Letters

Dear Milly,
Hey, it's Tod. I haven't talked to you in a while. You're leaving really hit me hard, I guess. We had a lot of memories together. This letter is gonna be kinda sappy, so you don't have to read it if you don't want to. Anyway, I've really missed you. I wasn't really ready to let you go, and I'm sad that I didn't spend enough time with you before. The truth is, I love you Milly. I know I'm not the kind of guy that would say something like that, but I mean it. Anyways, I'm making something for you. If you're looking down from heaven, I guess you'll see it. I haven't told anyone about it and I don't plan to. It'll just be ours. I guess I won't know for a while if you liked me back or not, but I'll wait.
Love, Tod
P.S. See you soon!

Dear Tod,
I’m writing this note because I have something to tell you. I know I’ve been friends with you for years, but deep down, I’ve always felt like you were more than just a friend. I don’t know how to say this, because I don’t want you to get freaked out or anything. The truth is, I love you Tod. I always have and I always will. I’m not sure how you feel about me, but no matter what you want, I’ll follow you. You’re still my best friend. I guess I’ll see you at church on Sunday.
Love, Milly

Moving Forward~Milly Callum

Moving Forward

I looked down into the box without believing what I was seeing. After I was out of my stupor, I ran down the stairs as fast as I could and all the way to God’s throne, forgetting to set down the box on my way there. “They’re going back!” I yelled. “They’re going back to the church!” I collapsed into his arms. “They’re going back.” He smiled and I stepped back so I could look at him. “Do you want to see Tod now?” He asked. I smiled wider than I had been already, which was almost impossible at this point. With tears in my eyes, I nodded. His face turned more serious. “You have to let go of the world.” He said. “I don’t understand. I’m in heaven. How do I let go of the world?” He looked down at the box in my hands, and I understood. “I have to destroy this if I want to see Tod?” He nodded. I was sad for a moment before realizing that now was the perfect time to destroy it. Everyone’s problems were coming to an end, and if I destroyed the box now, that would be how I remembered them. I looked up at him. “How do I destroy it?” I asked. In response, he stepped back and gestured to the floor. I nodded at him, to let him know that I understood. I lifted the box high above my head, brushing my wings in the process. Then I dropped it. I watched it as it fell in agonizingly slow motion toward the ground. It made contact with the ground and shattered, scattering the pieces in all directions. The next thing I knew, everything around me started to fade into nothing.

~~~*~_~*~~~

To all of my Friends,
I write to you now to assure you of the truth of this story. But before I do, I should explain to you what parts are actually true. Everything that has happened in ‘heaven’ is a dream made up from my own head. I am happy to say that I am in the real heaven now, along with all of my friends that I watched while in my heaven. If you were wondering, most of them died of natural causes, all except Ali and Cassy, both taken by cancer; Ali at 54 and Cassy at 67. Their children and their children’s children live all over the world, serving as everything from missionaries to counselors to carpenters, all with a powerful love for God. I look forward to meeting each and every one of them when their time comes. Everything I’ve spoken of happening on earth, well, that has all been very real. The tree where Tod hid our notes is still there, and the notes are still in place, though the area looks a little different now. It’s become known as “TM Park”, although very few people know what the TM stands for. Our letters have never been found. Everyone simply believes that someone carved a heart in a tree long, long ago. No one has ever thought to look under the carving. I’ve rewritten the letters for anyone who is curious as to their contents. I will say that there is not much to them but the love of two young people. But for Tod and I, they were everything. I cannot say much more, except that I hope to see you all very soon.
Love always, Milly

Going Back~Cassy Callum

Going Back

I woke up the next morning at noon, to the sound of the phone ringing in the living room. I must’ve slept so late because I was up all night talking to Lisa. I had just barely woken up when Lisa picked up the phone in the other room. I listened to her side of the conversation tiredly. “Hello?” She listened as he person on the other end spoke. “May I tell her who’s calling?” Another pause, this one long. Finally, she stuttered, “O-oh. Ok. Hold on.” I heard her run down the hall to give the phone to our mom. Then she came back to my room, running the whole way.“Cassy, you will never, in a million years, guess who just called us.” She said, throwing herself onto my bed. “Was it Mitchel Musso?” I asked, still half asleep. In my eyes, it would most definitely be a historical event for the Disney star to call our house. “What? Why would-” I heard her laugh and she started shaking me. “Wake up!” I turned over in my bed and tried to look at her, but my eyes wouldn’t stay open. “Joe Belle just called.” She said dramatically. That got me awake. I shot straight up in my bed and looked at her.“You’re lying!” I said.“No I’m not!” She said. “Mom’s out there right now, talking to him.” She pointed toward my closed door.“What are they saying?” I asked. I reached up to rub my eyes while she answered.“I don‘t know. I didn‘t listen long enough to figure it out.” She stopped. “But he probably just wants to gloat some more. Rub it in our face that he made us leave and he got to stay. Why else would he call?” I thought about it. I couldn’t think much, because the brain fog of sleep was starting to take over my brain again. Either way, I tried to look on the bright side. “Maybe he wants to say he’s sorry.” I twisted my hands in my lap and I heard Lisa sigh. “I wish things were like that.” She said. “But I don’t think that’ll ever happen. Joe is not the kind of guy to admit he’s wrong, and unless he does, he’s just going to start this whole fight over again.” She started to twist her hands as well. “I hate to say it, but this call is probably just going to make things worse.” She sighed again.“Maybe it’ll make things better.” I said hopefully. “We could try to figure out what they’re saying.” I suggested. I hated not knowing what was going on around me. At least if I knew, I would know how to fight it. “Cassy, I don’t want to have to listen to them fight. I don’t want you to have to listen to them fight, either. The best thing to do is just stay in here until mom comes in here and tells us that everything is all right, even though it isn’t.” She frowned and I knew from experience that she was trying not to cry. I wanted to trust that she knew best, but I had a feeling that something was about to happen that I didn’t want to miss. “Can’t we go listen for just a little while? If they start fighting we can come back here and listen to your music until we can’t hear anything, okay?” I said, hoping she would agree. I didn’t want to go out there alone. I wanted her to come with me. I could see that she was thinking, but I recognized her expression. It was the one that said, ‘I really shouldn’t be doing this, but I’m going to anyway.’ “Fine.” She said. “We’ll do it. But I can’t promise you this is gonna turn out the way you want it to.” I nodded. If you’ve ever had that feeling where you aren’t worried about something until someone warns you about how bad it could turn out, you know what I felt right then. We crept out into the hallway, keeping as quiet as we possibly could. I tried to peek around the wall to get a better look, but Lisa gripped my arm and pulled me back. When I looked at her, she shook her head as if to say, ‘Don’t push it.’ I nodded my head and turned back to look forward. I crouched and listened to my mom talking while Lisa crouched behind me with her hand on my shoulder, and I could tell she was nervous. Both of us listened quietly to our mom’s end of the conversation. “Joe, this is very unexpected.” She said. “It’s a good idea, but are you sure we could do it?” She sighed. “We have our own church that we’ve settled into now, and I don’t want to put the girls through all of this again…especially if it ends up working out the same as…” Another pause. “You have to realize that even if we work this out, we may not come back. Lisa and Cassy have been through enough and I’m not pulling them out of another church. She listened to Joe. “No, I don‘t think they are. And I don‘t know how to change that.” She said, sounding defeated, thought I couldn’t imagine why. “You can’t blame me for being a skeptic.” She said. “You haven’t exactly kept your promises in the past.”I started to get nervous. Mom never talked to Joe like this without it leading to some sort of fight. Lisa was thinking the same thing. “Come on, Cassy. We don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to.” She tugged on my arm. “Just a little longer.” My legs started to feel weak and I leaned into the wall for support. The rest of the conversation went on in a whisper, and I had to strain to hear it. Meanwhile, Lisa was nervously glancing behind us, as if calculating how long it would take to run back to my room if things got bad.Mom kept on. “What do you expect us to do, Joe? Just pack up and leave another church so that we can come back to one that treated us like dirt the first time we were there? Without a guarantee that we’ll be welcomed back?” She paused for effect. “That doesn’t exactly sound like a fair deal on our side.” She waited for him to respond to this. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Joe. We have two entirely different viewpoints. We’re never going to see eye to eye.” She stopped and took a breath. “What makes you think that could change now?” His response obviously shocked her. “You’ve been praying?” I peeked around the corner and saw her hang her head, still holding the phone to her ear. Her voice got so soft that I barely heard what she said. “Joe, I’ll call you back. I need to talk to the Cassy and Lisa about this, and I’ve got some praying to do myself.” She waited while he said his goodbyes, which she responded to with a quiet, “Mhm.”I turned around to look at Lisa, who had her lips pressed together in a thin line and looked like she was about to cry. “We can go now.” I said. She turned and we both walked back to my room and sat on the bed. “What’s wrong?” I asked when the door was shut.For a moment, she sat on the edge of the bed without saying anything. When she did speak, she was quiet. “I can’t believe it.” She said. “We might be going back.”I smiled. “I’d get to see Lacey!” Lisa still looked ready to cry. “You don’t want to go back?” She shook her head.“That’s not it. I just got used to not being there, you know. And now to be going back…it’s just…” She blinked and two tears rolled down her face. “It’ll be so different from when we left.” All of the sudden, she sniffed, straightened her back and quickly wiped her sleeve across her wet cheek. “But we shouldn’t even worry about it, because Mom might not want to go back either way.” Just then the door clicked open and mom opened the door slowly. She wasn’t wearing the smile that she normally did. Part of me was relieved, and the other part was worried. “Girls, I need to talk to you about the phone call I just got.” Before she got any further, I interrupted. “We know what happened, Mom.” Lisa looked over at me and I think she almost smiled. “I think we should go back to the church.” Now my mom looked like she was going to cry. She came and sat in between Lisa and me. “Are you sure that’s what you want?” She asked. I nodded fervently. She turned to Lisa, who smiled and nodded. “Even after all that’s happened, you girls want to go back?” She asked. Lisa took over.“It’s always been our church, Mom. That never changed when we left.” She paused. “That’s why we never stopped calling it ‘the church’.” She smiled and another tear fell down her cheek. “It’s our home, Mom. We have to go back.”Mom put her arms around both of us and hugged us tight. “I’m so proud of you girls.” She cried. “You’re some of the strongest people I know.” I sat up and kissed her on the cheek. “You’re stronger, Mom.”With that, she started crying and just sat on the edge of my bed, crying and holding each other and not saying anything. After a few minutes, she wiped her eyes the way Lisa had just done. She stood up from the bed and turned to look back at us. “I guess I’m going to go call Joe, then.” She said, and walked out the door

Amazing Words~Ali Cummings

Amazing Words

A few hours after I came home from the church, I heard Matt’s car pull out of the driveway. I figured he had gotten lost on the way back. He wasn’t exactly what I would call an experienced woodsman. I didn’t really see his leaving as relevant. I had already broken up with him.
