By the time you hear the sirens, it's too late. You've already shot your best friend, and you're running because there's nothing else you can do. You're running down residential blocks, and the cops are coming after you.  The trees cast dark shadows across the sidewalk, and you stumble because you can't run forever.

Jim's parents must have heard the shot, and now the cops are chasing you.  You didn't mean to do it; it was only an accident.

But you ran.  And now you're still running, gasping for breath and panting.  Your sweat starts to drip off your forehead and wiping your arm across your brow only slows you down.  They are coming after you. No one else accidentally shot Jim, and for all they know, it wasn't even an accident. And you're running.  Why would you run if it was an accident?

And of course, maybe it wasn't.  But—you didn't mean to pull the trigger. Hell, you didn't even know the gun was really loaded.  It's all his fault anyway; he just had to show you his dad's gun.  But that doesn't change the fact that you're running.  You're running from the cops, and now you'll resist arrest, which will be another crime.  So you're going to be nailed for resisting arrest and shooting your friend—accidentally, but they don't know that—and the only thing you can do is to keep running.

At the end of another block, you bring your run to a slow stagger.  You start coughing, and the metallic, guitar-string taste hacks itself out of the back of your throat. You're coughing.  You're winded and can't keep up this pace any longer.

You have to hide, but where?  The cops are coming; you can hear their sirens, and you can't go back home. You can't let them find out that it was you.  So you go and hide in someone's bushes and wait.  You wait there listening to your heartbeat and the sirens come and go.  You cover your eyes half hoping that you'll uncover them and wake up from just another bad dream, but when you open your eyes, nothing's changed.

Maybe it was just an ambulance that came to take Jim to the hospital.  Maybe Jim isn't hurt.  Maybe you just started running when you heard the gun go off. You hadn't seen any blood, right?  But even after all of that, you ran. And now you're hiding because you're scared and rational thought doesn't process because you're still in the delirium of the gunshot.  You think crazy thoughts, and nothing really plays out. You can't hear the sirens anymore, but you don't know if it's too soon to go back home.  Or should you go back to Jim's house to see if everything's okay?

You lay there crying like what Jim would've called, "a scared bitch," and you pray to a God you only believe because your parents keep telling you He'll turn you blind if you stare into the sun.  You're curled up into a ball with your grass-stained jeans covered in tears now because you're trying to poke your eyes out with your knees—still grasping to the idea that seeing is believing. The tears mix with your snot and spit.

Feeling someone's hand on your shoulder,you turn around to see Jim's dad standing over you.  "I'm sorry," you spit at him in a garbled mixture of snot and tears.  He slaps you hard and pulls you up by your collar.  He starts dragging you towards his truck, and you kick and scream, but no one else is around.  The grass is slippery and the bushes just scratch your arms when you reach for them.

"You little son of a bitch!" he screams at you. "What the hell do you think you were doing with my gun?"

You look up at him and see that desperate craziness in his brown eyes.  You know that Jim sometimes shows up to school with bruises too big to have come from any fight with a kid, and you start to wonder what kind of bruises you might show up with next week—if you show up at all.

"Don't," you manage to say, but no one hears you.  Jim's dad pulls you up by your shirt and throws you down into the middle of the street.

"Looks like you're about to have an accident, kid," he says. Your hands hit the gravel and little rocks dig in under your skin.  The smell of tar and rubber rubbed thin enough to crack fills your nose.  "You know how often little kids get hit by cars at night?" Jim's dad asks, getting back in his truck. He guns the engine.

Taylor Collier is a Master's student in the creative writing program at UNT. He lives with his wife in Lewisville, Texas, and his work has previously appeared in places such as Main Street Rag, SNReview, Zygote in my Cofee, and others.