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Freerunner

By Kathy Cassel

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Freerunner
Chapter One

Night is my favorite time. It’s when I can be anonymous, swallowed by darkness. When I run to outdistance the voices in my head and the images that are never far away.
As I stretch out on my quilt-covered bed, memories haunt me, and I can't shut them off. I text my best friend Thorn, a high school freshman like me. Then, as I’ve done so many nights, I swing a leg over my windowsill, then the other, and slide onto the porch roof, careful to avoid the places that need repaired. The noxious smell of the paper mill three miles away assaults my nose. It’s stronger than usual tonight.
It's mid-February, and while it’s not cold in the Florida Panhandle, the air is a bit chilly now that the sun’s gone down. A breeze blows a wisp of thick, dark hair into my face. I brush it aside and stride to the roof’s edge, jump, and front-flip midair. Landing in a crouch, I roll to break my fall. It's no problem for me. Just another bit of freerunning. And that's what I do best.
I flip my phone open and text, “Meet me at the playground.”
My phone buzzes, and I read the one word answer. “Now?”
“It’s important.”
The phone vibrates again almost instantly. “On my way.”
I shut my phone and stick it in my pocket, then jog down the street to the elementary school playground where I first saw freerunning in action. A group of older boys had raced around the playground, going over the benches and play equipment instead of around them.
The combination of gymnastic and acrobatic moves, creative yet intentional, had intrigued me. Soon I was trying to copy them and laid claim to that same playground. Stairs with a center railing lead up to the school high on a hill above the playground. I now jog up those stairs, staying to the right of the railing. At the top I turn and peer into the darkness below.
Only a lone streetlight casts a glow on the playground. The other lights were broken long ago and never replaced. The play area itself is a large asphalt square surrounded by fields on two sides. The hill where I’m standing makes up the third. A road runs beside the playground and dead-ends into a rusty chain-link fence behind a convenience store on the fourth side. The store owners put up the fence to keep kids from going onto their property, but it’s in such bad shape it does little to keep anyone away.
How long will it take Thorn to get here? I need to talk to him. To tell him the news I received earlier that made my world tilt. I gaze around, but there’s only the four netless basketball hoops perched on posts like sentinels guarding the old-fashioned play equipment. No Thorn yet.
The images start to come. The same ones that have haunted me for years. A young girl celebrating her sixth birthday. Twirling round and round in a new pink party dress and white sandals with a strap that comes up around the ankle, feeling like a princess.
I know what's coming next, so I jump to my feet and race down the stairs, vaulting back and forth across the center railing until I reach the playground. Trying to escape the pictures playing in my mind, I cross the asphalt and run toward the back of a bench, plant my hand on it, and bring both legs over for a speed vault.
The swings, bars, slides, and merry-go-round in front of me are well-worn and a bit rusty, but they hold the memories of thousands of children over the years. This equipment is clustered around a newer wooden play set made up of ladders, bridges, slides, and climbing bars that work well for the jumps, flips, and vaults that make up freerunning.
The dim glow of the streetlight illuminates Thorn as he approaches the playground. He’s wearing long cotton pajama bottoms, a black tank top, and high-top basketball shoes same as me, but my shoes are black and white and held together by silver duct tape.
The slight chill of the night air doesn’t bother us. We stay warm freerunning. I stride along the border of the playground near Thorn. He falls in beside me and matches his stride to mine. He has his own issues to deal with, so he gets it when I need to run to chase away the things that haunt me. Most nights we run in silence in our own version of follow-the-leader.
Thorn passes me and heads toward a brick wall meant to close off the corner of the playground that houses the dumpster and storage shed. It doesn’t accomplish that, but it gives us a good wall for stunts. Thorn plants his foot hip-high against the wall, pushes upward off the bricks going into a perfect back flip. I follow, but back flips are tricky for me. I plant my foot wrong, so when I push off, it sends me downward instead of into the air. I land hard on my bottom.
Thorn drops beside me. “Interesting move.”
“Yeah, that needs a little work.”
“You forgot to drive your knee upward.”
I snort. “Obviously.”
I remember why I wanted to talk to him, and my mood darkens.
Thorn lifts an eyebrow. “What?”
“He called,” I say. “Mom talked to him.”
“Kia …”
My heart lightens at Thorn's nickname for me. To everyone else I'm Kiana Scott, but to Thorn I'm just Kia. Like the car. I say it again. “He called. Just like that. Like he has a right.” By saying it aloud, I'm acknowledging it to myself. The he isn't my dad. I don’t know who my father is. It's the other he. The one who ruined me—my mom’s father.
I jump up and take off, circling the playground with long, strong strides, trying unsuccessfully to slam the door of my mind on the thought of him. Thorn follows me as I weave in and out of the basketball poles, swinging myself on each in a wide arc.
I race to the horizontal bars, swing up, and sit. Thorn lands beside me, sweat glistening on his skin. Our arms touch, his white, mine light-brown. Thorn calls me dusky.
