Flashes

Chapter 1

"Now," Serena whispered loudly as  she caught her breath.

The moment Grace's team heard Serena's command, they quickly launched the water balloons on to the other team from behind the tree house. This was Capture the Flag. Grace ducked behind the wooden planks which were getting worn down to avoid the water balloons the other team threw back. She was a defender, while the other half of her team was on the field. Grace saw Conner hiding behind a tree. In front of the tree was Jack, who wasn't on Grace's team. Jack didn't notice that Conner was behind the tree. Grace took two water balloons and struggled to keep them from slipping out of her hands. She threw both balloons one after the other at Jack as the water dripped out down her hand making her throw not-so-great.

Jack tired dodging, but he was still hit by the balloons. Ignoring the fact that he was wet, he ran to grab a few water balloons, giving Conner a chance to move to a different place. Grace nearly missed the first water balloon and got hit by the second one that Jack threw at her. Pretending to throw water balloons at Jack, Grace kept her eyes focused on Conner as he ran. Exhausted, Grace stopped attacking Jack once she saw Conner get closer to the base. Realizing that if she didn't launch water balloons, Jack would go back to guarding the flag again, she flung a water balloon straight for Jack just as he turned around. Before, Jack threw anything back at her, Conner had got the flag and returned it to their base. Grace's team cheered for Conner and enjoyed their win.

All of them decided to go out for fro-yo. They grabbed their bikes and pedaled on the empty sidewalk. Grace, trying not to bump into anyone, kept herself between Serena and Conner. Now that their game was over, she could talk to both of them. Glancing at Serena, Grace noticed some of Serene's long blonde hair escaping from her high ponytail. Serena's eyes resembled the cloudy sky on a rainy day. Her skin was slightly tanned from being outside so much.

"Hey, that was a nice game," interrupted Conner.

"Yeah," Grace agreed looking at Conner for a quick second and then looking back at the road to see which way she was going.

His sea blue eyes were calm and peaceful as always. His dark brown hair was kind of messy and he smiled at Grace as he said something.

"What?" Grace said, who realized she was focusing too much on Conner.

"I was wondering if you wanted to go to the park this weekend," Conner repeated.

Is he blushing? Grace thought.

"Um, I can't," Grace said.

As soon as Grace replied, she wondered why she even said that.

I have always wanted to do something like that with Conner. Why did I say no? What was I thinking? I wanted to say yes. I was going to say yes, but the word just came out as no. I need to say yes. This is my chance.

"What I meant to say was no."

She did it again. It's as if her mind won't let her say yes. She didn't now what was wrong, but she didn't try again because she didn't want to embarrass herself in front of Conner again.

"Yeah, you already said that," Conner mumbled trying to hide his disappointment.

The rest of the day went by fast. They had ice cream and hung out in the park for a while. Grace avoided talking to Conner because she didn't want to make this weirder than they already were. After that, everyone headed home. Instead of going home, Grace when to her friend Serena's home. Serena dragged Grace upstairs into Serena's room immediately.

The first thing she said was, "Why didn't you say yes? I know that you always wanted to do that."

Grace explained to Serena how she couldn't say yes no matter how hard she tried.

"I will be back," Serena said leaving the room when she heard her mother calling.

Grace impatiently walked around trying to figure out why she could not say yes. She walked over to Serena's large wooden bookcase and stared at the titles of many books which she knew were good.  She never bothered to read many of them, but she did read a few of them. The ones she did read were her favorites. Her eyes moved from one end to another, reading the title of each book. She noticed a golden locket.

Serena entered the room and asked, "What are you looking at?"

"This locket. I feel like I have seen it before. Where did you get it?"

"I don't know. I think I got it a yard sale. I don't remember though."

Grace picked up the locket and looked at it cautiously. After a while an images flashed in her head.

Grace saw a little girl reading a book outside. There was a strike of lightning and the girl dropped the book and ran into the house near by. The book laid flat on the ground. Then it suddenly opened and it seemed as it was flipping to the right page. I landed on a page and words or black lines squished together flew out of the page. The page was blank. Then the image disappeared.

Grace shook herself out of the vision and sat down on Serena's bed.

"Did you see that?" Grace asked Serena.

"See what?"

"So you didn't see it?"

"No. What happened?"

"I saw this vision...and it was weird."

Grace took deep breaths and slowly started explaining what happened to Serena and what she saw. Shocked, Serena just laughed and said that Grace was imagining things. Serena took the locket from Grace's hand as Grace talked about how the locket had power.

"It does not have power," Serena explained, trying to talk some sense into her friend.

"But..how do you explain what I saw?"

"You are probably just imagining. You were tired during the game. You should probably go home and get some rest. I will hang on to the locket until we meet tomorrow."

Serena didn't give Grace a choice. Knowing that Serena won't change her mind, Grace agreed, especially since she need to rest. Grace went home in time for dinner. Afterwards, when she tired to sleep, all she could do was think of what she was. She wondered about what that meant and why she could only see it. She wanted to believe that Serena was right. It was just Grace's imagination, but it seemed too real to be fake. It felt close to her heart as if she was connected to it.