Free Better Than Running at Night by Hillary Frank

too fast for us even to catch a glimpse of them. The speed is exaggerated, but that is what makes the drawing interesting."
    He paced again, this time in a circle around us.
    "And Ellie, I'm glad to see that you've included Ralph—that is Ralph, isn't it?"
    I nodded.
    "I'm happy to see you've incorporated figurative elements into your work, because tomorrow"—he paused, taking a deep breath—"tomorrow we will start drawing the figure!"
    Finally.

Electric Planning
    Class got out early. I think Ed didn't want to have to come up with more comments for our work that day. I went to the computer lab. There hadn't been any mention of the e-mail I sent Nate last week. I had to write to him and tell him I took it back; it was presumptuous of me to think he was single. Maybe we should slow things down. Or just be friends.
    Also, I was curious to see whether he ever left my bed that morning. I half expected someone else to be monitoring when I opened the door. Part of me wished it
would
be someone else.
    But there he was at the front desk. Tongue pressed against the corner of his mouth. Eyes squinting at the screen. I walked up to him and he didn't notice I was there until I touched his shoulder. He jumped in surprise and quickly put the computer to sleep.
    "Shouldn't you be in class, young lady?" he asked, recovering his composure.
    "I got out early. I wanted to see if you woke up yet," I said. "What are you working on, anyway?"
    "A project." He leaned back casually in the chair.
    The screensaver stars soared toward the front of the screen.
    "I've got some e-mailing to do," I said.
    When I opened my account, I found a note from him.
ellie yelinsky, let me tell you something, sex in general doesn't mean much to me. i see it as just a way of having fun. but you are changing that, yes, YOU. i've been with LOTS of girls, and most of them have been pretty damn CUTE (like you), but never have I met someone as genuine as you. i can tell when you say things, you really mean them. NO BULLSHITTING. you are something special, don't change.
    Now what? I couldn't tell him, Sorry, I was only joking. Thanks for the compliment, but I'm not as great as you think I am.
    The thing is, I really
had
meant what I'd written to him. But I didn't necessarily mean it right now. While thinking of an appropriate response, the bottom of my screen started flashing. Apparently Nathan Finerman wanted to "talk." I typed my way to the talk screen.
    The awaiting message said:
midnight, my house.
    I wrote back:
Sort of late, don't you think? School night.
    He wrote:
come on, LIVE a little, i'm working on my project until then, don't waste away your sexual peak.
    I responded:
Okay, okay. Midnight.

Racing Dawn
    I knew I shouldn't go. I knew it as I ran there, as I ran up to the door and almost turned around. There was still a second left when I could've gone back. Even after I rang the bell, I had time. But there was a part of me rooted deep down, deeper than my brain could reach with its relentless rationality, that wanted nothing more than to see him, to lie with him, to wrap myself up in him.
    It was that simple.
    We hardly talked that night. For the first time, he seduced me in the light. I saw that his entire back was tattooed to look like the back side of a skeleton, each rib thinly outlined in permanent black. He smelled like raw paint and turpentine, an odor that once had been my own. I buried my nose in his thick hair and inhaled, as if internalizing that smell would somehow identify me as a painter again. But if given the opportunity to paint anything I wished right now, I don't know what I would've chosen. I wanted
to create images portraying subtle human emotion, images that would speak to viewers for generations to come.
    I followed the lines of his tattoo with my finger. I wondered if it was anatomically correct. This was the kind of thing I wanted to be learning in school.
    "What are you doing?" he asked.
    "Counting ribs."
    "They're all there,"