All It Takes

Prologue

"TRISTEN! TRISTEN! TRISTEN! WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!" My annoying 8-year-old brother bolts in the room yelling his little head off with a big toothless grin on his face. "What do you want!" I groan as I turn away from the sunlit window. Im used to him yelling like the house burning down so I never really get worried, even if he's yelling EMERGENCY! at the top of his lungs.

"Its your birthday!" He says. I cover my face and say, "I know! Doesnt that mean I get to sleep in?" "Umm..." He thinks for a moment. "No!" his smile grows even wider and more devilish than before. I uncover my face and finally give in. "Okay, Im awake. Now you need to get out so I can get changed." He exits the room but waits outside the door to make sure I actually get up. I roll out of me bed and onto my feet. I put on shorts, a cute top, and put my golden-brown hair up in a messy yet good looking bun.

I open the door and my brother looks at me approvingly. He had changed into a tux while I was getting changed. I pop a piece of gum into my mouth and ask him what hes wearing. "I got to look presentable on your birthday malady. Plus, Matts wearing one!"

"Matt? You mean like, my boyfriend Matt?"

" Yeah!" He answers in a pleased tone.

"I'll be right back. I gotta change really quick." He sighs as I run into my room. I put on a navy blue flowered dress that goes just above my knee. It has a braided leather belt at the waist and 2 spaghetti straps on either side. I spray myself twice with perfume and make sure my bun still looks good. I smile at myself in the mirror and then walk back out.

My brother glared at me in his funny way and said "You smell nice. And that took an awful long time just to change!" I stick my tongue out at him and he sticks his out while he weaves his arm through mine. As we walk down the stairs I realize that he's got dress shoes on where as I'm barefoot. I think if I shouldve put on shoes but that thought disappears when we go around the curve at the bottom of the stairs and I see Matt in a black tux with a white shirt a black bowtie, holding a bouquet of sunflowers.

"Happy birthday beautiful!" He gives me a quick peck on the cheek and he hands me the flowers. I smell them and they smell like my moms old perfume, which is a great smell if youre wondering, and I love it! "They're beautiful!" I say and he counters it by saying, "Not as beautiful as you!" He grins his cute grin. I smile.

"Well, I'm here to ask you if you want to go on a picnic!" I acted as if I was thinking even though I knew, and so did he, that the answer was definitely, totally, freaking yes!

"Well I guess!" He takes my arm and leads me to the door where I slip on my black moccasins. Then we walk through the door and close it behind us.

I look over into his kind blue eyes and run my fingers through his golden-brown hair. He's still smiling and my smile was a mere pathetic, drooling reflection of his. We walk down the stone pathway and onto the sidewalk where we walked for about a mile until we reach Chimney Bluff National State Park. My family kind of lives in the middle of nowhere so it isn't that much of a surprise that we live next to the Bluffs because they're in the middle of the woods.

We walk down the paths until we reached the first lookout place and we set up a blanket and picnic basket. We sit there looking out over the water, cliffs, and rocky beach around us. We have potato salad, egg salad sandwiches, and fruit salad. Yes, I know what youre thinking, That's a lot of salads! But that's some of the only things he knows how to make.

Afterwards we picked up our stuff and head down to the beaches. The beach was slowly getting smaller, all the sand was gone there was now only rock, so I kept my moccasins on. I collected Zen stones and made a few towers out of them while I sit with my knees pulled up to my chin.

As I was finishing up one of the smaller ones Matt reached for my hand and pulled me to my feet. He took out his phone and started some music. He sets his phone down on a log and grabbed my other hand in his free hand. We started to rock back and forth as if we were on a boat and the waves were carrying us further out to sea. I watched the sunset and how the last rose gold rays made Matts hair look like a gold shimmering waterfall cascading over his face. I always knew I was in love with him, but this moment confirmed his love for me, cause at that moment, he leaned in and kissed me. For the first time, he gave me a kiss, and it wasnt me giving him a kiss. Although I leaned even further into him and kissed him back.

He finally pulled away, and reached into his pocket pulled out a ring box, and bent down on one knee. He opened it and there was a beautiful silver ring with tiny blue sapphires imbedded in the band and one bigger white sapphire in the middle. My eyes got wide and he said, "Will you, Tristen Garcia Rojas, be my beloved girlfriend, and, eventually, marry me?" He added the word possibly at the end. I get down and wrap both my arms around his neck and give him a kiss. He pulled me up and I laid my head down on his shoulder and we sat there swaying from side to side as the music played softly, yet it sounded like it was all around us.

In the distance we both heard a Bang! And then 2 more, Bang! Bang! I turned my head just in time to see the 3 bullets come towards me. I tried to move but it felt as though my feet were melted into the sand. I watched as all three went through my stomach and my legs snapped back and gave way. I landed in the sand and I saw a fuzzy figure bend over me, wrapping his arms around me, and I could barely make out Mat's face. He was saying something but all I could hear was a ringing that sounded far away, like a person screaming in the distance. And then all of the sounds hit me like the bullets I had just been shot with. It was me screaming and Matt was trying to calm me down by saying things like Tristen, calm down. And Everything is going to be ok.

I felt blood trickling down my back and for some weird reason I could feel it leaking into the sand and into mother earths grasp. Everything was still fuzzy and my peripheral vision was getting eaten away by black clouds. It started to get the rest of my eyesight so before everything went black and numb, I whispered to him, "Mathew William Myres", pause... "I do." And with that the black clouds took over the rest of my vision and my body was going numb well I thought to myself, Im ready...