That was kind of a smack in the face for me. I mean, we had only been dating a week and already it felt as though I would never look at him the same again. I had tried calling Niki when I got home, but she didn’t answer her cell. A couple of months ago, I would’ve called Milly and told her about it, but I couldn’t talk to her right now. This only seemed to add depth to my depression.
I heard my mom rolling through the hallway on the far side of the house and I was struck with an idea. Maybe I could talk to her about it…but that was ludicrous. It would never work. I would walk away feeling exactly the same as I had, if not worse. But maybe it will. The other side of me argued. It felt like my mind had split into two teams, each with it’s own opinion and idea about the consequences of my choice. One half of me wanted to believe that it would work, but the other half of me was fighting for the logical side, I believed. My mom and I had never been close. Well, not since her accident, anyway. She was always saying things now that made it seem like she didn’t want me around or she didn’t care about me anymore. That kinda made it hard to have any decent relationship with her.
Her wheels got closer and I knew that I would have to talk to her now, if ever. If I didn’t say something now, I would never have the courage to speak up later. So I decided. I would talk to her.
She pushed open my door.
"Ali, your dad just called. We’re going out to dinner tonight." I started at her, unable to think of anything to say. I went with the obvious.
"Mom, can we talk?" I felt maybe six years old asking her that.
"Sure." She said, pushing open the door to my room further. She pushed the wheels on her chair, bringing herself further into the room. "What did you want to talk about?" I couldn’t read whether she was shocked or scared or happy or anything. I was too caught up in my own emotions.
"Us." I said plainly. She waited me out. "We haven’t been getting along." I said. I didn’t have anything else to say after that, but she stayed silent for some time.
"Oh." She said finally. "I guess we haven’t." She stared at her feet.
"It feels like you hate me." I said. I felt the tears coming and I tried to hold them back. I felt like if I said anything else, all the tears would come spilling out. I couldn’t look at her.
"I don’t." She said. I could tell that she was crying, but I still didn’t look up at her. "I really don’t. I don’t try to make you think that." I knew she didn’t. Why did I even say that? I knew she didn’t hate me. But that was how it felt sometime.
"Am I doing something wrong?" I asked as a few tears spilled over my eyelids and rolled down my face. Her quiet crying turned to sobs.
"No." That was the word I had been waiting so desperately to hear. It was selfish of me, but I needed to know that I wasn’t the cause of this whole thing.
"Then why do you act like that?" There was a long pause in which the whole world seemed to have stopped spinning.
"I don’t know." This only made the tears come faster. I still tried to hold them back, but I wasn’t doing so good a job at it. "I really don’t know." There was only one more question to be asked.
"Do you think we could fix it?" I asked. I waited and waited for a response from her, but it seemed to come entirely to slowly.
"Yes." I sighed a sigh of relief and let my tears fall fast and uncontrolled. All the anger and resentment I had had for her for the past seven years melted away and I literally felt the tension leave the room. I tried to carry on with the conversation so that the tears would stop.
"I broke up with my boyfriend." I said. I didn’t look up to see her reaction.
"I didn’t know you were dating anyone." She said. I could tell she had stopped crying.
"I haven’t been for long. Maybe a week." I said. I finally got the courage to look her in the eye. What I saw was the sad face of a mother that felt like she was missing her daughters life. My eyes threatened to overflow again. I didn’t want her to miss my life. I wanted her to be a part of my life.
"Was he nice?" She asked.
"I thought he was." I said. She nodded as if she understood.
"Sometimes boys aren’t always as nice as they pretend to be." She said. "They’ll do anything to get what they want." I understood exactly what she was saying. I remembered Matt’s words exactly. ‘All I want is you.’ ‘I want you, Ali. I would never do anything to hurt you.’ Well, where were we now. He was probably back at his house, sulking about the fact that he had lost something he wanted. And I was still torn up over the fact that he had hurt me. It wasn’t a great place to be.
I thought about the kisses he had tried to force me into and I wondered if he would’ve done more, had I given him the chance. He wasn’t a Christian, and his standards didn’t match mine. There was no telling how far he would’ve gone if I hadn’t walked away. I shuddered. If I hadn’t walked away. Suddenly, sitting in my bedroom talking to my mom was the happiest place I could think to be.

Peace After a Storm~Niki Belle

Peace After a Storm


The turned my head to look down at the bible sitting next to me. My eyes refused to focus on the gold printed letters on the cover. The blurred into a mix of shining blur mixed with a dark, dull red. I had meant to come into my room and read over some verses, but I had given up on that when I realized that I couldn’t focus my eyes on anything in the room.
I laid back on my bed and thought for a while. My thoughts never stayed constant. They would stay on one thing for a few seconds, then skip to the next thought with no rhyme or reason to it. Most of them all had to do with Tod. I remembered his funeral, the Teen Game night just before his death, the tree falling, and my trip to his room.
In truth, it hadn’t been as hard as I thought it would be to step into his room and take in everything. Untouched and like he had left it. My first stop when I went into his room had been the desk. I had known that he had been working on something for Milly, and I was going to try to figure out what. My search had come up empty except for some scraps of paper with the words scribbled out and laying crumpled on the edge of the desk.
His closet was something completely. I took one look at his clothes and I was absolutely positive that I could’ve told you at least one time where he wore each individual outfit. This one to church, that one to Laser Tag, that one to the movies when he went to see Bolt. I had closed the closet before I could start crying again. The funeral started a half-hour later and I would need my tears then.
Looking back, I blocked the funeral from my mind. It had been very similar to Milly’s, people milling around and crying on each other’s shoulders while I tried to block everything out. It was harder now. Every time I heard his name, I was once again brought back to reality. My brother was dead. Milly had been dead. They were together, and I was alone. I knew that would sound selfish, had I ever been brave enough to say it aloud.
I actually had a lot of things that would sound selfish if I chose to say them aloud, but I didn’t want anyone to worry about me, so I kept quiet. I was always there for other people, but I didn’t really talk to anyone if I had a problem. I remembered back to the time when I had been shy and almost antisocial. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to talk to people, I just didn’t want to. People scared me. I didn’t want them to see what I was behind me wall.
I thought about that for a long time. I laid in my bed thinking into that. If I hid behind a wall for my whole life, what were people going to say at my funeral? That I was a good person, who was there for everyone. Part of me would be delighted to know that they were saying that. The other part of me would be screaming that it was a lie. I wasn’t there for everyone. I wasn’t strong. I pretended to be strong, but that was it. I could pretend to be strong for other people, but when it came to helping myself, I was helpless.
I was jolted from my thoughts by a knock on the door. "Come in." I said, thinking it was my mother. The door opened and my father poked his head in the room.
"Can I talk to you for a second?" He asked. I was confused. Usually I was the one that wanted to talk to him. I realized he was waiting for an answer.
"Sure." I said, still wondering what he could want to talk to me about. "You can come sit on my bed." I offered. He ignored me. He looked as if he was a different world altogether. He pulled up a chair from the edge of my room and sat down facing me.
"It’s about Tod." He made the topic clear.
"Oh." It was the only thing I could come up with. I didn’t really want to say anything until I figured out what was a safe topic and what wasn’t.
"I shouldn’t have said those things to him. They were wrong." It took me a minute to realize he was talking about when he had yelled at Tod. "He really did love her." He said. He was quiet for a moment, as if he didn’t know exactly how to explain it to it’s fullest extent. "He gave up everything for a dead girl." He said. I thought he might’ve been finished, but I stayed silent, still not knowing what was safe to talk about.
"I’ve learned from him." He said. I looked up, surprised. He was not the kind of person to say something like that. "He was willing to give his life for a girl he wasn’t even with." He paused. "And I couldn’t even give up one part of my life to support him for it." I understood where he was going now.
"Dad, I’m sure Tod doesn’t blame you for it. He’s forgiven you for that." I said. I almost reached out to touch his shoulder, but I drew my hand back, not knowing what his reaction would be.
"I don’t deserve his forgiveness. I don’t deserve your sympathy." He said. His voice was huskier than usual, and he cleared his throat to hide it.
"We don’t deserve a lot of things, but God let’s us have them anyway." I almost chuckled. "You of all people should know that."
"I’ve let down a lot of people. I’ve fought with a lot of people that I should’ve forgiven. I drove people away from me." His conversation had taken on a new direction.
"Like?" I said, knowing full well who he was talking about.
"The Callums. We didn’t agree on much, but we were part of the same family, and we didn’t do a good job of respecting that. We were both part of their leaving, but I had control over my part. I could’ve changed things." He was silent. The silence was pressing this time, as though something that needed to be said wasn’t. I decided to say it, regardless of the consequences.
"What are you going to do?" The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Strangely, I didn’t regret them. But I still hadn’t heard his answer yet.
"I’m going to try to talk to them. I don’t know if they want to work this out or not, but from my point of view, we’ve put everyone through enough." I nodded. My mouth was dry. I had never imagined my father as being the one to end the argument. I had always thought it would either continue or Milly’s mother would try to reason with him. Even then, I can’t say I predicted a good end to it all. This way, I thought, would work much better.
I leaned forward and wrapped him in a hug. I felt his arms on my back and I thought for a moment, I felt him shake. "I’m proud of you, Dad." I said. With this, I definitely felt him shake, but only for a moment. He straightened up, cleared his throat again, and stood up.
"I’ll go try to call them." He said. He turned and walked out of the room before I had the chance to say anything more.

20 Questions~Milly Callum

20 Questions


"J-Jesus?" I stammered. My tongue seemed to be tripping over itself. He was standing there, scars in his wrist and a warm smile on his face.
"Yes?" He replied, laughing. "Who did you expect?" He asked. I sighed. Being with him was easier. It didn’t feel like a guessing game, but more like just having a friend.
"I’m not sure. I guess I just forgot that there were three of you." I said, still trying to wrap my head around the trinity.
"Three of us?" He asked, seeming genuinely curious.
