(A friend wrote this) The Gift

 I sat on the bleachers, out of the wind that tugged at my hair and chilled my skin. Dad had just left to use the bathroom and I was sitting by myself, tapping my toes to keep them awake. I looked down and smiled- my friend scampered up the steps, to the top.

“Hey,” I said as he sat next to me.
“Hi.” He picked up his backpack and began to riffle through its contents. “Where’d your dad go?” “He had to go. Um, I think he’s going to look for a coat for me.” I pulled Dad’s enormous coat tighter around me.
He stopped groping, drew something out of the bag, and offered it to me. I gasped.
It was a rose.
All right, it was a fake one- crumpled, flattened, and fraying, with plastic leaves, but...
I took it, swallowing hard.
“I was going to give it to you before, but you know, your dad was here- I was like, oh man.”
Smiling, I examined it and tried to act normal. “This is just...” I stopped, then tried again: “All I can say is...” But there was nothing I could say. I just wanted to hug him, but that would mess up our friendship even further. Instead, I said, “This is the nicest fake flower anyone’s ever given me.” And immediately wanted to smack myself. Stupid! I tried to cover up by laughing at my statement, like a joke, but he looked at me with concern.
“Well, the only place I could get a real one was from my garden, and in this weather...” he grimaced, and I finished the sentence, blowing out a frosty white breath.
“It’s probably not doing too well.” I looked at him, caught his eyes. “Seriously, it’s...great.”
I looked down again at that pathetic little false rose and smiled.
It was the sweetest thing a friend had ever given me, though I would never tell him that.

Fair

  He was never there for me. And when he was it was only because my mom told him to go to the fourth grade graduation ceremony, or a spelling bee, or  a Christmas play, but never because he actually wanted to go.
  He would come home from work and eat his dinner in almost silence, never carrying on conversations with me, just watching the news. After dinner, he would go to a computer or to bed. Hardly ever did anything with us.
  I hear my mom and him fight sometimes. I always take my mom's side. She makes dinner. She washes the dishes. She does the laundry. She vacuums the house. Usually after their fights, he would start helping out. After about a week though, he would stop. My mom would compare us. Whenever I messed up, she would say, "I know where you get it from" or call me a "Daddy's Little Girl."
  It isn't fair, that's what I think. It isn't fair for my mom, it isn't fair for my brother, or my sister, or me. It isn't fair when he asks me for help, when half the time, he won't even bother helping us. It isn't fair to me that I don't have a father that's there for me the way other girls' fathers are there for them. It isn't fair I'm the daughter of a hipocrit. It will never be enough to tell me he loves me once a week instead of everyday. It isn't fair.

Sorry. I was upset when I wrote this so its not as good... :-/

Dead

The reflections shown everywhere, crystals of lost loved ones flying around me in the old car. My dad's arms around my mother was all I could see from the back seat, where i sat beside my sister. I was sitting in the middle, in my car seat (I was six years old), while my sister sat on the far left side. In seconds, my parents and sister were covered in cuts. I was too, but mine were smaller, much smaller than theirs. Their bodies protected me from the worst, but if I had the chance, I would have gone back and risked my own life to save them. That was all I could remember up until when help arrived. I kept asking the paamedics if I could talk to my mom and dad, but with sorrowful faces, they kept telling me that they weren't there anymore and they had left. I didn't understand. Why would any parent leave their six-year-old daughter in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of strangers? They did however lt me speak to my sister. She was already being rolled into the ambulance when I screamed out her name. She told them to stop and when they said no, sh told them she didn't ant to leave her sister without any of her immediate family members giving their goodbyes to her. They stopped fo her at last. I looked at her with a confused expession and explained how our parents had left us with strangers and asked her where she was going to go from the scene. She told me that if she was still awake she would go to the hospital and if she fell asleep that she would see mom and dad again. This only made me more confused. She whispered to me that I was truly her best friend and stopped breathing. I wasn't crying though, because at the time, I didn't realize they were all dead.

Conscious

  It was barely visible, but I saw it. I didn't know what it was; this was the first time I had seen anything like what I saw. It walked out of my room as I walked inside. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time.

  But later, I saw it again. It was leaning against the wall in the doorway to my brothers room. It had the outline of a person, but I couldn't recognize it. It was yet lighter than everything else, than all its surroundings. I looked around, to see if anyone was near me who could help me out. Only my friend, but she wouldn't believe me. She was asleep and if I woke her, she wouldn't want to deal with something like this. She would be no help.

