Never Letting Go

Never Ever

I sit in Kyle’s car as he tells one of the policemen that he was taking me back to his house. When he gets in the car he passes me a bag. “It’s what they saved from the fire.” I open it to find a few smoked damaged photos of me and my family and a large white box, I opened it to find everything from my baptism is in there and hasn’t been touched by the fire, more tears stream down my face, at least I have something left. I run my fingers over every sheet of paper, staring at the beautifully formed writing that Rosa had spent hours doing only a year ago.

Kyle stops his car outside the house, we sit in the car for a while staring at the front door. I finally get the nerve to get out of the car and I end up tumbling out of the car ending up on the ground. I look up at the sky; Kyle runs over and stands over me, holding out a hand to help me up. I get up and Kyle puts his arm over my shoulder and leads me to the house.  

“Do you want to go down to the river?” he whispers

I nod. We walk through the untamed grass when we gain sight of the sparkling water. I have so many good memories here of many summer afternoons spent swimming and having barbeque lunches after church.

We sit down on the rocks, I lay my legs over top of his, not quite sitting on him.

“You ok, Darci?” he says as he brushes some of my hair out of my face.

“Yeah, I got home from a great vacation to find my parents have died in a house fire and I have lost almost everything but yeah I’m fine.”  I regret saying it as soon as I said it.

“You won’t lose me, never ever.” He looks at with his sad puppy eyes and a dorky smile on his face.

I lay down on the rocks and I hold his hand. “Never ever.” I agree.

We stay by the river till the sun starts to set when Kyle decides to move. He picks me up and runs into the water, much to my surprise its warm. I lean my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat.

“It’s hard to believe we’re just friends. You ok?” he asked slightly amused.

“Yeah, I think I might be ok.”