Letters To Bri

Friends

Riley's POV:

The past few days, I wrote about a dozen letters, and gave them all to Christian. He said he loved them, and asked me to continue writing them, and I did so. Christian and I got close. We were good friends. Our family had him over for dinner; success! He was very polite, and had great manners. He loved my letters so much, he asked if we could make a website. I of course said yes. So after that agreement, we got straight to work. It took about a day to complete everything, with all the fancy words and designs. We started out with little views, and they rose about every day or two. We posted things about Brian and his story about how everyone already misses him. I told him what to post, and he did it. But one day, something happened that we couldn't believe.

We went on our website, checked our views, but they weren't normal. They went from 700 views to 11K. We didn't believe what we saw. We refreshes the page a few times, but it only went up every few minutes. We also started with a few comments, but those went up too. We checked the comments. They were pretty normal:

Love your page! You are a very sweet person for doing this for Brian. I'll pray for you and your friend:)

Aww!! soo sweet!

U r a very good person 4 doing this!!

But there was one comment, that stuck out from all the rest. Christian red it aloud:

"Dear Boscobel Schools Resident,

My name is Mr. Knowles, the principle of the Northridge middle school/high school, I live around your area and have heard about Brian, and have been told he was a great kid. I was hoping he would come to our school because he lives closer, but I guess it was better to go to Boscobel, where he met you. You are a very nice young lady, and for making this website for Brian, is even better. You are a great person. I'm going to ask you a favor, it would be wonderful if you could do it. A high school kid in ninth grade had just passed away, his mane was Michael Jacobs. He died from a cancer in the bones. Doctors found it after he injured his leg playing football. but they knew of course it wasn't because he fractured his leg, they figured it was just a virus that he caught. He passed away this Tuesday, in the same hospital Brian passed away. My favor I ask you is, well, would you be willing to give a speech at our school? After reading some of your letters-"

"Woah, woah woah!" I yelled at Christian, "you posted some of my letters?!"

"Well, yeah. I-"

I gave him an angry look.

"Just- Listen to the rest of what the principle has to say."

I nodded and he began reading again.

"... After reading some of your letters, I thought they were absolutely beautiful. Wonderful word choices. I want you to give a speech at my school, talking about Brian, and helping our students get through what they're going through, and I know you already went through it. I want you to help the students understand that everything is going to be alright. Why you and not me? Well, I've been searching for someone like you, read some of their speeches, and it was all just... blah. I didn't like it. You have a good way of saying and writing things. And I pick you as the chosen one. I wasn't expecting it to be a sixth grader, but... so what? Riley, I like you. I like your letters, and I'm sure your speech will be even better. What ya say hot shot? Reply to me with my email; rknowles@northridge.net

"I'll hopefully see you soon."

"Wow," I said, "That's long."

"A bit too long," Christian said closing the laptop. "What ya say Riley?"

I stared at the ceiling. "I don't know Christian, I don't really-"

"They're giving us a hundred or so."

"Christian, I don't care about the money!" I said flying my hands in the air, "I honestly just want to do this for Brian."

"So you're saying you'll do it?"

"Ugh!" I said relaxing back in my chair. He stared at me, I stared at him. I blew the hair out of my face, He crossed his arms. We both sat there for a moment. I finally gave in. "Yeah. Sure, whatever."

"Yes!" Christian shouted, and hammerfisting my desk. "So if you want to do it for Brian, does that mean I get the money?"

I shook my head in relief. "Behave yourself, and we'll see."

We checked the comments that kept rising up, along with the views. We couldn't believe what was happening.

_______

Later, Christian suggested Taco Johns, and I gave him two thumbs up sating yes.

That evening, we had a wonderful supper. It was fast food, but fast food is still good, but not as healthy.

That night, I laid in my bed, thinking about the website. About how many views that it would get. I wondered a lot about my future and what it holds.Was this website going to be my career?