Word Count: 933 without the random lyrics.

He stopped running around the apartment block.

There was a park down the street with wending paths through lush grass, far enough from the doorman’s watchful eye that Paris felt safe from those who tried to pry. It was no one else’s business—not the doorman’s, or any other stranger who might have gotten into the habit of witnessing his bid for relief. Maybe it was Chris’s, a little. Only a little. But stopping certainly wasn’t his decision to make, and Paris didn’t intend to let him. At least this way, from this distance, he could hide it better, and maybe Chris wouldn’t worry as much.

He picked the deserted trails. Aside from the initial spark of concern, a twinge from his guilty conscience, about what would happen to him should he go too far without any help in sight, he felt nothing but an immense sense of relief, that he could keep going, that he could do what he needed, that he could push and push and push until everything was out and away—with Chris being none the wiser. Here he could be alone. Here he could let everything wash through him and release. He could deal with it on his own terms. He could force it out.

He tried to pace himself better. Paris thought he owed his boyfriend that much. He tried to reach the point when everything burst free without collapsing or expelling the contents of his stomach in a physical manifestation of his emotional purge. He thought music might help. If he could move in a rhythm, keep track of his progress through the beats of a song, maybe he could learn control. Maybe it would even drown out his thoughts, make it so he never even had to think at all, and this whole messy process could come to an end.

It didn’t.

If anything, the music only made it worse.

It lasted only one day. For one day he brought his iPod, and for one day he tried to concentrate on the beat and the words and the melody, but none of it helped. None of it distracted him, because it was either too happy to be real or too sad to forget. Mostly it was the latter. Each song tapped into an emotion, and each line brought up memories he tried so hard to suppress.

‘Walk blindly to the light and reach out for his hand…’

Skip.

‘Lyin’ in my bed I hear the clock tick and think of you…’

Skip.

‘If I could tell the world just one thing, it would be that we’re all okay…’

Liar. Skip.

‘Nager dans les eaux troubles… Des lendemains… Attendre ici la fin…’

Skip.

‘You gotta fast ca—’

Skip, skip, skip before the line could even finish, cut through it, move on, find something with less of an effect, less of an impact, because if there was one song in the entire world that could make him cry without a single thought, it was that one, and it was still his favorite, but it hurt too much, so it was better to pass it by before it could go any further, before the words stopped being hopeful and turned mocking.

‘Puisqu'il faut que je vous quitte… Puisque la nuit m'attend… Puisque je m'en vais trop vite…’

Skip.

‘Have you seen my childhood…?’

No. It was over a long time ago, and it wasn’t ever coming back.

Skip.

‘Take a look at my body… Look at my hands… There’s so much here that I don’t understand…’

Skip.

‘Help… I’ve done it again… I have been here many times before… Hurt myself again to—’

Skip, skip, skip over the truth, skip until the end of the list, until it cycled through, and he was back to the beginning again.

Then he just let it play through on its own, but it didn’t distract him or slow him down. It pushed him harder. He ran to escape it. He ran to forget. Only he couldn’t escape or forget, so his pace quickened, faster and faster and faster until the flowers and the trees that lined the path were just a blur of green and pink and yellow, and his feet pounded the pavement in an unforgiving rhythm he’d feel long after this was over, and his sides ached from exertion, and his stomach turned in warning, and he felt as if he couldn’t even breathe.

Paris turned off the path, fell to his knees on the grass and was sick there in the middle of the park, where the world around him was silent but for the wind through the trees and distant birdsong, and he was blessedly alone.

When he was done, he wobbled off to wait under the shade of a gnarled oak tree. He clutched at his sides, at his head, at his heart, and took great gasping breaths that burned his abused lungs. For a moment his vision went blurry, then dark. Everything faded, and Paris lost all feeling of awareness until his senses returned to him, colors and shapes coalescing around him, sounds and sensations that were at once too present and too distant—chirping to his right, rustling up above, the swish of grass below, and far-off laughter, high and sweet as if from a child.

Slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, Paris came back to himself.

He ripped his earbuds out, wrapped the wires around his iPod and shoved it into a pocket barely big enough to hold it. He fixed his hair, slipped the elastic out, smoothed the strands back and tied it off again—neatly, when before it’d been messy and windswept. He pinched and smacked his cheeks, forcing color back into them. He didn’t need a mirror to know how pale and drawn he looked. He’d seen it all before by now, and he knew how to hide it.

He waited until he could breathe normally again, until he could move without stumbling, until most of the sweat had begun to dry, and then he walked sedately back, out of the park, down the street, around the corner, and to the apartment complex where the doorman stood, carefully watching.

Paris smiled and waved on his way by, and went back inside.