d.d // c.c & v. m [DISCONTINUED]

19

It was Saturday morning. November 24th, 2018. It was around 7:30 in the morning. I had woken up by my alarm. From that moment I quickly got dressed and brushed my teeth. I had my backpack full of everything we needed today. Once I had walked downstairs I saw Calum standing in the bathroom finishing brushing his teeth. I stood there waiting for him to be completely finished.

Once he was we both made our way downstairs without saying a word to one another. I grabbed. the keys to my pickup truck that I had received last year for my 16th birthday. It was a small two door faded blue pick up. In our garage it looked so different compared to the other cars. That's why I picked it out.

Calum and I sat in silence for the 20 minute drive. The sun was already up, but hadn't been for long. Today was Ryland's day. It's been her day for the past four years. This is a tradition Calum and I have. My dad never comes out here, not to our knowledge at least. When we first did it, my dad went crazy because he hadn't known where we were. Throughout the years he's learned that this is what we do on November 24th.

We sit at Ryland's grave and reminisce. We don't leave until the sun goes down.

Once we'd pulled up, Calum and I got out the truck and walked to her grave. It was in a secluded area by itself making it easy to sit there all day.

I laid out the blanket I brought from my backpack. Both of us sat on the blanket and laid back looking into the sky.

"You think she went to heaven" Calum asked breaking the silence this morning.

"Yes" I answered without having to think about it. It went back to silence and stayed that way for about 30 minutes until we heard someone walking up to us.

"Make room" I covered the sun with my hand to see Ryland's bestfriend standing there. "Hey Mani" she waved and laid between Calum and I.

Normani had been Ryland's bestfriend since birth, she lived next door to us when my mom was alive, but once she died we moved again. We still went to the same school so they still saw each other, but once my dad got remarried we moved to a nicer part of Toronto. Since we were young it made it harder for the pair to see each other, but they still managed. They did a lot of shit together.

I remember one time getting so mad at them when I was like, 10 or something. I had friends over for a pool party. It was maybe 5 of us. We were taking a break from the pool and standing around the deck. It was me, Nate, Ash, Shawn, and Steph. My dad has made us burgers on the grill. I remember having a crush on Steph, so did Shawn. As I was standing there starring at her as she talked I heard the back door open, but ignored it thinking it was my dad. Instead it was Normani and Ryland. They ran and pulled my swim shorts down. I hadn't realized until I heard them giggling. I dropped my burger and quickly pulled up my shorts before chasing after them. I hadn't talked to Ryland for 2 days after that.

I smiled at the memory wishing I could relive it. Despite the embarrassment I went through.

"You ever wonder what she would be like if she was still here" Normani though out loud. I nodded in response while Calum gave a verbal response.

"Yes. She would be at school with us, probably trying to keep Y/n from getting in fights. Hmm she'd be really into fashion too, she used to always dress me up in some ugly shit"

"I agree, she'd probably be playing boys left and right. She would be playing tennis or something" Normani laughed.

I sat up getting my notebook out deciding to get a head start on my letter. This was apart of our tradition. We would all write letters to her and put it underneath her flowers. It's more of a therapeutic thing. My handwriting was shit so I wasn't worried about it flying away and someone reading it, they would get frustrated trying to decrypt the handwriting by the second sentence.