Sitting on the front step, I slide my feet into my shoes and tie the laces, attach the armband and then stretch while the gate slowly opens. I barely give my muscles a chance to get warm before I’m sprinting. I race across campus to the outdoor track I found when I was avoiding returning to the house one afternoon.

Setting a blistering pace that I know I won’t be able to maintain for long, I stride onto the track and pump my arms, racing along the lane like the devil himself is chasing me. I’m not sure how long I last but by the time I collapse to a heap in the grass beside the track, my lungs are burning and my legs feel like Jell-O.

Gasping for air, I lift my weak, sweat-soaked arms over my face and just breathe. The familiar quiet that always finds me when I run settles over me and I close my eyes, basking in the desperately needed numbness.

“Here, you look like you could use this,” a male voice says from above me.

Opening my eyes, I blink up at a familiar-looking guy hovering over me, a bottle of water in his outstretched hand.

“Er,” I say dumbly.

“Chase, we met at the gym a couple weeks ago.”

“The football player,” I say through my rasping breaths.

“You remembered,” he laughs, folding himself down to a seated position beside me. “Here.” He offers me the water again. “It’s sealed.”

Smiling, I take the bottle from him and open it, cracking the seal and drinking thirstily. “Thanks.”

“So are you running from something, or training for a comp?”

“I’m definitely not a competitor,” I laugh as my breathing starts to normalize.

“So should I be keeping an eye out for a dude in a mask with a machete or something?”

“No,” I smile. “Just trying to outrun my personal demons, not real ones; you know how it is.”

His expression sobers, and something that I don’t recognize flashes through his eyes. “Ah, personal demons, I have a few of those myself. You know what helps?”

“What?”

“Sex. Those bastard demons are allergic, sends them running. Want to try it out?”

My eyes widen and for a brief moment I look at him and consider it. Chase is attractive, tall, good-looking, muscled but not in a meathead way. Sebastian might be the only man I’ve had sex with, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t be with anyone else. I could kiss him. I could let him touch me, touch him in return. I could go back to his room and let him fuck me. Only the thought literally does nothing for me. My stomach doesn’t curl with anticipation, my sex doesn’t pulse with heat and desire, my brain doesn’t spark with how wrong it is but how right it feels, like it did when I was with Sebastian. All I feel with this boy is nothingness.

“Interesting offer, but no thanks. I’m pretty fast, I don’t need to scare the demons off when I can just outrun them.” Rolling to my feet, I smile. “Thanks for the water, see you later.”