Twenty minutes after I walked in, Imane stepped out of the dining room with her arms behind her back, her expression downcast.

“I’m sorry, Jesse. Not today. Fred wasn’t…” Her throat bobbed. She gnawed on the inside of her cheek, unable to look me in the eye. “Fred wasn’t feeling well.”

I stood up, heading for the door when Mrs. Belfort came out of the dining room, hugging the doorframe to support herself. She looked like a stranger, her eyes wearing an expression I’d never seen before. Clarity. “You can’t be afraid of love, my dear. It’s like being afraid of death. It is inevitable.”

Love is like death. It’s inevitable.

The words chased my thoughts long after I’d left Mrs. B’s house. It was a good thing I was going for a run, because I needed to declutter my head after the weird day I’d had.

Anything north of the witching hour was my favorite.

Time soaked into your skin like a kiss at three o’clock in the morning, slow and seductive. I was always awake at night—that’s when the nightmares crept in. They were so bad that at some point, I stopped falling asleep. Catnaps during the day kept me going. But sleeping through a whole night? Yeah. No, thanks. That was practically inviting a rerun of The Incident. In loop.

I must have been under some kind of a spell tonight. I felt brave from talking to a stranger—to a male stranger—and the limitations and red lines I’d made for myself faded to the background. I shoved my earbuds into my ears. “Time to Dance” by Panic! At The Disco blasted in my ears as I headed toward El Dorado’s track at 3:00 a.m. I had a finger Taser and a little Swiss Army knife shoved inside my sock. Plus, it was a gated neighborhood, with patrols driving around in carts every hour. I took my Labrador, Shadow, with me because he practically begged when I was at the door. He was probably the only creature alive I still cared about pleasing.

The Untouchable, I thought as my feet hit the concrete trail, Shadow on a leash, lagging behind me like the fourteen-year-old veteran that he was. It had a nice ring to it. Even I had to admit it.

Only it wasn’t a compliment. I’d gotten the nickname because I wouldn’t allow anyone to touch me. Ever. At all. Thwack, thwack, thwack. I ran like my life depended on it. Three years ago, it had. And I’d failed. They’d caught me.

I’d been running ever since, twice a day. Five miles on the edges of the gated neighborhood I’d lived in.

Running to exhaust myself, physically and mentally, so I could sleep.

Running so I wouldn’t have to stand still, and ponder, and think, and crumble.

Running from my problems, and my reality, and the emptiness that nibbled at the edges of my gut, like acid. Burning, eating, destroying.

My routine had somewhat put me in an oxygen-thief status. Even I had to admit that my life was aimless. I slept during the days and lived in the dead of the night. I worked out obsessively in the basement and got out of Pam and Darren’s hair as much as humanly possible. They begged for me to come back to the world, but I never did. Then they took my treadmill, so I started running outside. They threatened to cut my allowance if I didn’t get a job, so I simply stopped spending money. I read books instead, took Shadow on long strolls, and lived off the odd Kit Kat bar, mainly to keep myself alive. Sometimes I paid Mrs. B a visit. I never left El Dorado with the exception of weekly visits to my therapist, Mayra.

I’d been with Mayra ever since I was twelve, and can honestly say she hadn’t contributed in making me feel better or reach a fundamental conclusion even once. The only reason I kept going was because Pam had threatened to kick me out if I stopped, and I actually believed her.

People, as a concept, were starting to feel blurry and unfamiliar. Fuzzy, like black and white static flakes playing on an old-school TV. I’d been caught off guard when Bane started talking to me, because no one ever did.

The soles of my feet burned, and my thighs quivered with the strain I was putting them through. I’d always been athletic, but it was only after what had happened to me senior year that I became obsessed with running, and not in a good way. Pam—she didn’t like it when I called her Mom, claimed she looked too young for the title—said I looked “hot” since The Incident, and I tried not to hate her every time that she did.

Jesse, look at your legs. That’s your silver lining right there. Just open up and try to be less weird, and everything will be fine.