The Story of Us

chapter one

"Mama, who are those people over there?", I questioned as I ran onto our porch.

"That's our new neighbors.", she replied, "They're moving here from North Carolina. Do you know where that is, Ava?"

I sat there for a minute, thinking. "Well, I know it's a few states away from Florida, right?", I replied.

"That's right, Ava, you're so smart!", she exclaimed.

"Can we go meet them, Mama?", I begged.

She shrugged, "I don't see why not."

So we walked across our yard, to the house beside ours where the family was unloading their belongings from a moving truck. There was 3 of them, two adults and one boy around my age.

They looked to us and smiled warmly as we approached them.

"Hi, we're the Bradley's.", the woman smiled widely, "I'm Laura and this is Blake, my husband. We also have a son, his name is Heath, he's 11."

I looked around in excitement, wanting to meet this new boy who was around my age.

"It's nice to meet you all.", Mama replied, "I'm Jennifer Jones and this is Ava, my daughter, she's 10."

"Really?", Laura asked in surprise, "Let me find Heath so you two can get to know each other. You see, back in North Carolina he was home schooled so he doesn't have many friends."

She went into the house and a moment later she came back outside with the cutest boy I'd ever seen in the 10 years I'd been alive. I'm sure my eyes were as big as the moon, he stood right in front of me and smiled a little.

"Hi, my name's Ava.", I smiled shyly.

"I'm Heath. Do you want to go play?", he questioned in excitement.

"Sure.", I replied eagerly and we ran to my backyard and began to play on the tire swing tied to the limb of the big oak tree.

I giggled as he pushed me on the swing as high as it would go. Then it was his turn and I pushed him just as high.

That summer we became best friends and I didn't know it at the time but that would be one of the best, and worst, decisions I would ever make in my life.