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MEMORY LANE
My day
couldn't get any better. The week before that I had had gotten an A on
my final history paper that I had stayed up all night studying for, and
I didn't miss the bus like I always do. But today just didn't feel
normal, but I couldn't tell what it was. I was walking down my old
street, where I used to live before I went to college, and it brought
back old memories of me and my dad playing football, me and my sister
playing hopscotch, riding my bike and falling, and how my mom would go
inside and get me a bandaid and tell me everything would be alright. Me
and my best friend Matt, playing superheroes and he would always say
“Look Sarah, I'm flying!”. The way he would jump into the air and
collapse to the ground. I remember going to faraway places in our
magical cardboard box. I lived here since I was 5 and I am now 23 and
just graduated from college.
I stopped in front of Matt's old house. He moved to New Jersey when we
were 15, and the last time I saw him was when he came to visit 4 years
ago. His house was old, with baby blue paint peeling off the walls , and
most of the windows had been shattered. The white paint on the door was
being chipped away by the brutal winds we always had, but the only thing
that remained that same was the metal door handle, the old wooden
rocking chair on the front porch, and in his back yard, on the only tree
that was there, were our initials with a heart around them from when we
were dating. I can still remember the way he used to smile at me when I
would fall, he would help me up and brush off any grass I had on my
back. The way I would be a fairy and he would be a scary monster, and he
would chase me until I fell down laughing.
I was home again, I missed that house and all the memories that it held.
I heard the click the front door makes when I turned the key. The same
click I would hear everyday when I got back from school. The door had
broken when I was 7, and ever since it had made that clicking sound. I
had had the same key I had since I was 12, when I was old enough to go
out with friends. It had the same key chain my brother had given me,
before he went off to college. It was one of those simple fake gold key
chains with a heart cut out of the bottom, with the word Florida and
palm trees carved in to it. It was my favourite key chain, and still
is.
As I walked in, I saw my mom standing there, a tear rolling down her
cheek. I asked her what was wrong, and all she could was “ I'm so
sorry,” and handed me a letter from Matt's parents. As I read it, I just
stood there, devastated by what I saw. For about a minute or two, all I
did was stand there, I couldn't believe it, I felt a tear roll down my
cheek and hit the paper, the ink smudge. I dropped the paper and ran
outside. I stood there and screamed at the top of my voice, tears
running down my face. My mom came out and like always told me everything
was going to be alright, but I knew a band-aid couldn't fix this wound.
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