chapter 9

He finds her in the deadheads, curled up against a tree still fuming, with hot, angry tears rolling thickly down her face. Her head snaps up as his footsteps are audible, and her posture stiffens; she wipes her face and composes her face, looking up and glaring at the intruder. But as soon as she sees its Minho, her eyes fill with sadness, hurt and tears, she slumps back against the tree, and looks down again. Minho reaches her and sits down, pulling her into him and wrapping his arms around her waist, and she rests her head on his chest. He can feel the dampness of his shirt as she cries, and cries, her tears seemingly endless. He rubs her back soothingly, saying softly "Hey, hey. It's alright, it's all gonna be ok. You guys will get through this it's just a stupid fight because you're both tired" She looks up at him, and says softly "I want to get through this, but I don't see where anything would go if he can't trust me, I'm sick of being treated like property" Her entire demeanour screams exhaustion and sadness, and Minho says "You're just tired. It'll all be alright tomorrow, don't worry" She pulls back from him slightly and looks him in the eye, saying sadly "No Minho, I'm sick of it. I don't want to be with someone who can't trust me and let me have friends just because they're too stupid to see that I care about them too much to hurt them" Her voice breaks at the end, and she looks down, burying her head back into Minho's chest, as he rubs circles onto her back and says "Yeah, yeah alright. I understand" Eleanor nods and falls asleep soon after. Eleanor wakes up the next morning on auto-pilot, and shakes Minho awake as well. He starts, stretching and yawning as he looks around, taking in his surroundings. Eleanor hops up, helping Minho up after her and informs him "We're going running" Minho looks at her, aghast, and says "Eleanor, you can take a day off" Eleanor shakes her head adamantly and tells him quietly "I want to let some steam off, before I yell at someone" Minho understands immediately, and nods, heading off to the runners shack with Eleanor in tow. They enter the maze shortly after, and they run. Eleanor runs at her normal pace, leaning into turns automatically, knowing the maze like the back of her hand by now. She thinks about Newt, and how shucking stubborn he is being. He can't even trust her to go running, or talk to anyone. She doesn't need his stupidity in her already abnormal life, she doesn't need him. He's a shucking piece of klunk, a stupid, untrusting piece of klunk. She can feel her legs pumping slightly faster as she runs, and loves the feel of letting her emotions out through running, pushing her legs faster. She rounds bend after bend, practically sprinting for a solid hour and a half. She reaches the spot where they normally stop for lunch, and stops, looking behind her. Minho is nowhere to be seen, she must have run too far ahead. She decides she wants to be alone, and calls out "Minho?" She gets a responding shout of "Is that you, speedy-Gonzales?" The shout had come from at least twenty turns away, and she barks a laugh, responding "Yeah. I'm gonna run ahead, don't wait up for me. I'll be extra careful, don't worry, I won't go to deep into the maze, and I'll be back before the doors close, easy. I just wanna run" She waits for his response, and gets a "Yeah, alright. Just be careful, I'll be right shucked if you get stuck" Eleanor laughs, turning around and running away, away from everything. She runs for another two hours, running around the maze, not going too deep just in case. She runs as fast as she can, straining herself to go faster, harder. It feels so good to just let go, let her anger, frustration and hurt work transform into energy, letting it all out. She runs for another hour, going slightly deeper into the maze. She checks her watch, slowing slightly as she reads that she has about thirty minutes before the doors close. She smiles to herself, knowing that she will have to sprint the entire way back. She turns around, and sets off, sprinting around the corners, pumping her legs and arms to make herself go faster. She's just sprinting down the last corridor into the glade when the doors begin to close, and she runs through them with ample time to spare, running straight into the glade, past all of the slack-jawed runners as they grouped around the other doors, looking at her incredulously; she had run past quite a few of them on her rounds of the maze, almost sprinting most of the time, and each time, they had stopped running, looking at her in shock, and one pair had said in awe and disbelief; "Didn't we just see her like an hour ago? She must have been running like crazy" She just keeps running, slowing to a jog as she nears the map room. She enters, seeing Minho leaning over a map, and he looks up at her, relieved. "How shucking fast did you run sweetheart?" He asks, and she responds with "Dunno, but I can take two sections tomorrow, Harry's sick anyway, and I ran at least four or five today" Minho's eyebrows shoot up, and he just nods numbly, and replies "Yeah, I know, five pairs of runners saw you sprinting past like a shucking arrow, all