Holding On Read Free

the best I can. My body was numb, but not from the cold. It’s starting on the inside and working its way to my limbs. I was still crying, and I wanted to stop, but I just didn’t know how. My eyes were like a faucet that wouldn’t turn off.
    I wasn’t prepared for this. My life was finally getting back on track. My shoulder was healed. The trainer had cleared me to practice today. I was going to be able to play with my team in the spring. My grades were good. I have finally been able to spend some quality time with my friends. I only have another year and a half until I go off to college. Why now? Why was she destroying everything now? Couldn’t she wait until I finished high school?
    My phone began ringing in my pocket, but I didn’t even bother to look. I knew it was probably my mom wondering where I ran off to. She probably wanted to finish our very one sided conversation. She wasn’t asking us; there was no talking about this—she was telling us that we were moving. The ringing stopped and then started again right away. Really? Can’t she just let me be alone right now? Does she not understand how upset I am?
    “No,” he said from about ten feet away. Had I just said all of that out loud? Probably. When I get emotional, that tends to be my MO. “You are not allowed to be alone right now.”
    As I turned my head, I couldn’t help but smile. He was such a beautiful person, inside and out, and he was mine. He towered over me in height and could probably bench-press me as a workout. His body was always in great shape because he was always at the gym trying to strengthen his upper body for football. He was doing a great job. I could see how impressive his build was, even though the sweatshirt he was wearing.
    We had been best friends since middle school, and I wouldn’t trade him for anything in the world. This was not the first time I had noticed how incredibly desirable he was.   I ’ d been pushing those thoughts from my brain for years now. It’s a dance I had been doing for a while and had perfected. I would start to lose control of the fact that we are friends, and the next time we see each other, he has a girl on his arm, usually a new girlfriend. It always helped to bring things back into perspective for me.
    I was staring at him, taking in the “view,” as his long legs bring him the ten feet or so in about four steps.
    “What are you doing here?” I asked him as he sat down next to me on the bench and wrapped his long, muscular arm around my shoulder. I put my head in the crook of his neck and exhaled the breath that I didn’t even know I was holding.
    “Your mom called me when you left the house. I was running about five minutes late, so I took a detour and figured you would be here if you were upset. I saw your car, but I didn’t see you on the courts, so I called your phone and listened for the ring to find you.” He knew me too well sometimes. As he hugged me tighter, I began to shiver. He gave my strange appearance a quick once over and started to laugh.
    “What’s so funny?” I know I sounded defensive, but I really didn’t see the humor in anything at that moment. The only thing I was focused on was the pain in my stomach and the fact that my brain was refusing to process what was going on. I was starting to get a headache.
    “Do you see what you’re wearing? You would be laughing too,” he replied while trying not to laugh too hard. He was successfully failing.
    I looked down and started to laugh too. I had on my hot pink rain boots with my favorite purple sweat pants and a very deep red-and- black sweater. To top it off, my blanket was an ugly burnt-orange– school colors. I looked like a very ugly rainbow of colors. I had to laugh, and once I started, I couldn’t stop. Brad always knew how to make me laugh, and he always knew how to make me feel just a little bit better about any situation or at least make me forget about it for a moment. I actually felt the tension begin