"Well, yeah." I said. "You, God, and the Holy Spirit."
"That’s only one." He said, smiling. "You count it as three. To us, it’s only one." I thought about this for a minute.
"Us! You said us. That means there’s more than one." I said, finally feeling as though I had a substantial argument.
"Yes." He said. He seemed to be waiting for a response.
"But you just said that there was only one."
"There is." He said. I couldn’t quite make out the smile on his face. Finally I got it. My face broke out into the same smile his face held. "Did you get it?"
"Yeah." I said. "Three in one, one yet three." I grinned. "You’re just messing with me." He nodded.
"That I am. I’m glad you got that. We could’ve gone on all day with that." The same smile appeared on his face again.
"Yeah, we-" I cut myself off, understanding the joke. "You know exactly how long it would’ve gone on." I accused. He nodded, laughing.
"You’re getting better." He said. I hadn’t realized until that moment that we were actually walking down the road toward my house.
"I guess." I said, trying to act nonchalant. "I have a question, though, about the conversation I had with your dad earlier."
"Me." He corrected.
"Fine, the conversation I had with you, then." He nodded and we continued to walk down the road without stopping.
"Continue." He urged.
"Why is it that people turn away from you? I mean, you said that the reason people suffered is because they didn’t put their all into you. But why are people so against doing that?" I asked.
"Ahh. I knew that question would come up sooner or later." I wanted to point out that he knew all the questions that would come up sooner or later--it kinda came with the all-knowing thing--but I had the feeling that he was going to continue. True to my expectation, he kept talking.
"Well. There’s a lot of reasons that people don’t come to me. They don’t know me. They think it’s a waste of time. I scare them. There’s so many reasons. Some people are mad at me." I asked the obvious question.
"But why are they mad at you?"
"They think maybe I’m doing something that’s not in their best interest. Like I said, it mostly stems from the fact that they don’t know me."
"But some people say they just don’t want to know you. What about them?" I asked. This was going to get complicated in a second. I could feel it.
"The people who say they don’t want to know me think they already know enough about me to think that I’m not worth their time. Does that make any sense?" He asked, looking down at me.
"I’m not sure. I think it makes a little sense." We kept walking until we got to my mansion. We stood staring at the doors for the longest time before either of us spoke.
"You want to have some time by yourself?" He asked.
"I won’t really be alone, will I?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"Not really. I’ll still be here. It just makes it easier for some people if I’m not there physically. It makes them feel a little bit less like they’re being watched." He chuckled. "Really, I’m always watching you." He said.
"That actually makes me feel a little better." I said. "But I would like some time by myself." I continued.
"I know." That same smile he had been wearing before crossed his face. "You know where to find me if you need me." He turned and walked back the direction he had come.
I watched him until he turned and was out of sight, then I walked up the steps to my house and walked through the front door.

Messes and Memories~Lisa Callum

Messes and Memories

Before I had even completely woken up, Cassy bound into my room with a cake mix box in her hand. “Lisa, can we cook something today? I found mommy’s recipe for the cookies we used to make. It’ll be just like when we were little. Please, Lisa?” She asked all in one breath. I smiled at the chance to spend some time with her. I had been trying to do more of that.
“Yeah.” I said. “Just let me get dressed.” I looked down at my camisole and shorts and decided I would rather just brush my teeth and comb my hair. I could use a little lounge time, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had baked cookies in my pajamas. I missed it sometimes.
“Thanks, Lisa. I’ll wait for you in the kitchen. Hurry, so we can start!” She said, already skipping out of the door and into the next room.
The room was silent as soon as she left. It gave me a minute to think. I was starting to wonder if maybe our family was finally coming together. It was weird to think that, having recently lost two of our members, but the ones remaining----Mom, Cassy, and I----had never been closer. And every day seemed to improve the situation.
It only took me a minute to yank a brush through my pin straight hair. Then I made my way to the kitchen to find Cassy already mixing ingredients in a glass bowl. During the divorce, she had learned how to cook a lot of things, because Mom and I had always been tired and Milly kept going off by herself.
“Milly, have you seen the…” I stopped where I was. “Milly, what…what is this?” I asked. She dropped her head. She couldn’t even look at me.
She was sitting on the edge of her bed with a knife in her hand and her bleeding arm lying on a bloodstained towel. There were tears streaming down her face and the palm of her hand was covered in fresh blood. The air was thick with the smell of it.
She stood up from the bed and started putting things away. Before she could slip the knife into her bedside table drawer, I grabbed her wrist and she winced in pain. The pulse flowing steadily under my fingertips alerted me that the blood was still flowing freely. I turned her arm over quickly and found where the slit on her arm stopped. After yanking the ribbon out of my hair and tying it tight at the top of the cut, I let her hand slip from my grasp.
I looked at the drying blood on my hand, refusing to believe what was happening. I looked at Milly for some kind of answer, but I regretted it as soon as I did. Her head was hung down and she was shaking with the effort of holding back tears.
"Milly..." I started. I had almost too many questions to sort through. I started at the beginning. "How long have you been...doing this?"
She took a shaky breath, but replied quickly. "Two weeks." She said plainly.
"Why did you do it?" I was amazed at how calm my voice was staying. I told myself to leave things as they were. If I could remain unemotional for now, there was no reason interfere.
She shook her head. "I don't even know. It was like when I was doing it, nothing else mattered. I thought maybe it would wake me up, but it just became an addiction. I know it seems stupid, but I don't know how to stop." She said. When she finished, her shaking hands were in fists and the tears were flowing again.
"Milly." She looked up in response. "Can you promise me something?" I asked. She looked at my and nodded.
"You have to promise me," I started. "That you will not do this again." My voice broke. "I don't want to lose you." A flash of acknowledgement crossed her face and then she hung her head, ashamed. I walked over to her and wrapped my arms around her shaky shoulders. "I don't ever want to lose you." I said, pulling her tighter against my chest.
"You won't." She whispered against my shoulder. Her shoulder relaxed and I heard the knife clatter to the floor.
“Lisa,” Cassy said, jarring me out of my flashback. “Can you hand me the vanilla? I can’t find it.” She said, pointing to the cabinet above her head.
I shook my head to throw the bad memories from my mind. “Uh…sure.” I said, reaching to open the cabinet. I found the vanilla behind several other extracts including butter and almond. Setting it on the counter, I asked, “Cassy, how do you remember Milly?” I rephrased the question. “I mean, when you remember her, what do you think about?” I looked down at her. She had stopped stirring and looked like she was thinking particularly hard. Finally she answered.
“I think about that time we went to Kings Dominion and we took a picture of Megan in that coffin.” She said. “And that other time when we were singing that song Megan wrote about chik-fil-a as loud as we could in the back of the car. Even mommy was singing with us.” She paused to think some more. “Sometimes I just think about her being at the church.” She frowned. “The church was fun.”
I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and she started mixing again. I tried to think of a way to cheer her up. It was my fault. I was always taking my misery and putting it on everyone else, even Cassy. Suddenly, I knew exactly what would cheer her up. I reached over quietly and took a pinch of flour from the bag on the counter. While she was distracted mixing all the dry ingredients, I took the pinch of flour and threw it near her face, careful not to get it in her eye.
She squealed and turned to face me. The left half of her face was covered in the white powder. “Oh no you don’t!” She said, grabbing a small handful of flour and tossing it in my direction. Even with the warning of seeing it all, I squealed playfully. I looked down at my pajamas. They were covered in white dust. Before I could look up, I was hit again. Cassy stood in front of my grinning like she’d just won a medal. I grinned evilly. I grabbed another handful of flour, dodged Cassy’s third throw, and flung it in her direction. She threw her hands up in front of her to stop it, but too late. She was already covered with the stuff.
I crouched like I was about to pounce on her and she turned to run. I bolted after her. When I caught up to her, I scooped her up with ease and blew a raspberry on her stomach, instantly sending a cloud of thick white into my face. All the while she laughed and struggled.
When we were done with our fun, there would be huge mess to clean up, but that didn’t seem to matter right now.
“Lisa, put me down!” She squealed. I obliged and she landed gently on her feet. She looked up at me with a smile still on her face. “Why haven’t you ever acted like this before?” She asked.
I brushed my hair behind my ear from where it was hanging in front of my face. “I don’t know. I guess maybe I had just been remembering all the wrong things.” She put her hand on her chin and thought for a second.
“Well, now you don’t have to.” She said. “Because everything is gonna be okay.” I could hear the question in her tone.
“Yeah.” I said. “Well, it will be right after this.” I said, launching the handful of powder I’d been hiding towards her. She almost ducked in time. I had to admit, her reactions were getting better. Instead, the puff settled into her hair and shoulders.
I crouched and the chase was on again.

Walking Away~Ali Cummings

Walking Away


For about the thousandth time today, I had no idea what I was doing or why I was there. All I knew was what had happened earlier that day. I had attended Tod’s funeral. For the short amount of time that I was there, I wasn’t able to focus on much. I had sort of just slinked away from the crowd the moment it was over. There were no hugs, no talking, no contact whatsoever. I didn’t know if I could stand it. I had already seen one of my friends lowered into the ground and I didn’t know if I could bear to see another..
That had been hours ago. Now I was sitting in my house just staring at the wall. I didn’t know what I was doing here. I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t run away when I had the chance.
The doorbell rang, knocking me out of my trance. I ran to the door, thankful for any distraction other than sitting alone and feeling sorry for myself. I opened the door without checking to see who was on the other side.
“Matt!” I said, shocked, as soon as I could see past the door. “W-what are you doing here? I mean, I didn’t know you were planning to come over today.” My lips stumbled through the sentence.
“I wasn’t planning to, but I wanted to come and see you.” He said, smiling. “I thought we could watch a movie.” He held up a Wal-mart bag with several DVD cases in it. I couldn’t read the labels to see what movies he had. “I brought Eagle Eye.” He said.
I sighed. I wasn’t really up for watching a movie, but I did want to talk to him for just a little while. “Do you think we could just go for a walk instead. I need to talk to you about something.” He bit his lip as if he would really rather stay.
“Sure. Yeah, we’ll walk.” He said, still reluctant. He set the bag of movies just inside the door and put his arm around my shoulders, leading me out the door and shutting it behind us.
We made it all the way to the top of my long driveway before either of us said anything. “So what’s up?” He inquired casually. Just like always, I almost got too lost in his eyes to think.
