Lauren got out of the car, looking around. It seemed like a quiet, good neighborhood. All of the houses in the neighborhood were decorated with Christmas lights or with Christmas figures, something she was not accustomed to see. There was a park nearby, according to the sales person who had sold them the house. This was the new house that they were moving into. It was a two story, cream colored house. There were many plants in the front garden, mostly red roses and daisies. If it was one thing she liked, it was flowers. A few minutes after she got out of the car, she saw the u-haul truck approach the house. Everything that had been her childhood was in that truck. Her father was holding the keys to their new home in his hand. He approached the door and used the key to open the door.
"Go check out your room," he said. "It's the one upstairs at the end of the staircase. It's empty but it will soon be filled with your stuff."
"Thanks, Dad." Lauren replied.
She didn't want to admit it but it was sort of exciting that she was going to walk into her new room. She walked up the stairs, taking it slow, bracing herself for the new place that would be her haven. Emptiness would greet her for the time being, but that would change with time. When she got to the door, she placed her hand on the cold door knob, and turned it. As soon as she had opened the door, she could tell that this room had belonged to a girl. The light was still off but the smell of perfume lingered in the room. Lauren looked for the light switch and when she found it, she flipped the switch on. She looked over to the window. The first thing that came to her mind was the view. All she wanted to do was find out whether she could see the moon or not. She went over to the window and opened it. The moon stared at her with a gentle look on her face. Relief overcame Lauren once she saw the moon. The moon didn't talk but she had learned that she was a great listener. With all the excitement of the moon, she hadn't realized that there was a room across from hers. There was light coming from it. She could not tell if the person in there was a guy or a girl. But there was no time to investigate since it was late at night. She would wait until tomorrow. She was too tired to do anything, and if she had to, she would sleep on the floor. Luckily, Lauren's mother, Cindy, came inside the room and gave her daughter two blankets. Lauren was used to sleeping on the floor and there was no problem with that. All she had to do was use the thicker blanket as the one to sleep on and the less thick one as her actual cover. Before Lauren actually went to sleep, she went to say good night to the moon. This was her ritual, part of her tradition and no matter where she went, or where she was, she would stay true to it.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Next day, Lauren woke up at seven o'clock. Her parents were already awake and the furniture was being moved into the house. She heard her mom giving the two workers instructions on where to put the couch. Poor workers, she thought, Mom is really indecisive. She wants it there one second and then the next she wants it on the other side of the room. She was so used to being in Santa Barbara that she was going to go to the closet to change, when she realized that there was nothing there. Throwing the blanket to the side, Lauren got up with a jump and went downstairs. The living room was coming up fine. It was almost done actually. The hard stuff would come when all of the furniture had to go upstairs. Seeing that there was nothing she could do to help, Lauren went outside for a walk.
Her attention was to the house next to hers. The house seemed empty, but she knew that it wasn't because there was a car out in the driveway. All she could do was wonder about who lived there and if they were going to come and try to meet them. But there was no time for that now. Her mission was to find the park that had been announced on the ads for the house.
There was no need to walk very far to find the park for it was only a few blocks away. The first thing that Lauren noticed was that there were so many trees. There were so many people as well. All she could see were families playing in the park or having picnics. It was a really pretty sight. She decided to walk through the park for a while. On the other side of the park, she saw a couple. All she could do was stare. That couple brought back memories but it also brought back betrayal. "Don't do this to yourself, Lauren. Relationships shouldn't be painful. Every relationship should make you feel happiness, not pain. They are not those people who hurt you. So stop doing this to yourself. Love is a wonderful thing to experience when everyone agrees with the other. You've got to let it go now. Be happy with what you have now. There's a time amd place for everything."
Lauren walked on. There was no use in staying there since her plan was to walk in the park.
There were tons of children at the park. She couldn't help but smile. She loved children and she would one day be a pediatrician. It was her life dream to become a doctor or even a nurse and take care of those children. She didn't want to be limited to the role of a doctor. She wanted to be more than that, she wanted the children and their families to approach her as a friend would. Being just a doctor was too boring. There needed to be some personal attachment to the people that she was seeing. It had been said over and over again that it was not a good idea to be attached to patients. It actually made sense because if you were attached to a patient and something happened to them you could be destroyed emotionally and never be the same again. There was a probability that something could go wrong because your judgement was clouded by your personal experiences. Lauren had heard this too but she didn't care. There was no point in being a doctor if you weren't going to care about the patients and their well being. There's probably no point. The job of a doctor is to care, there's no way that you can completely detach yourself emotionally from anything that was related to your practice and to the patient. It wasn't possible.
Lauren looked down at her watch and she noticed that it was already five o'clock. "This is not possible," she thought. "I've been here for seven hours! How could this be? Wow. Time went by so fast. I have to get home." With that, Lauren went straight to walking home. Hopefully she wouldn't get lost, but her memory was well and she wouldn't forget many things. She couldn't forget many things. When she got to the house, she looked over at the other house, but there was no change. The only difference was that the car in the driveway was now gone. The u-haul truck was also gone. When Lauren went inside the house, everything was in its place. She looked upstairs in her room and instead of blankets, there was a bed. Her collection of teddy bears was seated neatly around the room. She was surprised at how simple it was. The only things in her room were the bed, the teddy bear collection, a drawer with most of her clothes already in it. She went to open the closet door and to her surprise it was all filled with her clothes. For all of this to have been done in five hours meant that there really wasn't very much that they had. But it was okay as long as thay had each other, it was fine. She decided to go to the park for a few more minutes. She couldn't explain it, but there was something that called her to the park.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Landon couldn't believe this was happening. There was going to be someone living in the house next to him. The house had been abandoned for as long as he could remember but his mother always kept it clean. Now he had the certainty that there was someone there. From the looks of it, it was also a family. His brother hadn't been around all day. He was at work and Landon had to stay home, since he couldn't really work. At least that's what people thought. But he was more than capable of doing it. All he had to do was wait for his brother to be back so that he could take Landon on a walk to the park or on a walk around the neighborhood.
A few minutes later, he heard his brother come in. "Lance, you're back."
"Yeah I am, bud. Were you waiting for me?"
"Yup. Yes I was."
Lance was 19. He had not been there the day of the accident, but he was a witness to the suffering that the loss of eyesight caused his little brother. After the day of the accident, Lance took care of Landon and to his surprise, Landon had gotten to a point in which he needed no more help from Lance. Although it hurt Lance to see Landon in this state, Lance also knew that Landon was a fighter and it made him proud to know that fact.
"So...are we going or not?" Landon asked impatiently.
"Yeah." Lance replied with a smile.
Lance and Landon walked out together. Lance would always just warn Landon when there was a step or a branch or a random object in his way that could make him fall, but Landon would just blow it off and act like he hadn't heard it. Landon didn't need it. At least that's what he had told him over and over again.
"Come on, Landon. You're being super slooow." Lance dragged on the word slow.
"Okay, Okay. I'm going. Let's go...like right now." Landon went past Lance and he reached the door before Lance did. When Lance was finally out the door, they started jogging towards the park. The key to not falling was to be as close as possible to Lance, without actually tripping on anybody's feet. It worked the first time he did it and it kept working.
Once Lance and Landon got to the park, they separated. It was something that neither of them had noticed. Landon thought he was still running alongside Lance, but he was running by himself. He never ran fast but there was no way he could have seen the girl that was in front of him. He kept running without the slightest notion of the girl's presence. It was inevitable that they were going to collide. And at the last moment, he collided into her.