“ Because that’s inconspicuous.”
With the sentence he slapped the copy machine, sending a hollow plastic thump reverberating through the silent halls of the library. The librarians knew better than to do anything about it, because they knew he was going to leave in a matter of minutes, it was always best to wait it out.
“ What has it been, a day or two? You give Stacy Compton some kind of emotional complex, thanks for that by the way, and now you’re printing off pictures of all my old buddies. I would’ve at least tried to stay low. It may not be the kind of thing you were going for, but you have got to be the most suspicious person in town”. With his thanks he gave a twisted sideways smirk that dissipated into the cocky expression he maintained through his entire speech. His tone made it hard to clarify whether or not he was kidding, about as ambiguous as he planned on it being.
He was lucky it wasn’t a workout day, he was not in the mood, but he’d still have to do it if it was. Today, he was just, lucky. It would probably have been weird if anyone looked over and saw him doing push-ups in the middle hangover-hell, but it was a light risk he didn’t mind taking. The repetitive motion worked its way through his upper arms and chest, burning, seething, threatening to give out, but that was what he loved about them. A pure test of endurance, with no real endurance involved, they were easy, and he reveled in them. Four sets of sixty, and he collapsed onto the floor, lying there, unobtrusively because of his surroundings, for a few minutes. As he got up he debated whether or not to actually run that day, but the decision had been made years ago, not on the damn weekend. That was it, the true test of endurance, he holy grail of a masochist, as he saw it, to force yourself to endure unimaginable pain when stopping would be so convenient. It wasn’t even pain, pain he could take, pain he could enjoy, but this was so much more, but pain was the only word he knew to describe it.
He cracked his neck and took a trashy breakfast from the only table in the house. There was some kind of balance in the food decisions he made, but for the most part he wished he had some meat. The best he could come up with was the protein shake he kept in his emergency stash, of course, in case he ever passed out at his own place. He made a note to replenish his stock later. By this time, his guests were leaving, and he bid them good riddance. One guy would never know why he laughed as he limped out the door, clutching his side in pain. He bid a special farewell to Stacy, who refused to look him in the face. Fair enough, he thought.
After a quick shower through tubes the city never knew still ran with water, Mark slipped on the coat and boots he was known for. The reliable leather coat had seen everything, from the razors of the surrounding forest, to a small, uncontrollable flame one night at a party (someone else’s place), and had come out not only in one piece, but somehow unaffected. There had to be some kind of curse on the thing, but he didn’t feel like going over every bad thing that had ever befallen him. The boots though, they were infamous. It wasn’t enough that they were sinister-looking enough to go on the bad-guy in any western, but the stories attached to the two beauties gave them a lasting sentimental value.
A quick trip through the forest, on the only path in or out, and he came out right across the road from town square, behind a Smoothie King (of which he knew all the employees, and had a special connection to the manager). The best place in town as far as he was concerned, but he knew if he dropped in to say hello, he would be there for a while, so he decided to let it slide. Today he felt like making a trip to the grand old town square, the most center with the most history, and of it the most apathetic teenagers throughout “Westriver”. Truly the center of the universe, when it wasn’t his own haunted house.
Upon his entrance across a frantic four-lane highway, he shook himself off. Those guys were out for blood today, he swore. Two minutes into his walk through the metropolis, he had spotted something that had caught his interest. Unmistakably the ass of the new chick, with whom he had wanted a few words. Maybe even thank her for the gift she didn’t know she had given him, but maybe something more. It took some balls to do that to Stacy, but it occurred to him that she probably didn’t know who she was dealing with.
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