Race

Race

Dylan Cage had always been good at running.

The first time he truly realized this was when the school bully tried to corner him after school one day, around the back near the dumpsters that the teachers always avoided. It was the perfect place to get away with something, but the second the bully tried, Dylan spun around and ran in the other direction. Five seconds later, Dylan was gone. The bully never came after him again, and Dylan decided to join the track team.

But if he really thought about it, he had been running long before that. Running through the woods behind his house to escape the sound of his parents screaming at each other at the top of their lungs. Running up and down the aisles of the convenience store his father took him to, instead of the park, like his mother asked. Running after his mom’s car when she went to work, racing it down the street every morning until the day she left and didn’t come back.

“Running can’t get you good grades or a paying job,” his mom had warned him once. “Running can’t get you everywhere. Running can’t get you everything.”

He disagreed. Running had gotten him his first pair of new shoes, the nice ones he couldn’t afford when his dad was going through another relapse. “I’ll get over this one, kid, I promise,” he’d said that night, his voice too slurred, his eyes too bright. “Then we’ll get you those shoes.” Dylan hadn’t believed him, so he had gotten the shoes for himself, snagged them right off the shelf when the store clerk wasn’t looking. Running had gotten him away from there before the clerk could even call the police.

When his father noticed his talent, running had kept him happy when he couldn’t scrape up enough money to buy another pack of beer. Running kept Dylan’s mind off the fact that his mother would never see him win another track race. Running helped him feel strong, helped him forget the fear that seemed to cripple him whenever he had to go home. The fear of facing his father, bored and angry after another day spent wasting away at home.

When Dylan had finally had enough, on the day his father shouted that he was a mistake and a disappointment and didn’t belong under his roof, Dylan had run straight to the police station. The receptionist had offered him some water in a paper Dixie Cup and asked what the problem was. Dylan didn’t even have to lie. He hadn’t been the only one having run-ins with the law.

He watched the news of his father’s trial through the neighbor’s open window. Local man sentenced to forty years behind bars, the news reporter said, listing all the charges. Dylan had stood there watching the TV screen long after the reporters went back to covering the local school’s art show, unsure how to feel. He wondered if this time, he had run into something he couldn’t escape.

He had never been quite as good at running after that. Maybe if he was, he would’ve been able to fully outrun the police when they came to take him to foster care. Or at least not gotten caught stealing the bag of bread from the grocery store. It didn’t matter. The van took a hard left toward an old stone building instead of toward his new life.

It was some kind of correction school, they told him. “We know you're a good kid, Dylan, and here we’ll help you get a fresh start,” they said. “Start things over so you can move on with your life.”

It was an orphanage for troubled boys. It had said so on the flier Dylan found crumpled at the bottom of the bathroom trash can. The windows were sealed shut. There was no running from here.

They gave him a therapist named Laura. She let him have chocolate if he answered her questions. She reminded him too much of his mother. The mother who had run away like he never could.

“You made mistakes, but it’s not too late to feel remorse for them,” she said. “You can’t run forever. You can't run from your past.”

Dylan had stopped listening after that. Running suited him just fine, and he didn’t feel bad for a single second of it.

After his first week at the school, they let him eat in the cafeteria with the other boys. Dylan grabbed a tray, filled his plate with the mushy green beans and a scoop of milky-white potatoes, then scoured the room for an empty table. There were none. He ended up sitting at the end of a crowded table, filled with boys who were laughing and swapping stories.

“Tripped right over the curb and knew that was it for me,” one of the boys was saying. Dylan slid onto the bench, avoiding eye contact with the few people who glanced his way. “There were no parents to take me home to. That’s how I ended up here.”

The whole table laughed like he had just told a winning joke. Dylan took a bite of his potatoes, trying to remain unnoticed.

“What about you, new kid? What’s your story?” one of the boys asked Dylan. Dylan jerked his head up. His eyes widened. The color drained from his face. His heart began to pound.

The boy laughed. “What, did you kill someone or something?”

No, Dylan wanted to scream, I was just running. But all he could think about was his father. Forty years in prison. Practically a lifetime. 

“I stole,” Dylan said at last, admitting it to the table, and maybe even to himself for the first time. “Shoes. Alcohol. Food. A life.”

The table went quiet, the silence filled with the weight of Dylan’s words. He couldn’t take it anymore. He shoved his chair back from the table and seized his tray, dumping it into the trashcan and sweeping out through the doors of the cafeteria. Running away from the conversation. Running away from his past.

He had always been good at running. But running can't get you everywhere.