The Countdown

Chapter 3- Biking

After breakfast I pulled Tucker outside onto our swing set. It was a double swing set. A blue and a red swing set to the perfect height. Dad built it when I turned ten because I wanted a swing so badly that I built one on a tree in our backyard. One day I decided to go swing. As I started swinging, the rope snapped, I fell, and broke my arm. Dad didn't want a repeat.

I grabbed the blue swing, like always, and he sat down in the red one to my right.

"I'm sorry about that whole incident in the kitchen." I said as I sat down and started moving the swing with my feet. I tried not to get my shoes all dirty.

"It's okay. Let's not reflect on the past. What are you doing today?" He reached over a grabbed my hand.

"You mean what are we doing." I smiled and he started laughing softly. He shrugged.

"Well, if that's what you want, I guess you can hang out with a nerd like me." I punched his arm and he rubbed it as if it had hurt. That made me smile even more. "I thought maybe we could go bike riding, then stop by the library, get drinks at the Smoothie Shack and head to Neverland. What do you think of that?" He smiled and I nodded.

"Sounds better then any party."

"You sure?" I nodded again.

"Of corse stupid!"

"Then let's go!"

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Tucker's hand held mine, soft but protectively; like he wasn't ever going to let it go. And I liked it that way. As we walked towards the garage, dad stuck his head out the back door, waved us off and shut the door. We walked around the house, admiring the purple and pink tulips that were just beginning to bloom. Mom was a gardener. She spent countless hours in the garden taking care of her flowers as of they were her children, which they kinda were.

Before we were born, mom and dad had had seven miscarriages. No one knew the reasons that the babies didn't survive, and because of the lack of knowledge, mom blamed herself. She would blame herself and would cry for hours on end until my dad could get her to fall asleep. One spring day, after the third miscarriage, dad took a trip to the local nursery and picked out three beautiful flowers. he bought some potting soil and gardening tools and a "How To Garden" book and headed home. Niether him or mom had ever gardened before so that was going to come in handy. When he got home, he took everything out back and started getting a little spot ready for the garden. He walked back inside, helped my mom off the couch where she had been crying, and out back to the little garden he had started.

"It's perfect!" She said hugging my dad. He showed her the basics and let her start weeding the area, getting it ready for the flowers. Dad headed to the garage and started engraving three little stones with the names and date of the three little children that had died. When he brought them out to my mom, she burst into tears, placing the stones in front of the three flowers and falling into my dad arms. After each miscarriage, the bought another flower and engraved another stone. And when Ashton and I were born they planted fruit trees. For me, they planted a peach three and Ashton an apple tree. And ever since, mom has taken care of her garden just as much as she had taken care of us.

"Did I tell you that you look beautiful?" Tucker asked twirling me as we walked.

"Really? More beautiful then the tulips?"

"More beautiful then the peach blossoms."

"Maybe once or twice." I kissed his check making sure not to leave a lipstick mark and ran to the open garage. I pulled out my bike. A baby blue bike with wide handle bars and a wide seat. I hit out the kick stand and set it near the end of the driveway. Then I grabbed Tucker's bike. Tucker had won a bike at a school raffle once and because he already own a nice bike he left his bike at our house. Riding bikes was one of our many favorite activities as kids so it was always nice to have a bike ready to go. His bike was black. All black. He whisked his bike away from my hands and hopped on. I did the same.

"First one to Monroe Street wins." I said kicking my kickstand back up.

"What will I win?"

"If you win the race I buy smoothes, if I win you buy."

"I was going to buy anyway!" He laughed and stuck his tongue out at me.

"On your mark, get set, GO!" We both started pedaling as fast as our feet and bikes would allow. Monroe Street was 2 blocks down, through the intersection and then a sharp right. The wind blew my hair back and I smiled. It was as if I was flying and nothing was going to go wrong. We stayed at about the same pace for the first block then I started to slowly inch ahead and by the time I was nearing the end of the the second block I couldn't even see Tucker.

The intersection was pretty busy. Cars were packed on every side. I pulled down on the brake with my right hand and nothing happened. I pushed down again, harder and still nothing happened. I was going to crash!

I flew out of our quiet neighborhood and out onto the busy street. A red suburban flew out and barely missed me. The sound of brakes started to fill the air. I was going at least 20 miles an hour and I had no way of stopping. Well unless I crashed. I was coming up on the turn and I needed to turn or I was going to hit the cars in front of me. I threw my handles to the right and screamed. A semi truck was in my way. I was going to die.

"Gracie!" Tucker burst from the neighborhood and started running towards me.

It must have been a pretty loud scene, but it seemed almost silent.

It's weird when you're facing your death how you notice every single detail. The little girl holding her dad's hand and crying because she dropped her ice cream cone . Her dress was bright purple and had butterflies. The old man, probably in his mid 80's, sitting on the bench reading his newspaper from the 1950's. Headline, Woman dies in Car Accident. How ironic. The Hawaiian dancer on the dash board of the semi. Doing the hula and not noticing the commotion. Tucker, tears rolling down his face, screaming for me to stop even though he knew that I couldn't. Then it all went black.