Saying Goodbye To Andrew

Prologue

August 2007

I like to run. Feeling the wind through my hair, listening to the slaps of my shoes against the dirt roads curving through our small town. It's a rare beauty that I can enjoy.

I run in the morning, when the skies are hazy with the sun's early light and the birds are just beginning their whistling tunes. My mother doesn't know where I go when I run, but she restricts herself from worrying. Worries are what got Andrew killed. I tell her not to blame herself for it; the tragedy was accidental. But she won't listen. It's alright I guess. It inspires her to pay extra attention at church. And her refrain gives me the freedom I need, the release from life that I strive for. Literally.

I can't run forever though, as much as I wish that I had that power. So I stop when I reach my place. Nobody else knows about my place, not that they could find it anyway. Everybody has their own place. They just haven't looked for it yet. And their place hasn't looked for them.

My place is peaceful, settled in the middle of a golden wheat field, which I am unsure if it exists to others but me. I don't dare ask, I might be thought as crazy as my father was before he was hit by that pickup truck. An oak tree sits here; a grand life form, whose branches look as if they could touch the heavens. I heave my slim body over a low one and begin my climb. There isn't any foliage to hide me, not even in the summer. Not that I need to be hid. There's a person inside my place, though. I guess it's kind of a package deal. That is, if you could call him a person, I guess.

Reaching my usual spot at a fork near the trunk, I hear a smooth male voice call out to me. "Lisa!" he yells with a slightly recognizable Texan tongue. "Ya' climbed without me!"

"Sorry!" I reply in my matching accent. "You were slow today and ya' know me, mother's always said patience wasn't my bet aspect!"

He shakes his head, causing his light chestnut hair to move out of the way of his bright golden-brown eyes. I let out a sigh. "We miss ya', Andrew." I say with a noticeably melancholy tone.

He gives me an understanding look, seeing the pain in my identical eyes. He's climbed up to my height by now and gently runs his hard-worked hands through my straight blonde hair. "Sorry." He says simply. "I know you do, sis."