  Whatever it was, it appeared closer when I turned back at it. I was scared. I started shaking, trembling with both fear and cold. I felt my eyes water. In seconds, my cheeks were soaked. I closed them due to the burning I got from the makeup seeping into my eyes. When i opened them, it was closer. It was coming into the living room, where I was at the computer. I tried physical pain to get me out of this nightmare. It didnt work. I looked back about every five seconds. I didn't see much more every time. Only about every ten times I glanced over did I see it move positions. It was slower than earlier.

  I looked at the clock. 6:23 am. Outside the large window behind me showed that the sun was already beginning to rise. I had stayed up this long, so I figured it was just lack of sleep.

  I only saw it once after that. It appeared darker because of more light being shone on it.
  Only when the figures stopped showing up did I believe that all this happened. The whole time, I was fully conscious.

Pebble

(this is the second part of "Outside")


  Tap!
  I paused and took out one of my ear-buds. I could've sworn I had heard something coming from outside my window.     After a few seconds, I went back to listening to my music.
  Tap, tap!
  There it was again. I paused the music and got up to walk to the window. It wasn't like I was going to see anything,  with the pitch-blackness of the night. 
  I opened up the old window and heard crunching of dead leaves on the lawn. I still couldn't see, so I stepped away to get a flashlight.
  The next thing I knew, there was a pebble in the middle of the floor of my bedroom. I picked it up and walked towards the window again.
  I shined the flashlight down on the lawn, but saw no one. I was annoyed and tired from a hard day, so I just tossed the pebble down.
  "Ow!" Okay, now I knew there was someone out there.
  I shined the light down and saw my ex-boyfriend. He didn't see me, though. He was busy picking up the rock I had just thrown at him.
  I didn't want to talk to him. I walked back to my bed, not bothering to close the window.
  I guess I should have, because right after I had gotten comfortable, there was another rock that had fallen onto my floor. I got up to throw it at him, maybe to make him go away this time, but didn't because I was distracted.
  There was a small piece of folded paper taped onto the pebble.

Outside

  I woke up early for school and got ready quickly. I walked up to the bus and got on. I waited a long time until we finally arrived at school.
  I got off and saw my boyfriend outside on the front lawn.
  "Hey," I said.
  "Hey. I need to talk to you." He looked disappointed.
  "What's wrong?" I questioned as we walked over towards a bench.
  "Look, I saw you staring at another guy. It was like you like him more than you like me. Is this true?"
  "Don't you trust me?" I asked smiling at him, trying to get off the subject.
  He started getting angrier. "That doesn't answer my question! Do you like him?"
  "Listen, I-"
  "I should've known!" He got up and walked away, as I sat there, not knowing what to do next. I shed a tear.
  I didn't like the other guy any more than i liked him. To tell the truth, though, I had feelings for them both.I cried more and held my head in my hands.
  No one bothered to comfort me. I didn't want to talk to anyone, but itss nice knowing someone cared about you. The bell rang, but I didn't get up. I sat there for fifteen minutes until I realized I was late for class.I decided to wait until second block. First block was the least of my favorite classes anyway.
  I didn't speak to him for the rest of the day. He texted and called a total of about twenty-five times, but I didn't answer one of them. Talking to him wouldn't help me get over him. So I ignored him.
  I came home,didn;t eat dinner, just lied down on my bed for hours. I listened to my iPod until I was almost asleep, but then I heard something.
  Tap!
  It was coming from outside.

Asleep

It was late at night, I knew. But my surroundings told me otherwise. It was bright outside and I was in town, walking down the street.
That's when I saw him.
He was across the street from me, with someone. I didn't see the person's face though. I didn't have a clue about who it was.
They were talking to eachother and he sounded happy. I heard a voice from the same place but didn't recognize it enough to know who it was. I figured it was one of his friends, a girl though. I was okay with it, as I didn't get jealous that easily.
Though I did hear more of their conversation, not intentionally, but that's what happened. They weren't talking about anything interesting. Small talk, I guess you could say.
Then I noticed something. They looked at eachother and smiled. This didn't bother me until I glanced down to their hands. They were together, hers interlocked in his.
I was hurt. I couldn't believe at all that anything like this could have ever happened. He was mine. Yet they were laughing together and holding hands.
I couldn't look over anylonger. I turned away and closed my eyes tightly, trying to convince myself that this was a dream.
That's when I woke up. It was night again and none of this had happened, yet I was on the verge of crying. I reached for my iPod and played something happy, something I knew would take my mind off of that nightmare. I played his favorite song over and over until I fell asleep.