thought you'd seen a griever or something like that" Eleanor laughs breathlessly, and Minho adds "That's fine, you can run with me for our section, then take off and cover Harry and Peter's section; Harry's sick and Peter did some shuck to his leg today" Eleanor nods enthusiastically, and says "Great. Now let's get started on these maps" Minho nods, and they draw maps up for about an hour, Eleanor pointing out different things she noticed on her un today, and half way through, Minho had left to get some dinner from Frypan, bringing something back for Eleanor, and they ate in the map room, talking and laughing. Thomas joined them walking over to the hammocks, talking to Eleanor for a while before heading off to his own hammock. Eleanor falls asleep soon afterwards, and wakes up bright and early the next morning, almost repeating yesterday's routine. She runs in pace with Minho for their section, and then sprints off towards Harry and Peter's two sections, sprinting down corridor after corridor, sharply turning bend after bend, never stopping or slowing down, and it feels great. She makes it back to the glade at around the same time as yesterday, and heads straight for the map room again. She meets Thomas along the way, and he comes and talks to her while she maps, asking incredulously "You ran three entire sections? And two in just three hours?" She nods, looking down, yet laughing as he says "you're gonna have a smoking bod pretty soon" She responds quickly with "And I don't already?" They both laugh, heading to dinner after everyone else had eaten, with Minho; who had joined them a bit later in the map room. She repeats roughly the same thing for about three more months, exploring outer corridors as she can go faster for longer. After a few months of sprinting all day every day, Eleanor realises that Thomas was right, she had gotten a fit body. Her legs are now heavily toned, her stomach completely flat with soft outlines of abs hinting at her fitness level. She no longer talks to many gladers other than Minho, Thomas, Winston occasionally, and Alby when important. She still thinks about Newt, but makes a point of spending hours in the map room or the deadheads to miss him at breakfast and dinner, not wanting to see him. Every now and the she'll see him from a distance, but she'll always look away and concentrate on something else. She had no idea that he had watched her transformation from a bubbly, chatty and beautiful girl into a hard set, athletic, reclusive shadowed excuse for a girl. Most people don't notice the change that she had gone through, losing her best friend, but the people that know her do, though they thoroughly avoid hinting at the subject. Winston had told her once "He's an absolute mess, like the opposite of you. He still works, but just mopes about in his free time. He has permanent bags under his eyes and looks like he wants cry and punch something at the same time 24/7" Eleanor had looked at him surprised, and he had added "Yeah. And once, someone made some joke about how fit you're looking after running so much, and he just stormed off, and didn't speak to anyone for the rest of the day" That night, they had another party for the new greenie, and Eleanor allowed herself to wind down a bit, talk to some people tonight, having being persuaded by Thomas and Minho. She sat in a circle with Jeff, Winston, Jack, Liam, Minho and Thomas. She didn't really know Jack or Liam all that well, and they were playing truth or dare. It was Liam's turn, and he smirked, looking at Eleanor and asking her "truth or dare, speedy" She laughed, and replied bravely "dare, try me" Liam laughed, and said "Hmmm… I dare you to…" He trailed off, looking around for some inspiration, and he snapped his fingers, saying "I know! I dare you to make out with someone for thirty seconds!" Eleanor laughed, squinting at him and saying defiantly "I accept. Who?" Liam frowned, looking around the circle, and said "Minho" Eleanor shrugged, lifting her head off of Minho's shoulder where it had been resting and said jokingly to him "get ready for the best kiss of your life, buddy" Minho laughed, smirking at her and challenging "I bet you can't do it" She raised an eyebrow at him and leaned in, kissing him for a full thirty seconds. They pulled away, took one look at each other, and burst out laughing, Eleanor collapsing on his lap, shaking with laughter. Liam frowned, muttering "Well that's not how I expected it to go" Eleanor just laughed, resting her head on Minho's leg, calming down, and said "ok, my turn" She looks around, and she says slyly "Winston, truth or dare" Winston looks at her and replies "Dare" Eleanor laughs gleefully, saying "I dare you to kiss Gally on the cheek" Winston gasped, looking at her and then saying defiantly "Fine" Before walking up, kissing Gally on the cheek super quickly, and running back to the group, who were all laughing extremely hard. He mumbled a "Shut up" Eleanor headed to bed a while later, having to get up and go running the next morning. Little did she know that Newt had been watching the whole ordeal, and was currently fuming, breaking inside over how quickly she had gotten over him.