A Bullet is the Key.

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Days became just that- Days. Time was just a set of numbers we measured each day by and then once those twenty- four hours were up we began to count them once more. Seconds, What are seconds? How are we able to measure each moment by seconds when seconds lead to minutes then minutes into hours. As of now at twenty-two years old I have been on this earth for

698,198,400 seconds, 11,636,640 minutes, 193,944 hours. But then those seconds and minutes transform and become days, weeks, months then vanish into years that seem to race by so quickly we only catch a slight glimpse before its gone.

Born October 27, 1992 coming into this world at only five pounds eight ounces I was a month premature to this world a tiny baby placed in an incubator for two weeks before I could go home. I was tiny so little that my father could hold my head in his hand and my feet would barely touch the groove of his elbow. I was my mother's pride and joy, my father's little princess who he would keep locked away in a tower if he could.

Our little family became whole on that day a perfect family until death knocked on our door years later and shattered our little family by taking her away- she never saw me graduate, go to college and she will never see me marry if I make it that long.

With her gone from sight she was never gone from our hearts, she was always there; guiding, guarding, loving and watching us as we moved forward.

My time seemed to slip by so quickly that I had already been here for 8,081 days, 1,154 weeks, and 266 months then transforming and vanishing into a total of twenty-two years. When we all think of our lives in the future we think of the career, housing, place and then finally whom we choose to spend the remainder of our life with. Twenty-two years I should have been able to decide what I wanted to do, but as the days went on it seemed all those dreams and aspects I thought I wanted changed. My dream became different. That once long ago dream of living till I was old and gray soon seemed to suddenly slip through my wings like water. When you hold a dream in your hands it shouldn't run through your fingers like water where it just... vanishes in nothing. When I thought of my dreams I thought it would be like the grains of sand in an hourglass that slowly fell down into the bottom glass. My hourglass should have been full to the top, the sand finally running out when it was my time to go- time to leave this place where everyone was left with spectacular memories of my accomplishments and me. How stupid of me to think that I could stop fate and let me live longer.

Ryder Jameston was born a year prior to me.

December 14, 1991

His mom told me he was a huge baby when he was born that he weighed in at seven pounds eight ounces and as long as anyone's arm.

Turning twenty-three only a little less than a month after the incident, I know what a wonder birthday present that was. Temporarily blind with stitches stitched to your head and huge shiny shades covering your eyes.

Ryder has been here longer than I have can you believe that I mean of course you can since he was born a year before me.

His seconds almost ended before they reached 725,673,600, before his minutes ticked to 12,094,560 and before he even reached that 201,576-hour of his life.

At twenty-three years old he has lived for 8,399 days, 1,199 weeks and then up to 276 months.

This story is as much of his as it is mine but there is a difference Ryder may have been shot and almost ran over but the emotional damage that is falling on my shoulders scares me. Thing is Ryder was not supposed to be shot that day- that bullet was supposed to be aimed at me. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time and me well I wasn't even close to campus that day.