming?"

She grins, "No. Stuart is coming over to go for a walk. I'm sure I'll get plenty of exercise."

I slump, "Oh my god. You're dating his driver. I thought it was 'I'm not Japanese' food tomorrow. How is there a walk planned already today?"

She flashes her phone at me, "Text." Her voice is high pitched.

I make a pouty face and walk out the door, "I hate you."

"YOU LOVE ME YOU LITTLE SLUT!" She shouts at me as I close the door. The guy standing in the hall across from our door looks at me and grins. I furrow my brow, which only makes him grin harder. I scurry away quickly.

The industrial feel of the building is wearing off. I see color and life everywhere now. Only one day of mass amounts of teenagers moving in and it's starting to come alive. Each door has decorations and personalized signs or covers. The handles have fun sayings hung from them like hotels. A white towel is on the floor, making the shiny industrial flooring seem lived in. I plug my headphones into my phone and walk down the stairs and out into the muggy air. Boston late August is hateful. It's the only way to say it. Hateful. I heard one of the Southies say it and I agree. The way they say it is cooler though. Haytful. It's awesome.

The recreation hall is right next to our dorm, only a short jog and I'm there. I enter feeling overwhelmed. I push it away and casually stroll over to the wipes and grab a handful. I take huge breaths and focus my mind as I wipe down the treadmill I choose. I use the wipe to wash the console on the huge machine and begin my stretches. I start the music and press the on button.

This is my thing.

I run.

I do it for fitness, but I do it for something else. I do it so I know I can. If anything goes wrong, I can run. It's a sick and twisted way to be, but I don’t know any other way. I start light at a seven. I jog it for my five minute warm up. I put it up to an eight. I notice blue and red in my peripheral. I glance over, not losing my focus and see a huge set of shoulders. The guy next to me is jogging too. I put it up to a nine and refocus my mind. My legs start to feel the press. They love the stretch and the pressure of the slight sprint.

My song changes and I put it up to a ten. It's the shortest of my intervals. Only three-minutes at a ten. Then back to a nine for five. Then back to an eight for the rest of the run.

The ten is challenging me. I imagine the scene though.

I'm running in a dark alley.

They almost have me.

Their shoes make loud slaps against the cement.

The slaps get louder with every step they get closer.

My legs start to burn but I push it harder.

I snap out of it and look at the time, only to realize I've been doing ten for four-minutes. I drop it back to a nine. It feels easy for the first minute. But my legs are so taxed that the last minutes of running at a nine are brutal. I hit the slowdown button, almost panicking, and lower it to an eight. My legs relax, they like running at an eight. I notice something and glance at the guy to the right of me. He's talking to me. I pull out my ear bud.

"What?" I say breathlessly.

"Are those Beats?" He's breathless like me.

I frown, "My time?"

He looks confused, "What?"

I laugh, "You mean like, did I beat my time?" My heart is beating in my throat.

He laughs too, slowing his treadmill down. He points to my ear-buds, "The buds-are they Beats? Dr. Dre?"

I pull one of them from my ear and look at it. "I think so."

"They're sick, hey? I have the full ear ones. So awesome."

I slow my treadmill down more. He's messing with my run. He's hot, so I let him. I grin, "You run fast."

He laughs, "Not as fast as you. If my legs were short like yours, I would be running half your speed."

I open my mouth, offended, "Hey. My legs aren’t short."

He laughs, "I didn’t mean like your legs are short. I mean like. Oh fuck it." He says breathlessly and presses the cardiac arrest button to stop the treadmill, "I mean like you're shorter than me. Like we run the same pace but my step is longer. So it's easier."

I laugh and slow mine to a three so I can stroll next to him, "I know what you meant. I just couldn’t let you get away with that."

He wipes the sweat off his red face and wipes it on his pants. "Thanks. Sebastian Hollinger." He holds the sweaty hand out. My nose wrinkles when I look at it.

He laughs and puts his hand away.

I bite my lip, "Sorry. I just have a thing with like …"

"Some asshole rubbing sweat all over his hands and then touching you with them. Yeah, everyone does. Sorry about that."

I swallow, "Emalyn Spicer."

He smiles the most charming smile I've ever seen. My heart almost stops. Dark-sweaty hair, round-sweaty shoulders, thick-sweaty biceps, straight teeth, an amazing smile and brown-hazel eyes. They're almost green. I almost sigh, but the sweat bothers me enough to keep me grounded. "Nice to meet you." I say softly.

He smiles. A lot. I like that. His smile broadens when he talks, "You too. Emalyn. I've never heard that name before? Where's it come from?"

I hate the questions about my name. It always comes up. I shake my head and push the heart attack button too, "No clue." The treadmill comes to an instant stop.

He shrugs his huge shoulders, "Cool."

I want him to talk to me again but I haven’t been around a ton of boys my age. I'm not great at flirting and playing around. I can count the boys I've flirted with.

"You from here?" I ask.

He shakes his head, "No. I'm from Northern Maine. You?"

I shake my head, "No. Long ways away." I don’t want to say it but I do. "I'm from New Mexico." I wait for it. I know it'll start questions, it always does. Questions I don’t like answering.

He frowns, "Wow, you're really pale and blonde?"

I laugh, "And blue eyes and no accent. I'm not Mexican. I don’t think even half the population is Mexican or Hispanic. It's just a regular state. You know regular percentages of regular people. You know, regular being a little bit of everyone."

He closes his eyes and shakes his head, "Yikes. I didn’t mean to sound like I'm a Klan member. Jeeze. I meant like you're not very tanned. I always imagined New Mexico was warm and shit."

I laugh and smile, "Wow. You are actually worse at this than I am. That's saying a lot. This bit of tan is about all I get. I've never tanned well."

His red face loosens up a bit, "This is horrid. I'm way cooler than this, I swear. Can we just start over?"