He tilts his head to the side, studying me. “What does he want?”
I scoot to the edge of the bars and swing my legs back and forth. “Has cancer.” I say it fast to cover the tremor in my voice. “Says he wants my mom’s support.”
“Really?” Thorn tightens his lips, then speaks again. “Her support?”
“So he says.” I reach in my pocket and feel the Statue of Liberty souvenir coin my third-grade teacher gave me for getting a 100% on my geography test. I’ve carried it with me since. Prizes are rare in my world. I rub the coin between my thumb and first finger.
Thorn’s eyes narrow. “He expects your mom to do what?”
“Don't know. But now I'm thinking of it all over again.” I release the coin and rub the back of my neck.
Thorn gives a quiet laugh. Not the kind that means something's funny, the other kind. “Like you ever stopped. Like you even could.”
I swing my legs harder. “I try.”
He turns toward me. “You run.”
I shrug one shoulder. “It's what I do best. Run.”
Thorn’s face is only inches from mine, his warm breath tickling my cheek. “Maybe it's time you face it.”
If only it were that easy. If only bile didn’t rise in my throat thinking about it. “It's too late. It can't be undone. I’ll never be a normal teen. Normal was stolen from me.”
Thorn looks thoughtful. He runs his hand backward through his closely clipped dark-blonde hair. What can he say? I’m right.
“True…”
“But?”
“There’s always hope.”
“Hope for what?”
“A new ending. You can’t change the beginning, but you don’t have to let him write the ending too.”
I feel a spark of some emotion I can’t name at Thorn’s words, and I don’t know what to do with it, so I jump from the bars and cross the playground to the road home. Thorn is behind me as I jog down the street. Two dogs have tipped over a trashcan and are scavenging through the contents. The stench of rotted food invades my senses, making the inside of my nose burn. I speed up, and Thorn does too. We race to my house where I grasp the cool metal porch post and pull myself up hand over hand, my muscles taut.
I reach the roof. My fingertips grasp the edge. I pull myself up, ignoring the pain as rough shingles bite into my skin. Thorn is right behind me. We sit side by side next to my bedroom window, leaning against the house. My skin prickles from the cool aluminum siding. The tank top isn’t warm enough now that we’ve stopped running, but I’m not ready to go inside yet.
The clouds part, and points of light blaze above us. Why does the night sky make me long for something I can’t even name? I gaze upward and point. “There’s Orion. See the three stars in a row? That’s his belt.”
I glance at Thorn. He’s motionless, knees to his chest and arms wrapped loosely around them. His lips are slightly parted, his eyes upward.
From down the street, a child’s cry is followed by yelling and the crash of glass shattering. It breaks the spell cast by the expanse of stars. It’s just another night on Willow Street. A place where people dump their junk curbside until the next pick-up day so a constant assortment of old tires, appliances, and bathroom fixtures adorn the roadside the way trees and flowers do in other sections of town. A sigh escapes my lips. My surroundings are a reminder that my life has too much debris and not enough flowers.
Thorn turns toward me, a question in his eyes.
I take a breath and blow it out slowly. “Why’d he have to call? Isn’t it enough that I relive his abuse over and over in my dreams?”
I pull my knees to my chest and clutch them so tightly they start to cramp. I release my grip and stretch my legs. There's another tear in my shoe. I need more duct tape, my solution to most things in my life. But duct tape can't fix everything.
"Maybe he’s got regrets," Thorn says.
I don’t turn to face him, but I know he’s watching me. I can feel it. I huff, air escaping from my nostrils. "Regrets for what he did to me? Not likely. Shouldn’t make a difference to me anyway. I'm not six anymore."
"If it didn't make a difference, the memories wouldn't still haunt you."
I pull my legs to my chest and lean forward. "You know what it’s like to hide something. To pretend it never happened. My grandfather. Your dad.” I turn my head to look at him. “You and me? We both come from a hard place."
Thorn shifts sideways, looking directly at me. “ Doesn’t change the fact there’s a plan for us. That Someone bigger than us is orchestrating things.”
He’s illuminated by the stars and a dim streetlight. I look into the shadowed blue eyes searching my face and open my mouth, trying to form an answer. It’s not the first time we’ve had this conversation.
“If there is a God, how could he sit back and watch what my grandfather did to me? What your dad did to you and your mom? What kind of God would let little kids get hurt?”
Thorn looks down and shakes his head. “I don’t know the answer to that. But I know I trust him, look to him for courage. For the strength to do what it takes to make things change. Maybe it’s time you claim the courage to do what you need to do."
I press my lips together, then exhale. "Like what? Have a chat with my grandfather? Tell him I forgive him for what he did? No thanks.”
“No. Not that. But maybe you’re meant to finally face it. Start writing your new ending.”
I breathe in slowly through my nose and out my mouth. “Why now? I don’t even know where to begin.”
He turns his head to look at me. “Why not now? Don’t let him win.”
Heat rushes though me. Thorn doesn’t get it. My grandfather has already won. “I can’t talk about this more. I need to sleep.”
I stand. Thorn is looking up at me, but for now the conversation is over. I turn and slip through the open window and into my room, then look back and watch as Thorn walks to the edge of the roof. He drops from view, and I hear a soft thud. A shadow disappears into the night.
 

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