The Next Path (Extended)

Just because something blows you away it doesn't make you a lightweight. That's what Nathan told himself as he faced Bryan across the blackened grass that only hours before had held the flames of the campfire. There were words coming at him, head-on; spittle following, fists clenched and ready to come at him too. So Nathan shouted his thoughts, momentarily confusing Bryan and a crease to cut his angry face in two.
Nathan shut his eyes, expecting the punch, waiting for the feel of sweaty flesh and bony knuckles to split his skin, spill his blood. There was nothing, although he could hear Bryan’s laboured breathing, the stale breath making his stomach knot and churn, so he knew something was about to happen.
Squinting, Nathan opened one eye. Bryan was no longer in front of him, he was off to one side, hands limp at his side. Taking his place in front of Nathan was Katie. Just as he was about to speak, she cut him short with a slap. The sting, the redness that was more than embarrassment, the shock of it, all combined in one huge emotional burst and with a quick turn Nathan was running full pelt from the camp. Words rang after him: Don’t. Come. Back. Her voice.
Again, Nathan found himself the outcast.

Leaning back against the gnarled trunk of an oak tree, its leaves whispering peacefully in the weak breeze winding through the woods, Nathan thought back to the day his grandfather had passed away. How, walking back towards home, the clouds had grown sullen, frowning as the news sank in. There on the corner, leaning like a council labourer against the bowing dry-stone wall, was Mrs Kirkbride.
Homely; a word Nathan thought was surely invented to describe Mrs Kirkbride – Gertie to her very close friends (and half the village behind her back, she being the gossipmongers’ choice for their daily tittle-tattle and rounds of spitefulness they liked to advertise as ‘Coffee Mornings’). Closely permed hair nestled under a grubby cloth cap; pinprick eyes cushioned by crinkled skin, so small Fat Tony called them “piss holes in the snow”; a smile that showed no teeth – because, even though you couldn’t tell, Mrs Kirkbride didn’t have any and found dentures uncomfortable. The worst thing – and at that precise moment, a nightmare Nathan was about to endure – was the way she greeted any child in the village.
As Mrs Kirkbride held Nathan in an embrace tighter than a wrestler’s leotard he could feel her nipple pressed against his forehead like a bully’s finger, accusing. Right there and then he’d made a decision. He needed to get out, get away, escape, to run from something so big he couldn’t face it. The thing that had led him to people like Bryan, Katie, Fat Tony and the rest of the travellers. He'd had enough of the small town mentality, the pain of growing up in this goldfish bowl. It was time for adventure.
Some adventure it had turned out to be. So far.
For Nathan, it was only just beginning.