Heart on a Chain Read Online Free PDF Page B

chance to catch up. I run faster without the hindrance of them anyway, ignoring the mocking laughter from behind, not knowing if part of that laughter is his.
    I don’t stop running until I’m halfway home, until my lungs are screaming and I have a stitch in my side, forcing me to stop. I lean over, hands on knees trying to catch my breath. It’s only then I realize I’m crying. I stand up, putting my hands on my cheeks, feeling the wetness there. Ow!
    I pull my stinging hands down, seeing that they’re scraped and bleeding, peppered with small pieces of cement and rocks from when I had fallen. That stops my tears.
    “ Idiot !” I curse myself. Luckily, I’m near a small stream that runs along the side of the road. I take a step and nearly fall again, my throbbing knees buckling, adrenaline no longer carrying me. I look down and see that my left pant leg is shredded midway. “ Great!” I mutter. I roll my right pant leg up above the knee. No scrape but a bright red mark that means a bruise tomorrow. I lift my left pant leg and see this knee is in much the same condition, only with an angry slice just below my kneecap which oozes a small amount of blood.
    I limp along the road until I find part of the bank that looks safe enough to climb down to the water’s edge. I half-slide sideways down the bank to the edge of the stream, knees screaming in protest. I sit on a flat rock and lean over to rinse my hands. I wash them as best I can, trying to dig the little rocks out, scrubbing the blood off. I splash water on my face, drowning the tears in the cool water.
    A car drives by slowly above me, which wouldn’t have caught more than my passing attention except that I hear the brakes, then the car backing up to stop directly above me. I look at the stream and the bank on the other side, gauging how hard it might be to make a run for it.
    “ There you are!” I freeze, stunned that he has found me here. “I have been looking for you everywhere. ”
    I force my legs into action, ignoring the pain from my knees as I stand. I crawl back up the bank toward the road, pretending it isn’t hurting me at all. I have to use my hands to help me up the steep slope, grinding dirt back into my newly clean hands. As I come to the top he reaches for me, but I dart to the side, hurrying away, trying not to limp, failing miserably.
    “ Please, Kate, will you just stop for a minute? Wait—are you hurt?” he almost sounds genuine. I growl silently. “Kate, please, stop, I want to talk to you, to ask you—”
    I round on him.
    “ What!” I demand angrily. “What do you want from me?” I limp-stride back over to where he stands, mouth agape at my outburst. “You’ve been gone for so many years…why now? Why can’t you just leave me alone? Why do you have to be just like them, but worse because you were better !” I’m yelling now. I shove him on the solid wall of his chest with both palms, leaving muddy, bloody smears.
    “ Go away!” I command, as tears begin to fall.
    He’s staring at me, that odd expression in his eyes again. It makes me furious and with a yell I slam my hands flat against his chest again. He catches them and holds them there when I would have pulled back, and then suddenly his arms are around me, pulling me tight against him as I sob. Unthinkingly, I bunch his shirt front in my fists which are trapped between us as he holds me. His hands sooth down my back, chin resting lightly on the top of my head.
    The feel of arms around me, in comfort rather than as restraint or in harmful intent, undoes me. I cry for all the years of mocking and teasing received at the hands of my peers, for having been born to hateful, careless parents. I cry for the fact that this one good, kind boy has joined the game. And that makes me think it’s hopeless to find any good in anyone, which only makes me cry harder.
    Gradually I become aware of where I am and whose chest I’m buried in. Mortification floods me. Still, I stay