The Miner's Girl

Chapter 20

Nicole's POV
After about thirty minutes of on and off crying with Parker convincing me that I was great and that everything was okay, I finally stopped crying. Parker was still rocking me in his arms and rubbing my hair and back.

"Maybe we should wait a little longer to look at the pictures." Parker suggested.

"No, I'm fine now." I sat up in his lap and wiped my tears.

"Baby, we don't have to look through the pictures. We can just watch the movie."

"But I want to. Trust me, I'm fine."

"Okay."

We looked through the pictures, reliving memories of our childhood days. I met Parker when I was around three, when my dad worked with his dad. Our parents were friends. We played with each other a lot, once we found stuff that both of us liked. I picked up a picture, and it was me and him, each of us sitting on one of Grandpa's knees in his lap.

"That's like, my favorite picture of me and you." I said.

"Yeah, it's a good picture. Grandpa and Grandma would like it."

"Yeah, we should show them these pictures."

"Hey, we could make copies of them and put in their own album."

"That's a great idea. We should do that for Christmas. And something else, of course."

"Yeah, we'll think of something to give them. Meanwhile, I still have to get you a birthday present before your birthday."

"You're taking me somewhere. That's enough."

"Whatever you say." He said. I could tell that he was still going to get me something else.

"Aw, look, baby. It's me and you hugging." I showed him a picture where we were around seven.

"That's at your birthday party, right?"

"Let's see..." I turned the picture around. "Yup. December 15."

"I only gave you hugs on your birthday." He smiled and winked.

I rolled my eyes, scoffed, and smiled. "Biggest lie I ever heard. You gave me hugs all the time."

He chuckled. "Yeah, I know."

We looked through the pictures for hours in all. There was funny pictures, sweet pictures, and just normal everyday pictures. We took a lot of pictures back then. There were pictures from his birthdays, my birthdays, holidays, and mostly just when we were together. There was a lot of favorites, and we laughed at some of them from when we were in school. The mine, the beach, and the snow were regular spots that a lot of the pictures were taken. We got to the album with the pictures from the year before I left, and that year alone took up about half the album. We were older, so we went places more, which meant more pictures.

"This is the last picture my mom took of us before we left." I said, pointing to the last picture in the album.

It wasn't anything special. We didn't have a big going away party, but Parker did spend the night with me the night before we moved. There were about twenty pictures of us from that day, night, and the morning we left. The last picture was of us in the airport, hugging goodbye, and I was crying my eyes out because I was leaving my best friend. Most girls would have a girl best friend; not me, I had the best guy best friend ever.