“Oh,” I said, snapping out of my trance. “Well, this is gonna be really difficult to talk about, but I’ll try.” I said. I could feel my palms sweating and I tried my best to wipe them on my jeans.
“Go ahead.” He said, keeping his tone casual. The apathy in his voice would’ve bothered me, had his voice itself not been so mesmerizing.
“This morning, I went to a funeral.” I started. I looked up at him for some kind of reaction, but he only nodded. “One of my friends…” My voice broke and I inhaled deeply. I paused for a long time, not sure if I would start crying again if I tried to speak. “He’s dead.” I finally said.
I expected to feel his arm wrap tighter around my shoulders in an attempt at comforting me, but he didn’t even miss a step as we walked. “Oh.” He said. There was that casual tone again. “That’s what you meant.” I stared at him, begging him to let his emotions show. Right now, I needed to know that I wasn’t the only one that cared.
“What I meant when?” I asked.
“When you told me that you needed to talk to me about something.” He explained. “When you came to the door I kind of thought you looked a little…” He voice trailed off.
Then it was my turn. “Oh.” I tried to decide if I wanted to know what he was thinking. I finally decided against it. I would ask him what he thought I had wanted to talk to him about, but what good would it do? His voice once again broke through my thoughts.
“So where are we going exactly?” He asked. Being back in reality, I realized that we’d walked almost a mile. The pauses in between our responses must have been longer than I thought. I focused back on his question. Suddenly, I knew exactly where I wanted to be going and why I needed to go there.
“Come on.” I said, grabbing his hand and pulling him into a side trail in the woods. “I’ll show you where we’re going. You’re gonna love this.” I said. The path we were going through was a thick part of the forest, but it would get us there much faster than taking the main road.
We walked for almost twenty minutes before he had the chance to speak. He had to use most of his concentration on getting bushes out of his way before he could trip.
“You never answered my question.” He said. “Where are we going? Ow!” I turned around to help him get out of a thorn bush his legs had gotten tangled in.
“You’ll see when we get there. Plus, you should recognize it by now. We’ve only got about a minute’s walk left.” I said, pointing to the break in the trees not far ahead of us.
“All I recognize is trees.” He mumbled. “And they all look the same.” I giggled quietly. From his reaction to the overgrown path, I guessed he didn’t spend much of his spare time in the woods.
Soon, we were pushing through the woods and into the back yard of the church. He had been here before, but he had never seen the back of the church. I heard him chuckle behind me.
“We came all this way so that we could come to your empty church?” He said.
“Isn’t it amazing? I don’t know, there’s just something peaceful about this place. I love coming here with just me.” I turned to face him. “And now you.”
“You’re joking, right? The church?” This time, his voice hurt. The subtle pull behind it was completely gone, washed away by his sarcasm.
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked defensively. In my eyes, I didn’t see how a person could not like it here. It was so peaceful and serene and the pavilion provided the perfect place to just sit and think when you had a lot on your mind.
“It’s just…Why would you spend all of your time at a church?” He asked. “It’s not like there’s anything special about it. It’s just an empty building.” This shocked me.
“It’s not just a building. This is where I come when I need to talk to God. It’s like he’s here, waiting for me to come. I trust him with everything.” I said. Why didn’t he see that?
“You really think he waits here just for you?” He asked, disapproval in his words. He sounded like a parent who was scolding a teenager for believing in a guy too much. It was as if he was calling my gullible.
“For anyone who comes here. It’s not just me. He’s wants to talk to everyone. Don’t you ever feel that? Don’t you ever feel like he just wants to talk to you?” I asked.
“I never feel anything like that. I can’t feel something from someone who doesn’t exist.” He said. Finally, the casual tone was gone, but it was replaced now with defiance, almost anger.
Hearing the last part of his dialogue, I didn’t know what to say. I turned and ran to the pavilion and heard him following close behind me. I sat down on the bench, breathing heavily. He said beside me and grabbed my hands. I almost pulled away, but I found that I wanted his touch. Even when he was the source of my pain, I ached for him to be the source of my comfort.
“Ali, I don’t care that you’re different from me. We don’t have to have the same religious views to be together. I’ll love you no matter what.” He said. For a second I almost the believed the words and left it at that. Then my mind snapped back into action.
“But Matt, it’s not just some religious view. I have a relationship with the risen, living king. I love him and he loves me. Nothing comes before that. We talk to each other. You can’t deny that kind of thing.” I argued.
“That’s fine. Have your God. Talk to him all you want. All I want is you.” He said. He leaned in to kiss me on the lips. My mind lapsed and I forgot to pull away from him. Finally, I got my head focused back on the conversation and I was able to break away from the kiss. With him off of me, I noticed that he had gotten close enough to push my back into the wooden support of the pavilion roof.
“You don’t understand. I don’t know how anyone can know him and see al the miracles he’s done and then deny him even existing. How can you do that?” I pleaded.
“Look, Ali.” I jumped when I heard that his voice had risen to a shouting level. “I told you I don’t care if you have a different belief then me. If the religion thing works for you, that’s fine. Just don’t take what you believe and try to shove it down my throat!” He said. He leaned in to kiss me again, but the sting from his words kept me in reality long enough to protest.
“What are you doing?” I asked, suddenly scared of him. I tried to back away from him, but the post kept me from moving any farther away from him.
“I want you, Ali. I would never do anything to hurt you.” He put his hands on the sides of my face, pulling my into another kiss. I pushed him away with all the strength I had.
“Then stop!” I yelled, now feeling more terrified that pleased with his actions. I had managed to push him away from me, but his hands were still gripping my face, preventing me from looking away.
“Ali, do you love me?” He asked. Al the fight went out of me. There was no way I could lie to him about that, even now.
“Yes.”
“Can you give me a chance?” I stopped.
“No.”
I felt his arms go limp and I took the chance. I was able to easily remove his hands from my cheeks and set them back in his own lap. Not once did he protest. I stood up from the bench and turned my back on him. I started to walk in the direction of my house, and I didn’t hear a single footstep behind me.

Angel's Song~Niki Belle

Angel’s Song


I woke up the next day in a complete fog. I couldn’t recall exactly what had happened. But when I glanced over at the wall, the events of yesterday hit me. The door was open and I could see the room across the hall. I could see what used to be Tod’s room. A thought struck me, and for about half a second, I considered it. Then I shook my head firmly. I couldn’t go in his room. It was too soon to revisit those memories. None of my family had been in Tod’s room since his death.
In any case, I would have enough pain and memories today. It was the day of Todd’s funeral.
A look at the clock on my bedside table told me that the funeral would happen in a little less than two hours. I wanted so badly to turn back over in my bed and cry myself back to sleep, but I made myself lift myself over the side of the mattress and stand shakily. I trudged to my closet, not knowing if I would have the strength to get dressed, much less actually attend the funeral. I dressed in a haze, without actually knowing what I was doing. All I know was that I chose a black dress that I hadn’t worn in a couple months.
When I came downstairs, Dad was sitting on the couch flipping channels like he had been the day he yelled at Tod. The only difference was that when I came down, he said nothing. He seemed to be in the same trance-like state that I was. The entire house was silent, and no one seemed to mind. I sat down at the kitchen table, trying to brace myself for the event that was to come.
Mia was sitting across from me looking like an absolute statue. She had taken the time to straiten her hair, but a burn on the side of her ear told me that she hadn’t been much on focusing. I was beginning to think that no one in the house was, and with good reason. It was easier not to think of anything than to be flooded with thoughts of Tod.
For the first time in days, I thought of Milly. This thought cheered me up almost enough to bring a smiled to my face. Tod and Milly would finally see each other again. I could imagine them running towards each other on the white clouds of heaven. I had imagined the same scene happening so many times on earth, it seemed almost like memory, as if it had already happened and not just the imagination of an 18 year old girl with a dead brother.
I was jolted away from my thoughts as I realized that the radio had come on. My head whirled around to see what had caused it to suddenly break the silence like glass, but no one was standing anywhere near the radio and I was the only one that seemed to notice it playing.
But what intrigued me was the fact that I didn’t recognize the song that was playing, but as the bright LED display clearly displayed, the station was one I listened to often. I listened intently to the lyrics.

What I’m feelin’,
Time is gonna heal it
I been hearin’ that for so long now
They say I’ll move on
Got to try and be strong
Life will go on; I’ll get though this somehow
Oh, but how, when I’m still waiting,
For you to come back,
If you could only come back,
I’m aching for you to walk through that door
Hold me once more
But you won’t, still I go on waiting
It was a Sunday
We buried you in the rain
I never knew pain till that first night alone
Opened you closet, breathed you in
I lost it, the truth of it, baby, finally hit home
No, you’re not comin’ home,
But I’m still waiting,
For you to come back,
If you could only come back,
I’m aching for you to walk through that door
Hold me once more
But you won’t, still I go on waiting
Wish you could talk to me somehow
Tell me what do I do now
I’m still waiting,
I’m aching for you to walk through that door
Hold me once more
But you won’t,
Yeah, I know
That you won’t,
still I go on waiting

By the time the music faded, I was in such a fit of tears, I had trouble believing I would ever stop. The words in the song had described my situation so perfectly.
Suddenly I was hit with the same idea I had had that morning when I woke up. I made up my mind that this was something I had to do before the funeral started. I looked at the radio to see what time it was and was shocked to see that it was once again off. “Must’ve been one of God’s angels.” I thought to myself.
I jumped from my chair and walked across the living room and started up the stairs slowly. I reached the top of the steps in what seemed like no time at all. It was certainly not enough time to prepare myself for what I was about to do. Then again, no amount of time could’ve prepared me for this. I turned to face the open door and stepped into Tod’s room.

Going Back~Lisa Callum

Going Back

I swung my legs over the edge of my bed and looked down at the floor. It had been two days since I learned of Tod’s death. I looked over at my clock. The viewing would be over by now. I swallowed and thought of Niki. She needed me at the viewing. She needed me to be there for her. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was too hard. After going to my own sisters viewing, how could I possibly force myself to see the boy she loved lying dead in a coffin. Just the thought of it brought tears springing to my eyes as if they had no care as to the time or the place. I wiped them on my arm, quick to rid myself of the things that were more of a hindrance than a harm.
I looked up to see my mother standing in the doorway, looking down at me. For the first time, there was no smile on her face. Her cheeks were soaked with fresh tears, and I could see her shaking from where I sat.
I wasn’t quite sure what to do with this. I had never seen my mom like this before. Even when she was hurting inside, she was always smiling. Half of me was scared to see my mother like this. The other half of just wanted to hold her and make everything in her life better. Finally, I had the courage to say something.
