What They Always Tell Us by Martin Wilson

this person moves like he is young, someone lean and crisp.
    Alex is hell-bent on passing with nothing more than a nod, whoever it is. Plus, the guy’s face is shrouded, and it’s getting dark. But just as Alex passes, the guy calls out his name.
    Alex stops and turns back, and the mystery person peels back his hood and reveals himself to be Nathen Rao. James’s buddy.
    “Hey, man. I
thought
that was you,” Nathen says.
    Nathen has always been nice to Alex, even after the incident. Some of James’s friends make Alex feel awkward, nervous. Like Greer, who always talks about the girls he gets with, like it’s a sport and Greer is the best at it in the world. Or Preston, who sneers at Alex and looks at him like he’s defective. Or else they ignore him—which is fine by Alex. But Nathen is different—friendly, comfortable to talk to. Nice. Whenever Alex saw him after the incident, he didn’t avoid the topic like so many others. He asked how he was doing, did he feel better? Alex has always liked him—and felt shy around him.
    “Yeah,” Alex says. “Just thought I’d go for a jog.”
    “I didn’t know you jogged.”
    “I used to, all the time. This is my first time in a while. I’m out of shape.”
    “Ah, well, you’ll get back into it.” Nathen wipes his brow with his sleeve. He’s breathing heavily. His black hair—usually combed back and styled—is flat and matted.
    Alex nods, doesn’t know what to say, really. He wants to get back to running, before it gets too dark, while he has momentum, but it also feels nice talking with Nathen, even if it is just stupid, meaningless small talk. Then he remembers that Nathen is on the cross-country team at school. “You training?”
    “I guess you could call it that. Our meets are over, for the most part, until spring. But coach keeps us in shape.”
    “Yeah,” Alex says. “I bet.”
    Nathen smiles at him like Alex just said something funny. His big white teeth, set against his creamy brown skin, seem to glow in the dusk. “Well, I better get going. But I’ll see you at school tomorrow!” He taps Alex’s shoulder with his fist, like play boxing, and darts off again. Alex watches him run off at a pretty fast pace before he resumes his own jog.
    His breathing is labored, and his legs get tired and stiff, but he keeps going, jogging for over half an hour. In a way, seeing Nathen has given him a weird sort of energy. As he continues his route, an idea sets in his mind:
If I jog every night this week, I will get better. Faster. It will become easier.
It’s a goal. Something to strive toward.
    He exits the golf course and picks up speed. He rounds the corner and sees his house up ahead, the lights blazing through the windows. There is dinner to eat, homework to tackle, but it doesn’t seem nearly as dreary to Alex as it did just an hour earlier.

    The next morning, Alex wakes up, showers, dresses, and eats a bowl of Cheerios in the den, watching the
Today
show as his mother busies herself in the kitchen before heading to her job at the historical commission. His father reads the paper while eating his grapefruit and boiled egg in the breakfast room. James usually grabs a banana on the way out. They drive separately to school—James in his Jeep, Alex in his white Honda Accord. His mother says driving to the same building in two cars is a waste of gas. And it is. But James usually stays late for extra tennis practice, and Alex comes home right on time. Plus, it would probably kill James to be stuck in the car with Alex, forced to chat with him.
    Central High is a big school—so big that it is divided into two campuses. The freshmen and sophomores go to Central West, on the run-down side of town, while the juniors and seniors go to Central East, which isn’t that far from the university. It’s the nicer-looking school, newer, but it still looks like a prison.
    And in many ways, it
is
a prison, to Alex at least, trapped there all day, inside its pale walls