Disclaimer - I don't own the Sonic characters.
Not Too Close
She needed him, running too far ahead for her to reach but close enough that he was still in sight. She needed him, too far for her heart to reach him but close enough for her own heart to pretend it had. She needed him—more than anyone could know.
She liked to believe he knew, and that that was why he never ran too far ahead. She liked to believe he more than tolerated her, though she also liked to believe whatever emotions he felt for her would never turn into love. Love, as much as she professed it, was something her heart could not bear; for love had shattered her world at an early age, and she was still recovering.
No one knew about it. How her parents had both gotten ill. How she'd trudged through the forest for days to make it to town to get a doctor. How she and the doctor arrived too late.
No one knew and no one could ever understand. The emptiness that plagued her as she lived with the foster family she'd been forced into. The sorrow that wouldn't go away, despite others telling her it eventually would.
And so she turned to the cards that her father had been so proud of; the deck responsible for leading him to her mom. "How can I be happy," she asked the cards. She went to Little Planet where her answer was supposed to be, and met him. And all at once, for the first time in months, she felt a spark of excitement, a twinkle of pleasure, a flicker of warmth—making her feel what she felt when she was with her parents: safe and loved.
Her heart opened instantly to him, and she found she could not close it. She tried to close it. She tried to reject the feelings swelling her heart. For she knew she could not handle the pain of losing him.
So she needed him to keep running, until her heart, full of love for him, could stand strong whether one day he stopped running and turned to her, or shot off from her at a speed she could never reach.