Ava sat down on the bench after a long run and cried. It was cold, windy and rainy, but she cared not. People passed by with umbrellas and gave her long cold stares. Nobody offered to share.
She wiped her eyes with a sigh, shivering and blubbering, but she couldn't force herself to get up. The weight of the world was weighing down on her. She put her face back in her arms and continued to sob.
"Hey," said a voice near her, and she defensively jumped up, ready to run again. When she caught a glimpse of the guy that had spoken to her, she realized that he was just a passerby. She relaxed a bit. "Are you alright?" he asked.
"I'm alright," she said, pulling on a happy face, but it was all too apparent that it was fake.
"Right," he said, slipping into the bench next to her, making a squishing sound as the rubber from his coat rubbed against the wet wood.
Ava looked at the stranger, worrisome, hoping that he wouldn't be of any harm to her. He was around her age, young, about 17 or 18, his chocolate brown hair popping out of his hood in places. She knew him from somewhere.
"Why are you crying?" he asked, handing her the umbrella that he insisted he did not need, due to his coat.
She covered her head with the umbrella and sighed, "A group of boys were chasing me. I was around the Lasker Pool and Rink, and they..."
She couldn't continue. She was traumatized. He put his arm around her shoulder, trying to comfort her, and coax her to continue.
"They didn't like my hair," she gestured to the now tangled brown mess on her head with soaking wet peacock feathers running through. "So they chased me down to the Lock, and on the way, one of them grabbed me and pulled me to the ground. He was a big guy, vicious and rude, and when he landed on me, my leg made a crunching sound. I think it is broken."
The boy's face was neutral, though he had anger rising in his mind. He helped her turn in the bench and held her leg up on his lap for elevation. Her pants were too tight around the leg to take a look at, so after asking for permission, he cut away at the pant leg with his pocket knife up a little bit past where she said her leg was hurting the most. Her leg was swollen, and purpling around the area she complained about most. When asked to bend her leg, it would not move, and she began to cry some more.
"Definitely broken," he said, and pulled out his cell phone. He called the ambulance, and they promised to meet him in a matter of minutes. "How did you get here? How did you get away?" he asked her.
"I hit the guy that knocked me down, and rolled out of arms reach from all of them trying to attack me at once. I grabbed the trunk of a tree to pull myself up, and continued to run for it..."
"On this leg?" he asked, shocked.
She nodded, "It wasn't easy."
"Then what?" he asked.
"They chased me to the lock, where a lot of hikers were, and I weaved through the hikers and through the wooded area away from the path. They weren't able to catch up, and I evaded them somewhere along. But they haven't found me yet."
"Nor will I allow them to." His eyes flashed with anger.
She still couldn't figure where she knew him from. All she knew was that this stranger was completely compassionate and understanding.
"You still haven't told me, stranger," she said with a weak smile as a shot of pain rushed up her leg, "what your name is."
His smile turned to a neutral face again. "You don't remember me?"
She felt bad, "No, I recognize you, but I cannot figure out who you are."
"You must have hit your head as well. Do you remember anything other than what just happened?"
"I remember that I really liked these feathers," she admitted.
"You don't remember anything else?" he said, starting to frown.
"No, not especi---"
"Well if it isn' our little bird!" a voice called from behind the trees.
A group of boys emerged from the wooded area.
"Thought you could escape us, didn't you?" said another boy with deep red hair.
"Knock it off, boys," Ava's stranger called, getting up and stepping in front of her.
"Look, boys. Birdie has herself a little sparrow," the mousy looking boy said.
Ava's stranger stepped closer to them. "Her name is not Birdie, and you have no business playing with her like you have been."
"Why, is the sparrow jealous?"
Ava's stranger socked the guy in the neck. A huge fight emerged, and she realized that one of the members of the gang had been missing. The Vicious One.
Her stranger had been really good at fighting them all, until the mouse jumped on his back. They had him on the ground, one boy stomped him in the stomach, another kicked him in the face, someone was punching him in the side.
"Stop it!" She shrieked.
"Fly away, Birdie," a boy taunted her, "fly away with those wings of yours."
"Leave him alone!" she cried.
"Fly away," her stranger called to her, "Leave! Go somewhere safe!"
She started to get up and turned toward the opposite direction. The Vicious One was right behind her, smiling in her face. She froze as he continued to stare her on. He laughed, and then moved to the group of boys. She turned back to them to see the boys back up and The Vicious One moved toward her stranger. She became frightened at the thought of her only hope being killed.
The first punch hit her stranger and she could not bare it. Everything was slowly coming back, her name was Ava, she lived in New York, she had been visiting the Rink, she was a junior in high school, her best friend was Mariyam, and she was currently dating...
"James!!!" her cry echoed around the woods.
She had a sudden adrenaline rush, got up and ran toward The Vicious One and scissor-kicked him in the face, she stumbled on her landing and grabbed the red-head that charged next and rammed him into the mousy kid. One by one she fought them all, she knew she couldn't harm them, but that she could hold them off.
Where is my ambulance? She thought, still favoring her left leg.
The Vicious One came back and hit her in the gut, but she managed to sweep him when she fell and punched him continually in the face.
The sirens echoed across the land and the boys were getting nervous. All of them ran except for The Vicious One and the mousy one. Ava had the mouse in a head lock between her legs and wrestled against The Vicious One.
"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?" cried the man from the ambulance crew.
"You're late," she said, crying and letting go of the boys, hopping to her love, James, who was left unconscious trying to save her, still favoring her left leg as the idiot boys were cuffed by the police that arrived shortly after, and the ambulance crew lifted James onto the stretcher, and then her.
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