chapter 39
Chapter 39
Ready!
Fraser had almost kept from the kitchen; when pushing off his counter, a light had shown through his curtains.
His eyes grew wide as he watched his car turn out of the lot over the curb before swinging onto the road.
He had run down the hall, flying down the stairs before running out into the parking lot, a hand in the air, his voice called out in an attempt he knew had passed.
He came to a stop as a grin grew across his face, "son of" he said, running his hands over his face as the grin cracked into a wide smile "Son of a bitch" he almost yelled as his voice trailed into a peal of laughter, "there you go Ronin, there you fucking go" he stepped back holding his forehead that scrunched with an anger he could only smile through.
Ronin practically bounced in his seat, throwing his head back, knowing Fraser had seen. Knowing he had watched him leave, watched him change.
With the biggest smile, he turned back to the road, almost wheezing through the adrenaline. "I just did that, we just fucking did that!" His voice filled the car, and Wren reciprocated it with her growing excitement; her legs stamped the ground as they got further; the sun had set after they'd left town, for the sky had grown black, and the car quiet the darker it got.
He repeated the same unbelief of the situation, his voice almost trembling with the built-up moment. "I knew you would come with me. I needed you to come, Wren, and I'm getting better with you." He looked at Wren, who looked back, holding the same expression.
"And I would've brought Percy; I didn't want to leave him behind, b-but why would I bring something I'll never be, something I will never be, Percy and his smile, Wren.
Instead, I can come back; we can come back when I'm better; I can show him I'm ok; with my smile, I can show them." Ronin had said as his throat turned dry.
For he'd left with hope and left envy behind, he left it all behind. He had left.
Turning onto the first two-lane route had solidified what they had done; the road had become hard, opposite of the rocky ones he'd driven for so long, and they had begun to smooth, almost humming the faster he went.
His eyes grew weary knowing this; they shook back and forth from the headlights to Wren, who would always meet them with a resting face she painted blank. His hands had begun to grip the wheel as if he were massaging it; his hands couldn't hold the same grip; they couldn't stop shaking.
His heart joined in the realization, joining in the song as the beat, frantic, heavy it got, loud like his breath.
He wondered if she could hear it, maybe she could see it try and break out again, maybe she could tell like she always could.
For how would he be able to change, to grow if he scared her away if he made her think like him if he lost hope?
He had done it before, but maybe he had been the one that was lost, even as she can each day, knocking on his door. He couldn't let her in, not because he had locked the doors, but because he had never seen them open, the chance, the Future, the result. That was what he ran away with; how could he lose it now, after all this time?
His breath skipped, and his legs tingled with each press of the gas, the rail of the road whipped past them, only shown by the dim headlights, as if they had created the wood as they went to highlight a road formed from the darkness, to ride that road out of it, he had only begun.
His mind began to race again, a heavy sweat pasting itself across his forehead; he'd tried to hide it from Wren; she had seen through it before he put it on, putting this to show as she interrupted.
"Open the window," she said, unstrapping herself from the seatbelt with a shift in her seat, Ronin stammered in questioning, trying to hold a sentence before she repeated herself, this time louder, with a grin, she watched as he turned uncocking the car, Wren's hands turned the lever as the window slid down in a squeak, the wind filtering through the car as it blew her hair straight back.
"Wren, what are you doing?" Ronin's voice was almost worried. His eyes grew wide as Wren almost climbed out the window holding the roof while she positioned herself; she'd begun to laugh, to scream.
As if she'd taken note from Ronin, come in at the exact moment he was coming out. Bring him back when he forgot about her, about the things that held more than he had thought.
Ronin's turmoil settled with a grin, with a chuckle, his face flushed; the road lay empty as he glanced about it. His eyebrows grew low as he twisted his window open with his mouth, showing his teeth in a wide smile.
His eyes squinted in the wind, hitting him in layers as he pulled himself further out he turned to look at Wren, whose face had filled, her face that had been painted new, with hope, coated three times and left to dry she smiled watching as Ronin had begun to yell, cheering in an inaudible rapture.
He had begun to see himself again, a simple hello he had let out, a touch of eye contact, and the nostalgia that came with it. He had fallen into another him, one that he had never been before and yet lived in for so long that he had grown decay and mold.
It was that he had left behind.
To live in a stranger's body, you learn to forget yourself; the mirror will give an image, but it won't give a soul.
This time, he would change. With his breath that ran dry in the wind, this was his goodbye. A echoed farewell and a fucking beginning.
_____
"Was that ok to say Mrs camble?" Ronin had asked sitting across from her, who had looked straight at him the whole time he'd talked.
"That was perfect Ronin, perfect.
How does it feel?" Her eyebrow perked with the question watching as his grin returned with joyous words, leaning back in his chair to say.
"Have you had anymore of these episodes?" She could only slip for a second before he responded.
"No, there done, I'm all done making them. There gone now. Ronin turned his head looking apon the walls of the room, "there gone now Mrs camble" his expression resting at a soft smile as he did so.
"It was about 5 months they went on like this, right Ronin?" She asked somber in her voice, her eyes looked on his reaction, a turn of his chair, a fast nod and a smile looked back.
Mrs camble leaned over her desk, for she had never met this boy, and yet she knew years about him, she had never seen this boy and yet she knew what he was made of. She had never tested this boy, but she knew what he could take.
"And you have six, wait no seven months left in the Clinton county detention center?" She said slowed at some words as she looked back at the clipboard.
Ronin nodded, laying his hand under his chin while he got comfortable watching as Mrs camble had begun to do the opposite.
She looked down at the list of questions she would have to ask, she would have to act for him, read them like everyone else, out on the fake professional voice.
She took her own out of her mouth, starting to tell Ronin what she was gonna proceeded with, when he cut her off, "I know Mrs camble, I figured you would have to, that's why you have the clipboard, and the pen" He almost ended as if a question as his voice chose to exaggerate.
Mrs camble out the board down as her hand covered her mouth subtly, for somewhere within ronin's spoken out thought's, he had grown knoledge of what he never noticed before, what she would never tell him. It was now those words he wrote hit her, if she were to remember who he was before, she would be able to see who he had become now. He had changed.
Ronins eyes drifted over to her as she had tried to hide herself, she had stopped acting. She didn't need to anymore.
Ronins smile grew as he saw this, she had whipped her face before attempting to return to her demeanor, he didn't know why she was upset but he could tell it was real, it was different. He liked it.
"I'm sorry Mrs camble" it came out breathy as he had looked down at the floor his legs bounced afraid of what he didn't know.
Her voice started in a crack and came out in high pitch "No, Ronin it's not you, your fine, Ronin your better now" a smile tried to cover her face before her hand would.
"I was so silly back then