A Word of Encouragement for the Broken

Courage

The girl loved to walk alone at night. It was a time she could use to escape from the fear and pain that she held in her heart. One night as she walked, she came across a boy who seemed about her age. The boy sat on a bench with his head buried in a pair of trembling knees that were being held close to his chest.

As she drew nearer, the girl noticed the soft, quiet sobs escaping from the boy's lips. The girl recognized the sobs as similar to the ones that she had often let out. Realizing this, she shifted her direction of walking towards the bench upon which the crying boy had placed himself.

When he heard the sound of her approaching footsteps, the boy looked up in shock, too surprised to worry about the tears that were still running down his pale face or to stop her from sitting down. Moved by her recognition of the boy's overwhelming pain, the girl wrapped her arms around the boy in a comforting hug. She leaned her head toward his ear and whispered into it a word she had often repeated to herself at times like these. "Courage," she said. At the moment in which the word had reached his ear, the boy stiffened and his tears ceased. The girl pulled away, looking into his lifeless and confused eyes. She smiled, got up and made her way back to her home after letting a tear of her own drop onto the boy's outreaching hand.

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So tell me, Should I add on to this story and make it a book, or should I just continue to write more short stories?

Comment below.

~Teresa Terlisner