Tori's+Short+Story

__Because I Didn’t Have to Care__ "Come on Eva! Don’t slow me down!" Pressadona called out from behind a tree. Her words seemed scattered, like the forest was breaking them down so that each syllable had emphasis. I knew she would be to far ahead for me to see her,, but I looked around anyway. I could tell from the sound of her voice that she was fighting back a laugh. But that wasn’t the only thing I noticed about it. Her words were sharper than usual, more taunting. Which could only mean one thing coming from Pressi. She was baiting me. I knew that no matter how hard I tried, I would never be able to keep up with her. My weak legs couldn’t possibly match her superhuman speed. Pressi and I both knew it, but the idea of competition was to tempting for her. The fact that I don’t posses an ability like theirs became irrelevant when a race to the finish line was introduced. Teams weren’t allowed, so without hope, I continued running. I forced my legs to go faster with each passing second, my arms guarded my sides as I pushed past tree branches and ran through piles of fire colored leaves fallen from the trees above. Just as I started to get the hang of running, my insides twisted as if they were a piece of rope bundled up to make one big knot. My pace slowed as I attempted to even out my breathing, the pain from my torso hit me like a bullet and made it impossible to move for a moment. I put my hands on my sides and looked around for Pressi or the others. No such luck. So I’m still on my own. I walked a few more steps past another tree and found a seat on a large rock against the mountain. As soon as I placed my hand to my head, my body erupted in pain. I listened to the rhythm of my heart. It sounded like it was about to give. I sat for a few minutes trying to even out my breathing. The pain took over my body and my hands couldn’t apply pressure everywhere all at once, so I settled for looking at the ground and trying to forget about everything. A few moments later, there was a very distinct patter against the solid ground. I couldn’t tell if it was near or far. It seemed both. I ran a few scenarios as to what it could be. It wasn’t a small animal, or a big one. But I knew for sure what it was once I heard a leave leaf crackle a few steps ahead. "You okay?" Jayden asked as he knelt beside me. He reached his hands up slowly, carful not to break my bones on accident. He tucked a lock of hair behind my ears to get a good look at my face. "I’m just tired is all," I told him without looking up. I tried my best to hide the pain I was going through. I failed. He caught me. "Eva, you’re all red!" he said with a smile on his face. I didn’t respond this time. I wasn’t a very successful actress, so I decided to shut my mouth. Besides, I hated pity. Jayden never liked silence, it bothered him. He looked down at the leave covered ground as if to find conversation. He opened his mouth but no words came out. Eventually, the silence bothered me so I spoke up. "I can’t run like you guys, Jayden. I can’t do anything. I don’t have abilities like you do. I’m only human, you know." He seemed to enjoy that, but he was conflicted as to what to say back. He chuckled and looked back to the ground. When he didn’t respond right away, I grew anxious. Each second ticked by //very// slowly. Jayden didn’t even seem to notice. I could see that he was taking his time, phrasing his response perfectly so I wouldn’t be offended by some sarcastic remark about my lack of strength. Without thinking, my fingers griped my knees tightly and my tongue rolled out from between my lips to cover the outside of my mouth with saliva. I pulled another strand of my hair that had gotten loose and pushed it behind my shoulders. As I did that, he finally came up with his response. "Angel, you have your own gift, not one anyone would consider here, but still..." His voice trailed off. I could tell he was being extremely cautious the way he sat next to me and took my hand. Still careful. Still reluctant. But much more sure of his action. "I mean, you... well you don’t care. About us, I mean." my eyebrows curved downwards and I didn’t know where he was going with this. I cared about him, about Pressi and Morella. About all of them. More than I cared about myself. //How could he say that I don’t care?// " You don’t care if we don’t beat our last high score in a fight, or get mad when we don’t aim the right way and miss throwing a fireball or something... you just... take it as it comes." Quite the contrary. I do care when they throw a fireball the wrong way, someone could get hurt by those things. As for the other things, well I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant so I just let it go. "But I’m the one keeping you from doing your best, from winning all the time. I shouldn’t ask you to protect me against forces you aren’t prepared for." "That doesn’t matter," he said, much quicker than before. I shifted my weight back as if to dodge the words that he practically spit at me. He looked down at the ground, ashamed that he let his temper get the best of him. He clenched his hands into fists and let his fury subside. "What I mean is..." he tried to redeem himself without looking up, "you like us even though we beat you. You like us even though we let you win. You just like us..." he looked up at me with wide eyes and his smile returned, "you like us, we like you. That’s it. Nothing else matters. You don’t need to be fast like Pressi, or-or strong like Morella," his smile grew, "Or even as charming as I am, that fact won’t ever change. And I’ll go up against a million demons if it’ll prove my point." I smiled too. He had a knack for making someone feel good about themselves, but it didn’t really change my mind about my position in this relationship. Our friendship went against every law there was in our society, no one could understand the situation we were in. Not even us. Then I realized that I didn’t need to know. I didn’t need to care. All I needed to do was to make sure that we continued being friends so we wouldn’t ever loose it, whatever ‘it’ is. I looked up at Jayden. He was obviously thinking the same thing I was and stood up. He held out his hand and asked "Need a lift?" "No teams, remember? It’s against the rules." He gave me a satisfied look as he said proudly, "Screw the rules. We’re a team anyway." I let out a laugh as I stood up to grab his hand. Then the world seemed to pick up it’s pace and every tree became blurry as we past them. The wind ran through my hair, much more easily than I ran through wind. We kept getting faster and faster, until everything turned into shapes and shadows. It looked like a new world, nothing seemed familiar. I tried to find a landmark or something to try and identify where we were, it tried for a few seconds and then gave up. I couldn’t tell where we were headed, but I didn’t need to. Because I didn’t have to care.