My Best Friend's Love

CHAPTER THREE

Once when I was six, I was riding down the street on my bike, when the front tire hit a rock and I went flying. I ended up scraping my knee pretty badly. I left my bike on the side of the road and limped the thirty yards to my house, all the while crying.

When I finally made it to my house, I opened the door and yelled for my parents. They immediately came running and saw the bloody scrape on my knee. My dad picked me up and took me to the kitchen, where he sat me on the counter. My mom got a couple of bandaids and washed my leg in the sink, while my dad held my hand and tried to calm me down enough so I could tell him what'd happened.

After my cut was all clean and my mom had applied the bandaids to my knee, I finally calmed down. My dad wiped the tears from my face and asked where my bike was.

I pointed in the direction. He lifted me off the counter and held me against his side as he took me outside and walked down the street to my bike. He set me down when we reached it.

He inspected it. "Nothing looks to be broken. Your bicycle will ride again!" He said it in a hero voice, and I started giggling.

He grabbed my bike and started wheeling it back home with me following. "You know," he said very seriously, "you were very brave walking all the way home."

"I was?"

"Well, yeah. It just shows how strong you are."

I frowned. "But dad, I'm not strong." I raised my arms. "I'm weak."

He looked back at me. "Not strong like that." We were at our house, and he proceeded to put my bike in the garage. He knelt down next to me. "I mean strong as in your heart. Do you know where your heart is?"

I placed my hand over the place my mom had told me my heart was at, and my dad nodded. He put his hand over his heart too.

"Do you feel it beating?" he asked, and I nodded. "As long as your heart is beating, you can do and be anything you want to, no matter how hard it may be. Your heart is your key to happiness. Always listen to it."

I nodded, and my dad and I went back into the house after that. When the scab on my knee healed, a scar replaced it, and if you look at my left knee today, you'll still be able to see it. Just like that scar, the words my dad told me that day have stuck with me ever since.

~

12 May 2015

50 days before...

"Go, Logan!" I yell as I watch him walk up to the batter's box.

Currently, I was sitting on bleachers in the hot sun, in a city an hour and a half away from our hometown, watching the high school boys baseball team destroy the opposing team in their first round of state. The other team, the Goldwyn Bluejays, were blue and white and had a score of 2. Our high school, the West Valley Lions, were gold and black and had a score of 11. It was the seventh inning.

I was sitting amongst a group of other students who had come too. Since our last school day had been last week, a lot of the students from the high school had come to cheer on the boys.

A girl in my class named Cynthia was sitting next to me, and she cheered for Logan too. Then she turned to me. "Logan's butt looks so good in those black pants. Don't you think so?"

Cynthia was the type of teenage girl that always had to have a piece of gum in her mouth. Right now, I could smell the spearmint. I shrugged in response to her question.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her roll her eyes. "But of course you wouldn't think so, what with you being all friends with him."

I shrug again. "I don't really think of Logan that way. He's my best friend."