Chosen by Shay West

doing the right thing. She also knew that she had waited too long to tell Jon the truth of how she felt towards him; she could tell by the look on his face that they could never go back to being friends.
    Jon stood, naked and exposed as he felt each word like a physical blow. He clenched his jaw and through sheer force of will kept the tears at bay. He refused to cry in front of her. He looked at the ground and shuffled his feet, trying to think of something to say, but he was at a loss. He berated himself for being so naive as to think he could ever win the heart of a girl like Kaelin. He wished he could take back all of the things he had said and done these last few months.
    “Jon…”
    He looked up to meet her eyes and saw the worst thing he could imagine seeing. Anger he could deal with, a blank, an unfeeling stare he could handle. But the look of pity he saw in her wondrous onyx eyes was more than he could bear.
    Jon turned and ran for home, her voice echoing in his brain. He could picture the other students laughing as she told them of his puppy love. His feelings and thoughts spun out of control and his imagining how everyone would react got worse the closer he got to home. By the time he burst through the front door, the incident hadblown out of proportion, and in his mind the whole thing had been a set up by Kaelin and the others, to see how far she could string him along. Deep down he knew that what he was thinking was preposterous, yet he couldn't help the thoughts from creeping about his brain.
    He ran through the family room and into the kitchen, banging his hip on the kitchen table as he ran around it and made his way up the stairs.
    Jon threw open the door to his room and ran to the cherrywood trunk at the foot of his bed and fell to his knees. His vision blurred and he found himself fumbling for his clothes. He lay across the open trunk and sobbed out all of the heartache at having been spurned by his first true love. Sadness, anger, and humiliation filled him in turns.
    Jon angrily shoved his clothes in his pack, cheeks burning with anger and humiliation. His sister, Holly, had made the bag for him as a gift. The thought of not seeing the girls or his parents for a long while tore at the piece of his heart Kaelin had left intact, but the thought of staying and having to face her again was worse.
    He turned to leave but stopped abruptly. He glanced down at his robes that he was required to wear during his Mystic training.
    “These will never do.” Jon mumbled to himself. He changed to leggings and tunic but kept his well-worn comfortable shoes, and exited his room, keeping his head down as he passed his sisters' rooms, unwilling to look at them this one last time.
    Jon raided the kitchen for bread, hard cheese, fruit, and dried meat to take with him on his journey. He filled several water skins, stuffed the food in his knapsack, and pulled the flap down, grunting with the effort of tying it over the bulging top.
    As he made to walk through the front door he stopped. He turned back around and walked slowly through the family room, gently touching the back of the chair and couch facing the large, stone hearth. He could see his ma and pa here, Beth busy sewing and mending, and Willam, wooden pipe clenched between his teeth, slowly turning the pages of one of his favorite books.
    Jon took a deep breath and walked to the scuffed, dark wood desk along the wall separating the kitchen from the family room. Hedipped a quill in the ink bottle and wrote a brief note, telling his family that he was going to spend some time camping in the Stone Mountains. They would not miss him for at least a few days; he often spent time in the wilderness, either alone or with his fellow classmates and Master Brok.
    Jon put the lid back on the ink bottle and lay the quill next to his note. He picked up his knapsack and slung it over his left shoulder. After one last look around, he walked out the front door, closing it softly behind