“Mom, what’s wrong?” I said, my voice shaking.
“Lisa, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She said. “I should’ve been there for you. I knew what he was doing and I didn’t stop him.” She held her head in her hands. “Why didn’t I stop him?” She asked.
“Mom, no, you…” I stopped. I couldn’t believe what I was feeling. For a moment, anger flared inside of me. I thought over what she had said. Why didn’t she stop him? How could she have kept quiet when she knew what he was doing? I kept my eyes on my feet, not daring to look at her face. “I…I don’t know what to say.” I said honestly.
I hesitated and tried to figure out just what I felt. She was my mother; I had been mad at her before, but not like the rage that was building inside me now. I could only think of what she hadn’t done, what she hadn’t said.
“Right now,” I started. “I just need to be alone.” She moved to put her hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it away. The pain in her eyes hurt me, but I turned away. I was determined to ignore her pain like she ignored mine. Finally, she stood up and walked out of the room, fresh tears filling her eyes. That was when I broke down.
I flung myself onto my pillow and started sobbing. I was filled with anger and hatred and regret and several other emotions I couldn’t describe. My head was spinning with memories and decisions. When the tears slowed, I shut my eyes tightly and clutched the pillow to my chest. I started praying aloud.
“God, why did you let him do that to me?” I asked, infuriated. “And why didn’t you give her the courage to stop him?” I cried harder. “I was only twelve!!” I screamed, my face still buried in the pillow. “What did I do to deserve that?” I was still angry, but the hatred was dying down to sorrow and grief. “God, where were you when I needed you?” I asked, scaring myself with my own thoughts. I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that he had never left my side, not once. The fact that I was accusing him of leaving me now almost pushed me over the edge of thinking it was true. This thought only scared me more, and I once again gave in to the tears that cracked my voice without my wanting them to.
In my eyes, I had no one to turn to. God may be with me, but he had done nothing to stop the torture, done nothing to erase the pain. And now I found that my mother had played the same role. Always knowing, never interfering. I lifted my head from the pillow and wiped my cheek with the back of my hand, and was shocked to see Cassy standing in my doorway.
“Cassy!” I said, my voice still angry. She jumped from my sudden outburst directed at her. “What are you doing?” I hissed, embarrassed that she had seen my little episode. I was then hit with something like panic. How much had she heard? My question was quickly answered.
“Who hurt you?” She asked simply. I swallowed.
“No one.” I said solemnly. It tasted a lie on my lips to be saying the words when in truth, I had been hurt by so many people, I had lost track. She didn’t look convinced, but she got the hint and dropped the subject.
“Can you come play outside with me?” She peered though my window as if checking something. “It’s a pretty day.” She stated the obvious. The weather was a cloudless and sunny sky, and the high temperature was going to be around 75 degrees. It was definitely not the weather that reflected my mood, but it was beautiful day out, and I didn’t want to leave Cassy to be bored by herself.
“Sure.” I said, climbing off of my bed. “What do you wanna play?” I asked. Her face lit up and she smiled the widest smile I had seen in months. I realized soon enough that her smile was contagious.
“We could have a concert.” She suggested. I tried to remember the last time we had had a family concert. We would stand out in the yard with our audience consisting of our parents, stuffed animals, and our dogs, and we would sing the silliest songs we could think of until we got hoarse or until it got dark. The last time I remembered doing a concert was when I was eleven years old. After that, I had generally become part of the audience, if I participated at all. Milly had always been the singer in the family. I was better with instruments and Cassy had always done backup. She had the sweet clear voice for it. I figured if now wasn’t the time to get back into our band, I didn’t know what was.
“That sounds really cool.” I said. She smiled and I returned it. “I’ll get the stuffed animals.”

Understanding~Milly Callum

Understanding


I didn’t know whether to cry or scream with joy. I felt pain for Niki and Ali, but for Tod and myself, I couldn’t have been happier. I was going to see him again. And I had already made myself a promise. I wasn’t going to keep it a secret this time. He was going to know how I felt about him. After all these years, he would know.
Before I could continue the celebration of our approaching reunion, I was hit with a thought that sent my head whirling. Where was he? I tried to think of how long it had been from the time I had died to the time I awakened in the empty room with Alana, but I couldn’t remember anything.
I closed my eyes, hoping something in the back of my mind could remember, but again, I drew a blank. My curiosity sent my flying down the stairs and out the front doors of what was now my home. The trip down the golden street took far less time than normal, but whether it was due to my excitement for what was to come, or from my wings carrying me of their own accord several times, I couldn’t be sure.
When I came to a stop at the throne, God was standing, waiting for me with a warm smile on his face. I threw myself against him, but he stood firm.
“What is it?” He asked, though I knew full well he already knew my thoughts. Even so, I phrased my question carefully.
“When…” I paused. “When do I get to see Tod?” I asked, deciding on my first phasing of the question.
His smile suddenly fell and I was stuck by a sense of panic. “What is it?” I said. Unlike him, I didn’t have the ability to read peoples thoughts before even themselves. I could, however, read his face and it was definitely not conveying good news.
“You will see him again,” He promised. This gave me a glimpse of hope, but his face still didn’t look hopeful. I waited for him to finish. “But he cannot come here.” He finished.
My heart sunk down into the bottom of my stomach. Instinctively, my mind raced to the obvious, yet incomprehensible answer.
“Do you mean that Tod is in Hell?” I asked. Even as I said the words, my voice broke. He couldn’t be in Hell. Of all the people I’d known on earth, Tod was never one I considered not to go to heaven. I hadn’t spent a week with him before I knew this.
But now everything I had thought about him seemed to turn up-side down. I was quickly brought back to reality by God’s warm hands on my shoulders. I looked up at his face and he wiped away a tear from my cheek.
“He is not in Hell.” He assured me. I sighed and realized I’d been holding my breathe and biting my lip. One more question came to mind.
“When will I see him?” I asked. He smiled.
“Have patience, my child.” He said. “You will see him when the time is right.” I nodded in agreement. He looked at me, instantly reading that my mind was not yet satisfied. “What is it?” He asked, again limiting himself so that he was on a human thinking level.
“Did you hear Niki’s prayer?” I asked. If I was going to see Tod soon, I guessed the best thing to do was give in to the sympathy I felt for Niki and the rest of Tod’s family. Again, he smiled the warm smile that told me he had everything under his control.
“I did.” He answered. I waited for him to say more. “Milly, I will always be with her. You don’t need to worry about her.” He said. It was my turn to smile.
“I still do.” I said to Him.
“You always had a gift for understanding my way of thinking.” He said. I gave him a questioning look. “How many people have told me not to worry with them?” He asked. I ran through the unknown statistics in my head. Finally, I sighed.
“Too many?” I asked; we both laughed.
“Precisely. Does it mean I oblige, and let them fall to the hands of evil?” He asked. The questions were getting difficult, but I kept the answers coming as best I could.
“No?” I guessed. He didn’t respond. He knew I had more to say. “But, if you don’t let anyone fall to the hands of evil, why do bad things happen to such good people?” I asked. One part of me longed for an answer from the only one I knew could give it. The other half of me was scared of his response. But again, he simply smiled warmly and answered calmly.
“Have you ever tried to save a friend from a wrong decision, say, getting involved with some of the wrong people?” I nodded. “Did you do that because you wanted control of them, or for their own good?” He asked.
“For their good.” I answered, anxious to see where the hypothetic situation was going to lead.
“Did they see it for what it was?” He asked. I shook my head. “They turned from you, accused you of taking control of what was not yours to take.” I nodded. The memories were only too fresh in my mind. I stared down at my feet.
“Only one more question.” He promised. I looked back up at him, preparing myself for the toughest question yet. “When she fell, were you able to catch her?” The question itself was not hard to answer at all. It was a simply yes or no question with the answer being obvious. What hit me wrong was the memories that came flooding back because of the question. I shook my head.
“She didn’t let me.” I said. A light bulb went off in my head. “Is that why bad things happen? You try to help people, but they don’t want your help?” I asked. He nodded.
“I try to stop the suffering. I’ve been there.” My head jerked up.
“But how-” I stopped. The God I had seen everyday for the past few weeks had disappeared. Standing in his place was a younger looking version of him, with shoulder-length brown hair, wearing a white robe. He reached to touch my face, but I drew back quickly when I saw what was on the hand he held toward me.
What I saw was a scar, where a nail had been hammered through his very hand. “Jesus?” I asked.
He smiled, filled with the joy of youth. “The very same.” He said, holding out his hand for me to shake. Instead of taking his hands, I threw my arms around his waist.
When I stepped back, he was still smiling. While I was still trying to figure out why I had never seen him before in heaven, he continued his introduction.
“I believe you just met my father.”

God's Promises~Niki Belle

God’s Promises


I stood near enough to the open casket to see Tod’s body lying motionless inside of it. I could almost see his happy grin plastered on to his face as I watched him, but my heart broke as I remembered that I wouldn’t see that smile for a very long time. “Tod.” I moaned under my breath. “Why did you give up?” I asked, knowing no answer would come. I pried my eyes from his face, forcing myself to look the other way. But looking away would not make him come back and thinking of this only hurt more.
I tried to put all the pieces of the recent events together. The night in the woods, the tree falling. I pushed away the blame that filled my mind. I couldn’t have saved him. I almost didn’t get out of the way in t-. I stopped mid-thought. I went through every detail of that night, not wanting to be mistaken. I remembered the force he had applied to my shoulders with his arms, pushing me out of the way of the tree. He could’ve pushed me with his whole body and saved both of us. But he stayed. He knew the tree would kill him, and he didn’t want to fight it. And he didn’t want me to have time to save him. I blinked a let the tears that were clinging to my eyelashes roll down my cheeks.
Avoiding the coffin, I turned around the room, trying to decide whether to run or collapse. All around me people were swirling through the room, offering condolences to my parents and Mia. I stood off the side by myself, forgetting what was around me. My surroundings felt like snow that was swirling around, never touching my skin or giving me even the slightest reason to look closely at it. Each person was a snowflake, passing in front of me, unnoticed and unimportant.
I felt lost, but at the same time, everything was screaming inside of me where I was and what had happened. Tod was dead. And nothing would ever be the same.
Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I whirled around, startled, to see Ali standing behind me. She looked scared, broken almost. I could see the corners of her mouth moving in an effort to keep from crying, and I noticed for the second time the tears that were making their way steadily down my face.
