Banes by Tara Brown

shrugged.
    "I'm glad she's feeling better. That liver transplant was a miracle."
    "Yeah but its taken her as long as its taken you to recover. She was just lucky to be able to do it here, at home."
    Aimee looked at Shane and smiled, "Thank god for small and large miracles. I will have to look her up next time I'm in Seattle."
    "Yes we will. Aimee and I are back together. Not that we were broken up but the distance and the isolation, well you know."
    Her dad looked too excited to speak as he nodded. He just beamed and plated the omelets.
    Shane cleared his throat looking nervous, "So Mr. Mackenzie was tried for murder, rape, assault causing, stalking and a few misdemeanors that were added because of him being a teacher and an adult and Jaime only being seventeen. Anyway it's going to be life with no chance of parole, ever."
    Aimee nodded, "Good. He deserves every second of his punishment. Some of us will never recover from the things he has taken away." Her eyes misted slightly.
    Her father reached for her hand, "I'm so glad you're home Aims. It's too bad you just missed your sister. She would have been excited to see you."
    "Yeah, me too dad."
    "I thought I was going crazy, your letters were the only thing that kept me sane. I couldn’t bear the lack of correspondence between us."
    She looked up abruptly to see Shane wink at her. She paused for a breath, "Oh yeah, well I'm glad. I wasn’t very strong and it took a lot out of me to write those letters."
    "I still read them all, every night."
    She felt sick thinking she had truly gone a year and half without even contacting him once to tell him she was okay. Her heart swelled thinking about how much she loved Shane. He wrote her father under the guise that they came from her to keep the man alive.

Chapter Ten- Angst and Bushwhacking Can Never be Friends
    Ari
    She looked out the window at the gray weather feeling like the old her was slipping away further and further as if lost in the fog that seemed to constantly hover around the house. She didn’t know what to do with herself but she was scared of staying in the same place. She needed some heat and some sweat and to run the energy off. Her legs twitched with the need to move and the new Ari twitched with the need to feel some pain. The piercings and tattoos and cuts in her skin had come from a need. Ari didn’t completely get it but she understood what it was like to feel chaos taking her somewhere and the burn in her legs and lungs was the only thing that stopped her from getting lost in it.
    She slipped on some runners she had picked out on a shopping trip with Aimee and some shorts. In the cold rainy weather she knew she should pick track pants or jogging pants but she wanted to feel the cold against her skin. She slipped on a running bra and a t-shirt. She walked down the stairs quietly and out the front door.
    The cold air hit her like a wall. Instantly her skin was burning from the cold. It was extreme like the desert just the wrong kind of extreme. She walked to the edge of the house and then pushed herself off into the woods. She ran along the path Lydia had told her about that circled the lake for several miles. Her muscles burned and ached from the lack of running but new Ari loved the pain. She seemed to be contented by the agony she was putting them through. Ari left the trail even though she knew she shouldn’t and ran into the woods. The ground became uneven and her weakened leg muscles struggled with the logs she hopped over and the branches she ducked under. Dead brown leaves smacked her face weakly as they were barely attached to the branches.
    Her vision blurred, her lungs screamed from lack of air and her head pounded but she pushed herself further. She was determined to feel it, the explosion of endorphins she used to get. Her sprint had turned to a jog and she was just about to let go. She knew if she stopped she would fall. New Ari tingled in delight imagining the pain of falling in the forest, the