“You’re such a slowpoke.”
“Shut up, Anna,” I called back to my closest friend. She was always dragging me places all the time like this. Even she’d drag me away from school like she was doing now.
“We’re almost there,” she said turning around at me. “If you don’t hurry we’ll get in trouble again.”
“That’s only because you wouldn’t let us go back until I went to abandoned building,” I complained. Honestly, the girl was hopeless sometimes. It was a miracle that we were even this close of friends.
She dashed out ahead of me and started shouting with joy, “We’re here! We’re here! Hurry up and get up here!”
The hill was steep and part of me wondered how in the world she could run so fast up it. By the time I was up there with her my legs felt heavy from the journey.
“You wanted to show me the ocean?” I asked bewildered where she took me. We were on a cliff surprisingly and as far as I could see was an endless pool of water—something that I saw everyday since I lived by the beach.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked her eyes sparkling like the water below. “This is my favorite place ever.”
“I honestly could care less,” I said bluntly. My reward for that statement was a punch in the arm.
“Idiot,” she said obviously angry. “Don’t you know a thing about romance?”
“I’m a guy,” I protested. “We don’t care about any of that crap.”
Then she stormed off.
-----------------------------
Surprisingly after that we still were close friends. It didn’t take too long for her to forget the whole ‘romance equals crap’ thing. I didn’t get what she meant at first when she said that, but once I turned thirteen I understood that she liked me. Then at sixteen I realized I liked her back. That’s not the important part of the story though, so I might as well skip that and safe you from reading pointless things about stupid teenage hormones.
“Anna, are you sure you can’t see anything?”
“Yep, I’m completely blind! Well, not literally, but you know,” she said happily. I knew she was curious where exactly I was taking her, so I tied a blindfold around her eye mask to make sure she wouldn’t peek.
“You don’t trust me?” she asked.
“Yes.”
After many complaints of being blindfolded we were finally there. Her favorite place, this time I had romance on my side though.
“Okay,” I said sighing. “You can look now.”
In an instant she ripped of the blindfold and eye mask. What she saw struck her with awe. A small picnic near her favorite place. She looked at me oddly wondering what I was doing and then smiled and sat down motioning me to take a seat by her.
“What’s this for?” she asked.
“To celebrate.”
“What?”
“The fact that I love you,” I said sheepishly pecking her on the cheek. I may have moved too fast though because she sat there speechless still absorbing in what was going on. “Sorry, Anna.”
“You missed,” she said suddenly looking at me.
This confused me to know end. What in the world was I aiming at? Then new warmth hit my lips. It was so gentle and so sweet and told me what she meant.
Even though we knew each other so well there was so much I failed to understand about Anna. All that was important though was that we were happy together.
--------------------------
More years past and we got engaged, then married, and had a playful son, Brent and later a sweet daughter, Connie. Everything was like a dream and life moved by so fast until the cruelty of fate caught up with us.
First there was the dreadful coughing sound. We were told our dear Brent just had a cold so we gave him medicine and rest like any parents would. It didn’t get better though. The sun-kissed tone vanished from his skin and all the time he was sickly. The more we went to the doctor the more we were told that it was just a cold and would get better over time. Finally we lost him.
It was a terrible thing. Anna loved Brent so much and he loved her back. He followed her everywhere when he was a toddler and took after her completely. When I looked at him I swore he was just like my Anna, only in boy form. Since they were so close it only made it harder on Anna.
She didn’t go out at all, just stayed at home under the covers of our bed most of the time. Every night she cried herself to sleep and it was painful to not be able to do anything about it.
“I want to see him,” she would sob.
“Me too, honey.”
My Anna was never the same. Her hair grew long when she hated it that way. Her skin became almost as pale as Brent’s did. I felt like I was losing her too.
One day she surprised me. She got dressed and cleaned herself. Even insisted on taking care of Connie for the day since I put her in a daycare when I was working. My darling was coming back to me, even when I came home she had a big dinner on the table like we used to have before. She seemed happy for once, but as I looked at her eat her food I could still see that she was struggling inside. After we tucked Connie in, she came up with an idea.
“Let’s go there,” she said suddenly.
I perked up an eyebrow at the sudden request, “Where?”
“My favorite place,” she said. “Now.”
“What about Connie?”
“Only for a minute, she won’t know we’re gone.”
Since she hadn’t been out in so long, therefore I gave in.
Heading there was like the first time we went there. I had no idea what was going on and she was always ahead of me for some odd reason. Didn’t she want to be with me? Walk next to me under the starry sky at all?
When I reached the top she was standing dangerously close to the edge, looking at me. An alarm went off in my brain and I ran up there only to be halted by her yelling, “Stop.”
I froze in my tracks there.
“I want to see him.”
“Anna, come to me.”
She wasn’t listening though; my words just seemed to fade her.
“Anna be reasonable,” I said trying to think of a way to get her away from the cliff. “I love you and so does Connie, don’t do this!”
She smiled sweetly at me and a tear rolled down her cheek, “I know,” she said softly and then took a step back.
I rushed up to the edge and tried to get to her, but it was too late. She was out of my reach by then and all I could see was a splash. The waves beat merciless on her and the cliff below.
“Daddy,” a small voice called to me later that night after I dealt with the police. She must had had another nightmare, something typical for the five year old. “Where’s mommy?”
Crying I hugged her tightly, “With Brent.”
