black swan II - ending

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 like a dog 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 that "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.
He hated school. You could tell he was trying to out run everything. Early morning, late at night, whenever anything started to get to him he’d go running. Thinking: “I can’t make myself believe the next ones any better. Is the next one better?”
He lasted until April. In the afternoon we went to see him run, as usual. And he didn’t stop, he didn’t even slow down. He just kept going around the track, beating out the lub dubs in his chest. We waited for him to collapse from dehydration, but even that didn’t stop him. This confirmed our suspicions that he was sub-human, or on steroids. After sundown someone had turned on their headlights so he could see the track lines.
Soon enough everybody just got bored and went home to watch TV.
It wasn’t ‘till a month later when we realized no one had seen him out on the tracks since then. Eventually we just figured he ran away. I guess he never stopped running.
You just can’t forget something like that.