“Niki, I’m so sorry.” She said. I heard her voice crack the instant she spoke. I felt like falling to my knees and crying like I had the night he died, but I told myself this would do nothing.
“I’ll be fine.” I choked back fresh tears. “It’ll get better.” I was more convincing myself of this than I was her. Her eyes shone with more tears and once again, my heart broke. This was a time in life when we had both lost something. More important, we had both lost someone. It did not matter who was suffering more, or how they were suffering. We were both hurt. We both needed some kind of comfort.
She spoke my thoughts aloud. “I’ll be praying for you, Niki.” She said. Her lip trembled once again and she took a deep breath. “I promise.” I bit my bottom lip, unable to think of anything to say.
“Thank you,” was all I could muster at that point. Ali nodded and turned to walk away. I looked at the floor and then back at her. I had done this a million times before, but it had never been this hard. While she was still in earshot, I called her back.
“Ali, wait.” I said. She turned back to face me, and I could see that she had finally the let the tears fall from her eyes. I sighed. “Do you think…you could pray with me now?” I asked, completely letting my guard down.
She looked torn. After a moment of thought, she nodded and stepped into her original position. She looked at the pew beside us. Instantly understanding her, I nodded and sat down on the pew. She took a seat beside me and I held out my hands for her to take. She placed her hand into mine and for at least a minute we sat in silence. I had no idea what to say. Surely, no words would heal this hurt. No words could ask for such a gift of healing. I could say nothing that would be acceptable in God’s eyes right now.
I stopped myself. After all that I had done in my life, he still viewed me as perfect. Did this change because of a tragedy. I had no words to say. But he already knew what I needed. I bit my lip and continued my silent thoughts. Finally, I knew what to say.
“Father,” I started. “I’m hurt. I don’t know what to do to make this pain stop, or go away. Right now, I’m only sure of one thing. I need you. You’ll keep me where I need to be, and you’ll help me through the times when I think I can’t go on.” My voice broke. “I know that I won’t ever be the same. But I know you’ll keep me safe, even when I forget the meaning of the word. I need you now, Dad.” I said, speaking to him as I would speak to my earthly father, but with more trust. I felt my voice crack and my I shut my eyes tightly, not trying to cover my tears. “Daddy, please don’t leave me.” I said. In my own head, I heard a firm promise. I’m here with you, Niki. Don’t be afraid. I love you, and I will never leave you. Come to me. I’ll be here. My eyes flooded with a fresh flow of tears. “Thank you, Daddy.” I prayed out loud. “Thank you for being with me.”
When I opened my eyes, Ali was still holding my hands tightly, as if they were the only things keeping her safe. She looked up, aware that I had stopped, and I saw tears rolling down her face like rain.
“Niki, how do you know it will get better? Everything is falling down around you, but you’re always so strong. How do you know?” She asked. I tried to pinpoint the exact reason I felt so surely about all these things. The fact that I would heal. The fact that there was a place I could be safe. The fact that things would get better. I stumbled across something I had said to Tod just days before.
“God keeps his promises.” I said. She nodded her head. She hugged me tightly around the neck and I held on to her like a little child.
“Yeah,” She said. “He does.”

More Than a Story: Part 5~Ali Cummings

More than a Story
Part 5

Megan.
Happy birthday!!!!!!!!!!
I just want you to know that I’m really happy that I’ve known you for 3 years (in February, right?) It seems like forever!
But the real reason that I’m writing a whole note this year is because I just don’t feel like waiting until I’m 18. (Patience has never been one of my strong points, as Sara always says.) I just want you to know that I really really like you, and that maybe we could do something sometime. (Like you said, it sounds lame!) But I want you to know that. You’re really awesome, and I’m so blessed to have you as a great friend.
sam.
ps- here’s your gift in the blue paper......it took me a while to come up with it, but I’m sure it’s perfect!
Something inside of me broke again. I reread the note three times, but this time dwelling on the last two paragraphs. He had liked me. And I hated it at that moment.
I set the note in front of me and picked up the small, blue paper. It had a single piece of tape wrapped around it, holding it all together. I smiled when I saw that. Sam’s answer for everything had always been tape, of the Duct variety.
I carefully peeled the tape away and let the paper fall open a bit. I saw something glimmer as it fell out of the wrapping, and it caught my attention, because when I looked down, I gasped and picked it up. For a moment, I couldn’t believe my eyes. And then I began to believe that this was actually what Sam had gotten for me.
It was a white ring. Only it had a teeny but remarkably detailed horse on it. Mane flowing out behind it, neck bent forward slightly, it was galloping against the wind. It was pure white, and my thoughts drifted back to that cold Sunday night at the pavilion . . . "It’ll be white, cause white goes with everything, and you said that the white ones were your favorite . . ." . . . Everything made sense now. Suddenly the truth of it hit me like lightning.
He gave me a ring!!!!!!!
I suddenly let out a particularly loud squeal of delight and danced in a circle around the room. I then scooped up my cell phone and began to dial Sam’s number, telling myself that I’d call and say that I loved the gift, and that I wanted more than anything to get together sometime . . .
And then it smacked me in the face again.
Sam wasn’t going to come to the phone. Sam was dead.
The complete unfairness of it overwhelmed me. I sat down, defeated, on my bed and closed my phone.
It was the most unjust thing in the world. The one guy I had liked. It had to be him! Why couldn’t he have just lived?!
~ ** ~ * ~ * ~ ** ~
The following Sunday I tried my hardest not to lose my head completely. Lindsay wanted to know what the note said, and I told her word for word, only because I had read it over and over again on the night of my birthday since I couldn’t sleep. As I told her, I fingered the glistening white ring on my finger, trying once again to keep it together.
She reacted differently than I thought she might. Instead of gushing over all the ways that it was so romantic, she gave me a hug and told me to get some sleep tonight.
"And remember, Meg! Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve!" She called to me when we were leaving.
Something hit me. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve? No, it couldn’t be. There was no way . . .
~ ** ~ * ~ * ~ ** ~
But there was a way, and indeed, Tuesday morning Hannah jumped on me and rolled me by force out of bed. I wanted to yell at her for waking me up in the middle of another dream, which, I concluded, was the last place on earth that I could ever again meet up with Sam.
We opened presents. It was fun, and Hannah and Renee tried their best and more to make the day special for me. I didn’t want to ruin anything by being depressed. I felt like maybe I was finally at peace about my friend’s death. When I closed my eyes, I could even picture that beautiful face smiling like the sun its self up in Heaven, lighting up the Christmas Morning sky that I was looking out the window at right now, just for me to enjoy. A Christmas present: To me, from Sam. And this Christmas Morning, he was probably treating himself to a leisurely ride on a skateboard down golden streets. Maybe he was overseeing the building of my mansion, helping God lift the golden rays that made up the walls. I closed my eyes and smiled just thinking about it. Sure, Sam was gone, but life goes on. I just had to understand that from now . . . till the day that I die. I closed my eyes and said a prayer. A prayer that God would tell Sam that I loved him. And then I opened them again.
"Merry Christmas, Sam."

When I came to the end of the story, my eyes were swimming with tears. I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to think what Tod was feeling now. I jumped when my cell phone rang beside me. I looked at the caller ID. It was Niki.
“Hey.” I said.
“Hi Ali.” She said. I could tell she had been crying.
“Niki, what’s wrong? What happened?” Her reply made me drop the phone onto my bed.
“No.” I whispered. Tod was dead.

More Than a Story: Part 4~Ali Cummings

More than a Story
Part 4

On any normal day, I would jump if the phone rang to see who it is. And I would answer it if it told me that it was a collect call straight from Ruffin Road.
But today wasn’t a normal day.
Go figure.
So when the phone rang, Hannah ran to answer it. "Hello?"
I was in my room, laying on my bed, and replaying the previous nights events. But when I heard Hannah answer the phone, I started to listen intently.
"Yes, she’s here. No . . . I don’t think she’s busy. Yes. Okay. I’ll get her."
Ah. It must be Sara or Olivia, calling for Renee. And any minute now, Hannah would be walking down the hall, past my doorway, and up to Renee’s room to hand her the phone.
But to my utter astonishment, Hannah stopped at my doorway, walked in, and handed the phone to me.
"It’s for you," She said, and then walked out the door with a sigh.
My hand containing the phone was shaking, but I managed to lift it to my ear and say weakly
"Hello?"
"Hey, Meg." A familiar voice said through the phone. I knew that voice. Sara.
"Hey." It sounded like a stupid reply. I wanted to say something else, but everything that I thought of sounded even more ridiculous than just "hey".
There was an awkward silence between us, in which both of us were no doubt trying to figure out what to say to the other. Then finally, Sara spoke, and I let out my breath.
"How are you doing?"
"Fine." I said plainly. "You?"
She sighed. "I’ll live . . . eventually."
"Need anything?" I asked.
"Not really. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. I know how close you and . . ." Her voice trailed off. There was more silence. I heard nothing but the slow, steady ticking of my wall clock for a full three minutes. Sara took a deep breath. "You and Sam were."
Finally, I could stand it no longer. "Nothing will ever be the same!" I nearly shouted. "I can’t keep going on like this! I just feel empty, like a part of me has been unwillingly ripped out and I’ll never get it back! There hasn’t been a single night since Monday that I haven’t dreamt about him, and it’s all my fault!"
"What do you mean, it’s all your fault?"
"I mean, if it hadn’t been for me, Sam would never have died! He would have never been on his way back from the mall, and there wouldn’t be any ice, and there wouldn’t have been a car crash, and he would still be alive!"
There was such a silence that I thought for a moment that the whole world had stopped turning.
"Meg, none of this is your fault. He had insisted on going that day. It wasn’t his fault either, though. It was an accident, and I don’t want you to blame yourself."
This time I was silent, taking it all in.
"But if it wasn’t for me . . . if I had just stayed home from church that night in January, then I wouldn’t even be here right now . . . and he would be . . ."
"What do you mean you wouldn’t be here?"
I paused, and then finally it came out. "I was going to . . . I would have . . . killed myself that night if it hadn’t been for Sam."
There was a deathly, ghostly silence that filled the room to the brim as the horridness of my truth finally came spilling out. I had told no one of my plans to commit suicide, and now it was out.
