black swan

They thought he was a real psycho, the kind that would go postal and shoot up the school; and even though he had held a knife to my throat and told me I was beautiful, I didn’t believe him because it was a dull blade. Of coarse we knew better and that his crazy eyes were just an act, and the way he went off on people was just his way of blowing off steam. They kept an eye on him though, and after one of the copycat bomb threats they got even more suspicious.
He was a runner, that’s for sure. And he ran fast. We all knew what he was running from. Technically we were all running from the same thing. His friends would sit on the sides of the tracks smoking cigarettes and clocking him, usually as far away from the flimsy bleachers as possible. He probably would’ve shot us all if he didn’t have his running. Everyday in the late afternoon he would go out and run. Afterwards he’d come off the tracks panting with his head down and go to the showers, not looking at anyone. The one time he wouldn’t look you directly in the eye. He moved here from Ohio in his second year of high school and didn’t seem to have a problem fitting in. I think that surprised his teachers the most. I had no idea whether he was a good student or not, all I knew was that he could run. Everyone knew, even the track coaches who were constantly trying to get him to join, even with his reputation. Somehow the librarians seemed to hate him the most; it was like he went there just to get kicked out. I think it was them, with their black beady eyes and tight buns who "tipped them off". I don’t think he was particularly close to anyone but he had a lot of friends. The way he ran you knew something more was going on in his head.
I sat with his friends that I didn’t know to well and listened to the quiet thumping and slapping of his sneakers on the Astroturf that must’ve matched his heartbeat. It would get louder and quieter each time he came around. And even though his chuck taylors would slowly get looser and unlaced, he didn’t stop. The focus he had made you think he really was insane. Everyone secretly wondered about him, although no one besides the teachers ever said anything.
I don’t know how he felt about girls, he never took them seriously.

I had gone over to his house once, a real shit hole with a broken screen door. The nubby beige carpet had stains that looked like continents. We sat in the kitchen; the walls were stained with his mothers cigarette smoke. We had a couple of cokes and just sat on the linoleum floor. I ran my fingers over the dents in the tiles from his mothers’ heels while he talked about something I didn’t listening to. He said there was nothing to do so he’d make trouble. It gave him things to run from. The aluminum from the coke can gave me a metallic aftertaste.