So it’s been one month, give or take, since the day I died.
Have you gotten better, Gia?
Has your health improved?
Are you smiling the way I love?
Do you tell your parents everything your heart allows you to?
Have you talked to your friends lately?
Do you smile just because you can?
That’s the glory of time, Gia.
When you have time, you can heal.
Time heals wounds.
You have time.
You have enough time for the whole entire world.
Use it wisely, sweetheart.
Get out there and live for a while. Go out into the sun and smile. If it’s raining, dance for me, so I can look down and see you twirling and laughing and I can laugh too. Live for me, Gia.
It sounds horrible, but I want you to live for me.
After everything, is that so much for me to ask?
I don’t know.
Are you happy?
Do you have something worth smiling for?
Is something in your life that makes you laugh?
Are any of your friends, family, anyone watching you today and seeing you like they haven’t seen you for this last month?
If the answer to all of those questions is yes,
then I have a reason to smile, too.
~*~
“You’re full of shit,” Devon accused.
I raised an eyebrow.
He was still unconvinced. “You can’t be serious.”
“Shut your mouth, pretty boy,” I chided, tapping the underside of his chin. “Bugs might fly in.”
“Forget the damn bugs!” he cried. “Get your ass in the car; we’re going to Busch Gardens!”
My parents had thought that it would be a good idea to send Devon and me to a theme park to take our minds away from that it’s been a month. And damn if they didn’t know us like the back of their hands.
Devon was nearly peeing himself with excitement as he scrambled around his room, searching for his wallet.
“SheiKra is now floorless,” he informed me unnecessarily as he searched, a giant grin on his face. “I’m going to make that roller coaster my bitch. Mark my words, North.”
“They have been marked,” I noted monotonously, rolling my eyes. “You’re like a five year old.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me you’re not pumped,” he ordered me, ceasing his search to catch my gaze in his. I pursed my lips.
Satisfied, he nodded and continued to look.
I picked his wallet up from where it had been sitting next to me the entire time and flipped it open. “Cheetah Chase is now some real roller coaster called Cheetah Hunt, too. Really fast, apparently. And you don’t feel like you’re definitely going to die when you go around a bend.”
YOU ARE READING
The Waiting Game
Short StoryI met him in kindergarten—he gave me a fat lip on accident. He was in my American Government class freshmen year of high school. And now he is gone. ~ Gia North knows that good things come to those who wait. But she’s waited long enough when the b...
