I was standing in the middle of a park. There was a playground to my left, but at this late in the day there was no one there. It was just starting to get dark, it was cold, windy and it was starting to rain. No one in their right mind would be standing in a park at sunset, in the rain. But I had to get out. I had to get away from everything. I had to leave it all behind.
I walked over to the bench and sat down. The park was completely empty. This usually made me feel better, being alone. But today it made me feel very lonely. Just like the hole in my chest where my heart used to be. I looked around one more time to check that I was by myself. When I saw that I was, I let the tears that were hiding, roll out. That’s where I sat for the next hour. In an empty park. In the dark, cold and rain. With silent tears rolling down my cheeks.
At what seemed like years later, I took my iPod out of my pocket and checked the time. Seeing that I had only been here for an hour I put my headphones in and put them on full volume, pulled my hood on so that it was hanging low over my eyes (that way I was hoping no one would see my swollen red eyes). I got up and walked back the way I had come. I’d usually walk past my college and look for my mates, but today I wanted to be alone. I took the back roads. They were slightly longer, but I didn’t care.
I was in my own world as I walked. Just praying that I could hold the tears back until I got into bed tonight.
Ever since last year I couldn’t stop crying. I hardly ate, I hardly slept and I hardly saw my mates. The only good thing that came out of this year is that my grades had gone up. I’d spent most of my time in the study centre. Not only because I needed to study more, otherwise I would have been kicked out of the college. But also because it was quiet. There was never anyone in the study centre, because of the pure fact that you couldn’t talk and that’s what made it perfect.
I walked around the corner and pulled my hood further down my face. Across the street at the bus stop was my group of mates. Thankful that I’d borrowed my brothers hoodie, so that they wouldn’t recognise me. I kept on walking. I stuck my hands in my pockets, looked down and continued walking. But at that second there was a big gush of wind and my hood got blown off of my head. I took a chance and looked up and sure enough, my friends had seen me. I could see them whispering among themselves, they all looked shocked and worried. Nicole looked the most shocked and she done exactly what I knew she was going to. She looked both ways down the road and started to cross the street.
I had a second to decide if I wanted to face her. She was my best friend, out of the whole group me and her had been friends the longest. Nicole was also the hottest girl in our college by far and because of that she always had a big group of guys following her. She had everything and she liked to show it, she was also very smart. She was everything I was not and somehow we’d still been able to stay friends for all this time. But there was one thing that I was better at than her, I was faster. So I ran, I ran as fast as I could.
I rounded the first corner and ripped my headphones out of my ears, otherwise they were just going to fall out and trip me over. I could hear Nicole screaming and running after me “Lou!! What’s wrong? Stop.” But I didn’t, I kept on running. The only problem was that she could of easily called anyone out of the group of guys behind her and asked them to catch me and I knew they would’ve caught me just to make her happy. But she didn’t, she chased me herself and she wasn’t giving up. I could hear her panting behind me. But I couldn’t turn around and risk her from seeing that I was crying again. So I just kept on going. I lived a few blocks away and hopefully she would give up by then.
I rounded the last corner onto my road and chanced a glance behind me and surprisingly she was still there, she was a little bit further back, but she was there and still going strong. So sometime over the past year she had obviously been spending a lot of time at the gym. I ran to my front door and flung it open. Knowing that Nicole wasn’t going to go away now, I left the door open for her. But I continued running until I got to my room, then I just chucked myself onto my bed and started sobbing into my pillow. I managed to stay that way for a full 10 seconds before Nicole was standing in my bedroom door way panting.
I glanced up and saw that she was also crying, I wasn’t sure if this was from chasing me or seeing me cry. She was my best friend, therefore if I cried, she cried. She threw herself onto the bed beside me and hugged me tightly. We stayed that way for a while, both lying there, in each other’s arms, crying. It wasn’t the first time we had done this. Since last year we had spent a lot of time like this.
After a while neither of us had any tears left, so we just lied there and stared at each other.
“I miss him, Nic” I whispered, not trusting my voice not to crack.
“Me too, Lou” she whispered back. “But just think, if Mike was here what would he say to you right now?”
“Cry a river, build a bridge and get the hell over it” I said without even thinking.
“Exactly, so where’s the Lego?”
“What? Nic, what are you on about. Lego?” I was really confused, but knowing Nic she had a plan to cheer me up as usual.
“We’re going to build a bridge and somehow get over it. Lou, Mike wouldn’t want to see you like this. When he was here he used to get so sad when you was upset. So get up and get the Lego”. With that she pushed me off of the bed and towards the door. I knew arguing wasn’t going to change anything, once she made her mind up she never changed it. So I walked to the door and went to my little brother’s room which was across the hall. I went in, ignoring the ‘danger, no entry’ sign on the door. I grabbed his big box of Lego and carried it to my room to find Nicole sitting cross legged on the floor looking down at something. I walked over and looked over her shoulder. On the floor in front of her was a picture, it was taken a week before the accident. There was me and mike next to each other holding hands, Nicole was to my left holding my other hand and Kevin was on Mikes right, with his arm wrapped around his shoulders. The picture was taken on my sixteenth birthday, at Alton towers where we had gone for a weekend, courtesy of free tickets from Nic’s dad. It was the last time I could remember being happy.
I placed the Lego on the floor next to Nic and sat down next to it so that the Lego was in between us. After I sat down Nicole leant forward and rested the picture against my dresser so that it was standing up. She then took the lid off the Lego and started pulling pieces out.
“Nic, what are you doing?” I asked. She turned to look at me and I could see that she was silently crying and I realised I was also crying.
“We’re building a bridge, it’s going to start at the photo and finish in front of us. Then it will be like we built a bridge and got over it and if we take our time we might actually make a river from our tears.” I smiled at her joke which had somehow made me feel better.
I leant across the box of Lego, kissed her cheek and whispered “Thank you, I love you.” She turned towards me, pushed the box of Lego out of the way and hugged me. After a few minutes we let each other go and started building the bridge that would soon separate me and her from my dead boyfriend.
