I sat there, staring into the sky, not sure what I was doing in a grassy field. The breeze blew my dark brown hair behind me, it felt like some sort of movie, but it was definitely colder than you might expect.
I tugged the zipper of my pink leather jacket up as to keep the cold off of me a bit more. Everything else except the chill in the air seemed perfect.
I looked around and noticed the purple flowers that surrounded me. Everything was so beautiful and calm. So how come I didn't feel the same?
Soon enough, my friend showed up, and ruined the quiet. "Ari! We were looking for you forever! Why would you go hiding in a big empty field? Literally, there isn't even any WiFi out here. Why would anyone want to be here?"
I sighed and shrugged my shoulders, "Just needed some time to think, I guess." Cat stared at me blankly.
"Are you like, mad at me or something?" She demanded. I told her she was being silly, of course I wasn't, to which she replied, "You are mad at me! I can tell, ya know. You are mad at me or my name isn't Catrina Alana Roosevelt." Oh yeah, this girl was related to President Franklin Roosevelt, too.
I sighed in defeat and walked to the passenger side door and climbed in, mumbling, "Believe what you want to believe, I guess."
We had started on our drive back to town when Cat asked me, "How did you even get to that.. field place anyways?" I looked over at her blankly, confused of how she hadn't figured it out yet.
"There's literally a shortcut to it from behind my house. When I went out to go get air, I walked to the field. There was sort of no reason for you to drive over there," I said with a small laugh. She looked at me briefly, and then back at the road.
"Well, either way, we were all pretty worried about whether or not you were okay, you just up and vanished, that's not how you're supposed to treat your friends, Arianna. We were super worried," She vocalized, repeating the fact about how they were worrying over me.
As we got to my house, she didn't turn the car off, "You go in, I'm going to go home, rest for a while. I haven't been feeling the best today." I nodded and closed the car door. She drove off with a small smile and a wave.
I went inside to find absolutely no one. I looked around to make sure none of my friends that were over decided to hide or something, and then decided that everyone must have gone home. I found myself looking through the window towards the meadow, where all of a sudden, I found much fear in my heart.
It looked like a construction team was setting up a fence on the perimeter of the meadow. My heart felt like it had skipped a beat, and for a moment, I knew true fear. That meadow was where I went for solace and utter peace. I hoped with all my heart that nothing was going on that would ruin that for me. I grabbed my sunglasses, put my jacket back on, slipped on some more comfortable shoes, and went out the back door. I tried to look calm, but couldn't help myself, and I ended up almost scurrying across my backyard and to where the construction workers were.
With the wind brushing in my face, I folded my arms in front of me, and approached one of the workers. "I hope I'm allowed to ask you this, and that you might know, but what's going on here? I live just over there," I pointed to my house, "and I was wondering what's going to be happening to this meadow."
The man looked very tired and bored, and didn't seem to want to put up with my silly questions, but he answered them anyways, "Ma'am, we're starting the building process for a simple basketball court. That's all I know. Construction shouldn't take long, and I'm sure the neighborhood will be benefited with the new addition.
I stumbled back a step, to get out of his way, and my mind went blank. "A-a.. A basketball court? They do have one of those down the street a little ways, are you sure this is needed? I'm not sure the noise being so close to residencies will be a good idea," I stuttered, following after him, as I tried to get my mind around the idea of that beautiful meadow being destroyed for some basketball court.
The worker shrugged his shoulders, "Ma'am, I really do have no control of the situation. You would have to talk to my supervisors or somewhere up the line. I'm just putting up a fence for the safety of the community, that is my only part." I nodded and thanked him for his help. I backed off, away from where the fence was being placed, and crouched to the ground. I picked one of each flower, trying to save them as long as I could. I ran to my house, and placed them under books, to flatten them so I could save them for later on.
I went upstairs and grabbed my Polaroid, tri-pod, and camera. I took them outside and took pictures. Artsy ones, goofy ones, ones of just the scenery, everything I could think of. I had to keep the memories of this park for as long as I could. I waved to the workers whenever they stopped to see what I was doing, and they would shake their heads and go back to work. When I went inside, I had a massive amount of photos.
I sorted through all of them, and put them into a folder on my computer. I then put that folder onto my hard drive and put everything away. I may not still have the meadow, but I could at least have the memories.
To this day, there are still children playing basketball in that court. I've grown old, and my hair has grown grey, but anytime I feel lonely, I pull out that scrapbook and remember the meadow.
The End
Well, there's my short story! I hope y'all liked it, as it is my first book posted here on Wattpad *clapping in background*, and that you check out some of my other stuff when I write it. You guys really are awesome (I say to a nonexistent audience[cause no one would want to read my stuff lol]) I'll try to keep writing more books, whether they're short stories or teen fiction, or whatever, really. You guys can PM me ideas of books you'd like to read, and I'll try to make those dreams come true for you as best as I can!
<3, Mary
