Better Than Any Ride

Chapter 3

It wasn't supposed to be this way. But it was. It was.

That was all I could think as I looked at the ground around me. We had sat here as little girls. We had climbed this tree. We had swam in the creek. We had done so many things here. It was a part of me. It was as much a part of me as my name is a part of me. I just knew I wouldn't be able to simply forget this place. It had far to much meaning. I lied down on the soft grass and looked up through the tree limbs. There were so many times during the springs and summers that went by that I would just come and sit here. Just to feel close to her. Just to be able to feel my sister again. As I lied down in the grass I slowly moved my hands through the grass, just feeling the soft grass and the dirt beneath my hands. If only things weren't so complicated. I thought. As I ran my hands through the grass my right hand bumped into something laying on the ground. I sat up and reached my hands out to pick up what was lieing in the grass.

A rock. The rock. Our rock.

It was the rock we had used to carve our message into the tree. I could still hear Anna, my sister, saying we should keep the rock near the tree and never get rid of it. That it would be something that would never let us forget our lives here no matter what happened. So that even when we went to college and got married we would still remember our past together. If only she knew that this rock would bring more sadness to me than joy. That she wouldn't get to see this rock again. That she wouldn't have the oppurtunity to go to college or to get married. I grabbed the rock and ran my fingers over it just thinking of all the things Anna never got to experience. The things she had planned on experiencing, but never would. Slowly, I pushed myself off the ground and stood up as I turned my back on the tree. I looked at the rock one more time before I walked towards the creek and did something I thought I would never do.