Runners
977 Words
The silence the next day was louder than anything Cairo had said the night before.
Shay kept replaying it—his bloody knuckles, the way his voice cracked, how he collapsed into her arms like it was the only safe place he had left in the world. It made her chest ache in a way that felt too raw to name. She wasn’t used to people falling apart in front of her. She especially wasn’t used to holding them together.
She hadn’t told anyone. Not her roommate. Not her cousin. Not even herself—not out loud.
But Cairo had changed something that night. Not in a dramatic, sweeping way. More like a quiet shift beneath her ribs. A knowing. A pull. And now, her heart was no longer hers alone.
When she walked into their psych class that morning, Cairo wasn’t in his usual seat.
She paused for a second longer than necessary, eyes scanning the rows like maybe he’d appear late, hoodie up, expression unreadable. But the seat stayed empty.
Dr. Ramsey droned on about case studies, but Shay couldn’t focus. Her thoughts spun into questions.
Was he okay? Did he regret coming to her? Was this silence a reaction to vulnerability—or a warning?
After class, she found herself outside the lecture hall, texting him.
Shay: “Hey. Just checking in.”
No response.
By lunch, she was pacing outside the student union.
By 4 p.m., her nerves were starting to c***k.
She wasn’t stupid. She knew what it looked like when people disappeared. She just didn’t want to admit Cairo might be one of them.
But around 6:45 p.m., her phone buzzed.
Cairo: “Wanna go somewhere?”
No punctuation. No context. But it was enough.
⸻
Shay stared at the screen for a few seconds before typing.
Shay: “Where?”
Again, the dots danced. Then disappeared. Then returned.
Cairo: “You’ll see. I’ll pick you up in 10.”
She didn’t even have time to reply before her phone went dark again. Typical.
Ten minutes later, Cairo’s old black car—dusty, loud, and dented in places she hadn’t noticed before—pulled up in front of her dorm. He didn’t honk. He didn’t text. He just waited.
Shay climbed into the passenger seat, silence slipping between them. Cairo didn’t say a word. He just drove.
The city lights blurred past them in quiet rhythm, glowing neon and gold against the dark sky. Shay watched the side of his face, the way his jaw clenched now and then like he was grinding thoughts into pieces behind his teeth.
After twenty minutes, he turned off the main road and followed a narrow gravel path that led into a patch of woods. Shay glanced at him, unsure if she should be impressed or concerned.
“Relax,” he said without looking at her. “I’m not about to murder you.”
“Comforting,” she muttered.
They pulled up to a clearing—an abandoned park. No swings. Just an old basketball court with cracked pavement and rusted hoops, half swallowed by trees.
Cairo killed the engine. The only sound was cicadas and the low hum of a distant highway.
“I used to come here as a kid,” he said. “When everything got too loud at home.”
Shay looked around. “It’s… quiet.”
“Exactly.”
They got out. Cairo walked to the court and sat on the edge of the faded paint line. Shay followed, settling beside him.
For a long time, they just sat there.
Cairo tossed a small rock between his hands. “My brother—he’s the golden child. Always has been. When things got bad with my parents, he stayed. I ran.”
“Running doesn’t make you weak,” Shay said.
He gave a hollow laugh. “Tell that to the people who watched me leave.”
“You don’t owe anyone your pain.”
He looked at her then—really looked.
“You always talk like you’ve lived ten lives.”
“Feels like I have.”
He didn’t respond. Just nodded slowly, as if that answer said more than she realized.
They sat in silence again, the kind that felt heavy but earned.
Then Cairo asked, “Why’d you transfer?”
Shay stiffened slightly. “It got… bad. My mom was dealing with stuff. The kind of stuff that made our apartment feel like a war zone. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. So I left.”
Cairo’s eyes didn’t leave her face. “So you ran too.”
Shay let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Guess I did.”
And there it was—a mirror. Cracked but honest. Him and her. Runners.
But the thing about people like them? They didn’t run because they were afraid of facing the world.
They ran because the world had already shown its ugliest side—and surviving meant staying two steps ahead of it.
Cairo leaned back on his hands and looked up at the stars. “I always thought people like us were doomed to ruin anything good.”
Shay laid back beside him. “Maybe we are. Or maybe we’re just careful with what we let in.”
He turned his head toward her. “So… are you letting me in?”
She looked at him.
Really looked.
“I don’t know yet.”
He smiled—not cocky. Just soft.
“Fair.”
They laid there, watching the sky, not touching but not far.
Then, slowly, like gravity had plans of its own, Cairo’s fingers brushed against hers. Lightly. Tentatively.
She didn’t pull away.
She didn’t rush it either.
And in that quiet space between broken things and better moments, something real began to form.
Something fragile.
But maybe worth holding onto.
- Writer
