Only You

Chapter Four

Ryder

            For a while, I wasn’t sure where Ally would be. She could have been at the little McDonald’s we go to that no one really knows about. She could have been at her favorite ice cream shop that had her favorite cookie dough ice cream, made perfectly. It only took a couple minutes before I figured out where she would run to.

            It didn’t take me long to get there, I made it to the old abandoned park in a record of time. When we were little, it was the most popular park in town. Kids would come from all over to play at this park. There were four different colored slides, swings of all different sizes, a fake bus, teeter-totters, and a tire swing. A big storm knocked down the trees and the swings when we were little, and now no one comes to it. Apparently, it costs too much to repair it, which can clearly be seen through the damage. Even though this parked was marked as hazardous, Ally still comes here, especially at times like these when it’s getting dark.

            I parked on the side of the curb, locked my car and turned on the alarm, and headed inside the park. It gave me chills, it was almost like one of those abandoned Six Flags theme parks, and you want to just run away and hide somewhere safe. When I got inside, I saw Ally sitting on the old teeter-totter, staring off into space. Her face was red and puffy from crying, and her eyes looked angry and sad. Her hair was sticking all over the place from the humidity, and she was only sporting another crop top and shorts. She looked like a crazy woman.

            I shoved my hands in my pockets and kicked the woodchips awkwardly.

            “Hey.” I said quietly.

            “I’m fine, Ryder.” She snapped. She didn’t look up at me, still fixiated on the ground, and pulled her wild hair into a pony tail.

            “No, you’re not.”

            “But I have to be, right?” She laughed bitterly. I opened my mouth to say something, but she cut me off.

            “It doesn’t matter what I’m feeling, Ryder. I just have to suck it up and face it. My dad is going to die.” She said angrily. Tears rand down her face and she blinked rapidly trying to stop them. My heart squeezed in my chest and I wanted to hold her and tell her everything was alright, but I couldn’t do that.

            “You have every right to be angry, Ally. It’s not fair and it’s hard, no one expects you to just except it and be alright with it.”

            “What am I supposed to do?” She sniffed, wiping her tears on the back of her hand.

            “I don’t know.” I admitted. I don’t know what she was supposed to do, I couldn’t tell her anything, shit, I’m a terrible friend. “Try to see the happier sides.” I shrugged.

            “How?” She scoffed.

            “Well, he’s still here.” I pointed out. We all thought he was going to pass away when he got really sick, right in the beginning when we found out he had cancer. He was in and out of the hospital all the time, and spent two straight months in the hospital. I count the lucky stars thanking that he’s still here.

            “For now.” She said. I got up in her face and looked point blank in her eyes. I set my hands on her shoulders and she shrunk away from me a little bit.

            “Yes, for now. Stop thinking about what’s going to happen, it’s not going to be easy, Ally. You have got Tyler, and you’ve got me, so please stop scaring the shit out of me and running off. Your dad is worried about you at the moment, because he knows you’re not alright. No one expects you to be all peachy, Ally, but you have to look on brighter sides of things, not the arrival of your father’s death.”