"There is no way he would still be here if you had done that." Sara finally said.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, if he had found out that you actually killed yourself . . . on a night when he was supposed to actually see you, no less . . . he would have blamed himself. He would have blamed himself for it, and he would have told himself that he could have stopped you, or he should have seen that coming, or something like that. And if he didn’t blame himself to death . . ." Another huge pause. "He would have died of a broken heart.
"I don’t think you know just how much he loved you. When you first came down here, he came home telling of a girl who seemed really lonely and solitary. And then one Wednesday night, he came home saying that you had talked to him, Tyler, and Rachel, and that you seemed like a nice girl.
"And then it sprouted from there. He was ecstatic all VBS week, and on that last day, when Ashlee said those things about you, he flipped, and he was about ready to kill her because she had made someone as nice as you so upset. And then that’s when it started.
"Renee told me a short while after that that you had a crush on him. And, well, I told her that Sam had a crush on you. After that, we had so much fun monitoring the whole thing, and it started to become more and more obvious. She had fun tormenting you at home, and I did the same with Sam. You should have seen how red he went one afternoon when our grandfather asked if you were his girlfriend."
I closed my tearful eyes for a moment and pictured Sam, going red as a tomato. It was funny. But it was also painful.
"And then, just a week before the . . . well . . . accident, Sam came to me and said ‘I don’t know what to get Megan for her birthday. She’s going to be 14, and I’ve known her for, like, three years, and I don’t know what I should get for her.’
"So I said ‘Just figure something out that would be special to you and her, and go from there.’ So then he stood and thought for a minute, and then a huge grin swept across his face, and he said ‘I’ve got it!’ And then he ran out of my room, and I knew that something was up.
"So then I went and asked him. And he just smiled and said ‘I just have a feeling that it’s going to be the best birthday present ever!’ And then he just laughed, and I knew something was definitely up.
I laughed a bit. I could almost hear Sara smiling as she listened to my brief laugh.
"And then finally he came into my room Sunday night and handed me this note that he had wrote. He asked me if I thought it was okay, and I just smiled and said ‘I have a feeling that she’s going to love it’."
Sara sighed. I almost cried again. "I still have it."
A sudden question popped up into my mind. "Do you think that maybe . . .?"
"I’ll bring it Sunday."
"Thanks."
I was beginning to hate silence, because it once again filled the room.
"Well, I guess I’ll see you then,"
"Yeah,"
"See you, Meg!"
"Bye,"
"Oh and don’t forget," Sara said suddenly. "No matter what, none of this is your fault."
I smiled. "I know that now. Thank you."
"No, thank you!"
And as I hung up, I felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted off of my shoulders, and I could not wait until Sunday so that I could read what this mystery note said.
~ ** ~ * ~ * ~ ** ~
In fact, Sunday came all too quickly, and before I knew it, I was home from church, getting changed, Sam’s unread birthday note sitting on my bed.
It was his alright. I’d recognize that handwriting anywhere. And as I sat down in my Clarity tee and favorite blue jeans, I felt it. It was rather lumpy for a note.
I was about to open it when I realized something. This Friday was my 14th birthday. Why not save it until then?
So then I carefully picked it up, and carried it over to my desk. As if it were made of glass, I sat it down inside my desk cabinet and softly closed the doors.
~ ** ~ * ~ * ~ ** ~
Wednesday was an improvement. Everyone seemed to have their heads on straight and their cools kept (including me), because it was an uneventful night.
After class, Lindsay and I walked around church and talked for a solid hour. I told her about the note, and she almost cried herself, gushing on and on about something about it being romantic.
I couldn’t help but wonder if she was right.
~ ** ~ * ~ * ~ ** ~
Thursday, the 20th of December. The shortest day of my life. As I laid down to go to sleep, I felt that excitement that only my birthday could bring creeping back to me. No matter what, I was going to make it rock.
~ ** ~ * ~ * ~ ** ~
I yawned and sat down on my bed. It had been a long day, full of fun and games and Olive Garden bread sticks. I sighed as I pictured the plate of steaming spaghetti again and laid back, content. I was closing my eyes sleepily when they fell on my desk cabinet.
Suddenly I was wide awake, and I sat up so fast that I felt dizzy. I got up and walked across the room. Reaching my desk, I opened the cabinet and carefully took out the note that had been nagging at the back of my mind for the past week. Sam’s note.
I opened it with the utmost care, as if I was afraid that it might shatter if my hand as much as slipped. And then it was open, and in the piece of paper holding everything together, I found another paper, folded, and a small bit of sky blue wrapping paper.
I unfolded the paper first. In it was unmistakably Sam’s handwriting. I took a deep breath and began to read it.

More Than a Story: Part 3~Ali Cummings

More than a Story
Part 3

There were sounds everywhere. Forks and spoons and knives clicking, and trash can lids lifting and being set back down again. And then there were chair noises as they were dragged across the floor when people wanted to stand and get something else to eat. But mostly talking. Happy chattering, quiet whispers, and loud shouts and exclamations all bounced off the walls of the Fellowship Hall, and were carried down the hall and into the Youth Room, where they would have found me if someone came looking for me.
As people joked and laughed with their friends, I mourned the death of mine. I sat in my chair, my eyes squeezed shut, trying to remember the happy times when I didn’t know Sam McMillen.If I hadn’t met him, I thought angrily. Then I wouldn’t be in this mess right now!And then suddenly I opened my eyes, and somewhere inside of me, something else opened too.
If I hadn’t met him . . .
If I hadn’t met Sam McMillen, I’d probably be dead right now. I would have commit suicide in January like I had planned. If I hadn’t met Sam McMillen, I’d be alone right now. (Well, I am! I thought angrily again.) But then I thought about it. I’d have been virtually alone for the past two years. If I hadn’t met Sam McMillen, I would be gone.
I couldn’t believe the truth. If I hadn’t met Sam, I would be long gone. And he might not have died. It was my fault.
Suddenly I could not take it anymore. I finally broke, and it was as if the heavens had unleashed all of it’s rain. I sobbed until no more tears came.
And then my sadness came back out as anger. I was horribly infuriated with myself. If it wasn’t for me, Sam would still be alive. He wouldn’t have been going out that day. He wouldn’t have been going to the mall that day. And as I kicked a nearby chair and sat down on the floor in frustration, my mind flashed back to Sunday Night Bible Study, last week.
We were standing out at the pavilion, and Sam was watching his breath come out in little white puffs, and laughing as they got larger and larger. And I laughed as I watched his mouth widen in his quest to blow a huge white breath and blow it into Sara’s face.
"Sooooo," He said mischievously.
"What?" I asked, still laughing as his mouth widened as far as it would go.
"It’s your birthday soon, right?"
"Yeah," I said wondering where he was going with this. "Why?"
"‘Cuz I know what I’m getting for you!"
I sighed. "Sam! You’re going to torture me about it, aren’t you?"
"Yep." He said, half laughing as he saw my frustrated expression.
"Yeah, my dad and I are going to the mall tomorrow, and then . . ."
"Sam!"
" . . . I’m going to that one store and getting that one thing . . ."
"Sam!"
" . . . And then I’ll wrap it in that one color that you like . . ."
"SAM!"
"Okay, okay!" He said with a laugh. "I won’t tell you!"
"Good!" I said, amused.
But after a few minutes of blowing his breath into Renee’s face, Sam started again.
‘I just know it’s going to be perfect!" I heard him say. "It’ll be white, cause white goes with everything, plus you said that the white ones were your favorites . . ."
"Samuel Tod McMillen, what am I going to do with you?!" I said, exasperated.
"Absolutely nothing! I like myself right where I am, thank you!" He said with a laugh.
The scene melted away. I wanted so much to have that moment back. To tell him that I liked him where he was too, and that I didn’t want him to ever leave, and that I loved him too much to let him go.And then I went numb. I had no emotion whatsoever. I wasn’t angry anymore, but I wasn’t depressed either. And I was certainly not happy! I was just numb.
Maybe it was because I didn’t know what to feel. I was still convinced that if Sam hadn’t been on his way back from the mall, then the car would never have fallen off the bridge . . . would never have rolled . . . would never have slipped . . . he would never have died.
But at the same time, I was telling myself that this was ridiculous. It couldn’t have been my fault. There was no way!
And then I went numb.
And then all the emotion came back, and it was like a smack in the face. It hit me like a wave pulling me under, ignoring the fact that I was trying to swim back to the surface . . . to peace.The whole room seemed to be fading away slowly. I felt as if I was falling. All of the emotion that surrounded me was overpowering. I couldn’t take it. My head began throbbing. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t feel.
And then there was nothing.
~ ** ~ * ~ * ~ ** ~I figured out later that I had passed out. I had gotten myself so stressed and upset that I just fainted, right there on the Youth Room floor. It gave everybody a good scare, but I was alright.I wished that I wasn’t alright. I shouldn’t be alive, I told myself. Not when Sam’s dead and it’s my fault. I don’t deserve to live.
And that night as I lay in bed asleep, I dreamed that Sam was still alive, and that he and I were playing ping-pong in the Angle Room. And then the next moment I was telling him how I felt about him. And then the next he was saying the same things. And then the next, we were.I awoke thinking that the dream was reality. But as I sat up in bed, the bright lights and sounds of 5th Quarter didn’t surround me. Instead, the emptiness and darkness of my room swallowed me, and found me crying myself to sleep the next minute.
~ ** ~ * ~ * ~ ** ~
The next two days filled me to the brim with a depression I never though possible for me to have.We did nothing Monday, short of school. Tuesday was our running around day, but, as I didn’t get any sleep the night before, I was left to sleep in.
And then Wednesday was the worst day of the week so far. I had to show up. I could not skip church over something so small as Sam dying. That’s what I told myself, Renee, and my mom when they all asked me if I wanted to go. Renee nearly cried when I told her. My mom was just silent, and then she said "okay".
I hadn’t thought about Wednesday night yet. I was still trying to get over Sunday. I had never considered everything that may have happened that night.
For one thing, Sara was in class that night, which told me that the slow, painful healing process had begun. She too, like me, had gotten little sleep, and was ready to cry almost every minute. But if there was one thing that I had discovered that night, it was this:
That around every corner, fitted into every minute, and found in every little thing that I did and didn’t do, I found Sam. If I played a CD, it was from an artist that he had enjoyed listening to. If I read a book, there was something about every character that I read about that reminded me of him. If I did something stupid, like pick up a pen or pencil and draw a star, I would be reminded of that Wednesday night class so long ago, when Sam had erased my perfect star with a smudgy eraser. We had never laughed so hard and so silently at the same time.
I realized with a shock that, in every thing that I did, a little bit of Sam would haunt me. His death was hung over my head, and it was all my fault. And if there was one thing that I was sure of most in the world, it was that I would never get over it.
Everything about Wednesday night was depressing. I had assumed that we would have a substitute teacher, but we didn’t. And I had never seen Sam’s dad so emotional. I figured that, like everyone else, his family would just try to suck it up and deal with it. But I was horribly wrong.Krissy barely talked. It was as if she was numb to the fact that her brother was dead. And I was unfortunate enough to witness the instant in which it finally sunk into her.
She and Hannah were playing basketball outside next to the pavilion. Everybody else was out on the front steps; I was the only one around at the back, save Hannah and Krissy.Hannah was just taking a shot at throwing the ball into the hoop, and she was steadily getting bored with the fact that Krissy wouldn’t talk to her. So she kept up the chatter, every so often pausing and waiting to see if Krissy would respond.
"I caught this newt the other day, no, it was a fence lizard, and I had trouble naming it."She paused. Krissy said nothing.
"So I went into Renee’s room to ask her, and she screamed and told me to get it away from her. Another pause. Still no response.
"So I went to my mom and she told me to ‘get that thing out of this house right now, Hannah Lynn!’."
Silence.
Somehow I knew where this story was going, but I was only half listening, twirling a blade of grass in between my fingers absentmindedly and losing myself in my own thoughts. I should be dead, not Sam. I should be dead, not Sam. I should be dead, not Sam.
"And then finally I went to Megan and said ‘What should I name this fence lizard I caught?’ and she didn’t say anything. I thought she was asleep, and so I tried to wake her up."Something about this particular story was nagging at the back of my mind. I did remember Hannah waking me up, and I had been having a dream about Sam. So then the first thing I had said was . . .
"And all she said was — "
I leapt to my feet. "Hannah, don’t! — "
". . . Sam. What kinda name is that for a fence lizard?"
As soon as the words came out, Hannah must have realized what she had just said, because she turned pale. I felt the color draining from my face as well. I couldn’t look at Krissy, but when I did, I regretted it.
At first she was still. If we had been playing musical statues, she would have been the winner. And then a small sob issued from her. For a moment, she just made that one sound. It seemed to echo inside my head, bouncing around, with no way of escaping. And then she sobbed again. And again, the noise threatened to burst it’s way out of my throbbing head.
And then finally, she broke down, and, crumpling to the ground, began crying, completely unconsolable.
Hannah stood with a look of complete shock on her face, trying to work everything out in her mind about what had just happened. And I guessed that she figured it out in a hurry, because her eyes opened wide, and she began to shake from head to toe, finally coming to the conclusion that she had said something terribly wrong.
I myself was frozen. I could not believe what was happening. It had finally sunk in, and I had been there to witness it.
I walked over slowly and knelt down. The muffled sounds of Krissy’s sobbing almost broke my heart, but I re composed myself and whispered, "It’s okay . . ."
But I knew in my heart that those were empty words. Sam was gone, and that was anything but okay. I could never live with it, but at that moment, I realized that I wasn’t in the boat alone.But they don’t have to live with the guilt that you have to, A small, creepy voice seemed to echo in my mind. I shuddered and tried to block it out. But in my mind, my own voice answered. You’re right.What was going on?

More Than a Story: Part 2~Ali Cummings

More than a Story
Part 2

It was a long week. We did not attend church on Wednesday because that had been the day of the funeral. It was very nice outside for December. The birds were singing as if they had nothing better to do. The leaves, or whatever leaves were left on the ground and on the trees, rustled with the wind’s music. A few squirrels were gathering some last-minute nuts to store up for the remainder of the winter. In the living room, a weather reporter announced that it was "a clear sky with little or no precipitation, and 70 degrees".And I sat in my room on my bed, with my arms crossed behind my head, thinking. Just thinking.I wondered what I was going to do with my day. Usually when it was this warm, Hannah would come into my room about this time and ask me if I wanted to play with her. But she hadn’t asked me that since Monday. Maybe I would play video games. Or maybe I would play Game Boy. We had gotten this new game for it with all sorts of assorted sport games on it, like football and basketball and ping-pong . . .Ping-pong. The words hit me like someone dragging their nails over a chalk board. I shut my eyes tight, trying to block out the image that threatened to overwhelm me, but it only made it clearer.Just two months ago, on the 26th of October, to be exact, at church. There was the air hockey table before my eyes, and someone was gathering the two red pucks to put them with the table. He looked up at me with the most gorgeous hazel eyes I had ever seen. I smiled, and he asked, "Do you want to play ping-pong?""Sure!" I said enthusiastically. And then we were in the room playing, keeping up a steady stream of small talk as we played. And then he hit the ball too hard, and I whacked it back, almost hitting him in the process. He laughed. I had loved making him laugh.
And then he hit it back, and it bounced off of my head. I picked it up and looked at him. He was doubling over with laughter. I, standing with Sam in the angle room, was laughing. But I, laying on my bed alone in my bedroom, was crying.
"Sam!" I moaned, burying my face in my pillow.
~ ** ~ * ~ * ~ ** ~
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
I awoke the next day to my alarm clock. I rolled over and looked at the time. It was 7:30 in the morning. I rolled to face my wall and became numb to the incessant noise of my alarm clock; numb also to the fact that I had to get out of bed and get dressed and ready for church that morning. I buried my face into my pillow and tried to block out the noise issuing form my accursed alarm clock. I thought about throwing it across the room.
And then I remembered Sam telling me once about how he had thrown his alarm clock across the room. It hadn’t broken.
I wished I hadn’t thought of that. I almost broke down and cried again, but I told myself firmly that crying won’t do me any good.
"Crying won’t change things," I said stiffly. "Crying won’t make him come back."I got out of bed and opened my closet. It was like opening a closet full of memories of Sam. But in reality, it was full of clothes that I had worn so many different times. I had worn this shirt to Busch Gardens in October. I had worn these jeans every Wednesday night for a month. I had worn this jacket when Sam had asked Sara to ask me to call him while he was in West Virginia.
I tried to rip the memories out of my mind, but it did no good. So instead, I just laid out the only dress that I owned that I hadn’t worn when Sam was around. The only problem was that it was a spaghetti strap dress, and it was 49 degrees outside. The temperature, along with my mood, had dropped intensely. I would freeze to death.
So I just threw the dress back into my closet and rummaged through it until I found my denim skirt, long sleeved blue shirt, and brown boots, all of which I hadn’t worn since last winter.And then I grabbed my Bible and walked out into the living room. Seeing an open spot, I sat down and sat my Bible on my lap, and waited.
I didn’t have to wait long. Soon the house sprang to life. Renee walked down the hall in khaki dress pants and a long sleeved green shirt. She bustled into the kitchen to get breakfast, not even noticing that I was sitting on the couch.
Hannah walked right past me, muttering to Sora, her imaginary friend. She was swinging her Bible as she past, and said a quick sorry as it hit my leg. I didn’t feel it.
And then, lastly, my mom came up. She noticed me sitting there, and came over to me. Pushing a few magazines aside, she sat down next to me and asked "How are you doing?"
"Fine," I lied.
She knew I was lying. But nevertheless, she walked into the kitchen, fixing the collar on Hannah’s dress shirt as she passed.
I bit my lip to keep from filling with tears. I was a strong person, and strong people didn’t cry. I wasn’t going to cry. I couldn’t cry. I was not going to cry!
So I didn’t. I just kept a firm hold on my lip with my teeth. In fact, I held it for the thirty minute car ride to church. And by the time I stepped into the Youth Room, it was bleeding.
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The smell. The familiar, welcoming smell of the Youth Room. It smelled of paint and people and the metal chairs that creaked when you tilted them the right way. Usually, I breathed in that smell as if it were oxygen.
But on this particular Sunday, it hit me and choked me. I tried to hold my breath, but I started to suffocate, so I let it out with much regret. Once again, the smell engulfed me, filling my lungs to the brim, choking me with memories of my dead friend. Tears began to well up in my eyes, but I held them back.No. I told myself. You are a strong person. You don’t cry.
So, to further distract myself, I began taking the chairs and setting them up. I started how I always did: taking one chair and sitting it on the right side of the tall, white pole in the middle of the room. And then I took three more and put them on the right side of that chair. And then I took four more and put them on the left side.
And then I started to set up the chairs for the front row, starting left to right instead of my usual right to left. Why? Because Sam had always sat on the last chair to the far right of the room. I always sat next to him.
I set up my chair and the looked longingly at the empty space next to it. It was as if the empty space in my heart of hearts had taken form right before my eyes. I thought about setting up the chair, but what good would that do? Ashlee was bound to sit in it instead.
A slow, burning rage started in me as I thought of that fact. But if I didn’t set that chair up, it would feel all too strange. And then a sudden idea hit me.
I picked up a chair and sat it at the end. It was empty, as it should be. And then I searched the cabinets for a piece of paper. By God’s Amazing Grace alone did I find one shoved into the back of the last cabinet I checked.
Smoothing it out, I grabbed a pen out of my Bible and wrote in bold, readable letters across the paper.
THE KING SAT HERE
I looked at my handiwork and frowned. It sounded like an artifact in a museum, not a monumental piece. So I erased it as best as I could (which was completely) and wrote instead:
~ A LOYAL FRIEND WAS HERE ~
It was perfect. Once again, my eyes welled up, but I forced the tears away.
And then I folded the paper and sat it carefully on the chair. And as I stepped back to view it all completely, my eyes became glued to that seat. It was too much. But I refused to cry. Instead, I sat down in my usual chair and closed my eyes, forcing every good memory out of my mind that popped up.
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I told no one that it was me that set that paper out on the chair. A few people asked me who had done it, and I said that it had been there. (And it had.)
But I could not fool a handful of people. My best friend Lindsay knew immediately, and as soon as class was over, she came and hugged me hard. But she said nothing. That was fine. A hug was enough. It was like she and I had exchanged a tearful conversation without words.
Renee knew it was me because she recognized my handwriting. She hugged me and just moaned "Oh, Meg!"
Sara probably would have known too, but none of the McMillens were present that day. Hannah was disappointed that Krissy couldn’t come, but soon she busied herself with her other best friend, Meredith.
That day was the day of the covered-dish luncheon. There was one at the first Sunday of every month. I cringed, but told my mom that if Hannah and Renee wanted to stay (which they did) then I would too.
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