Alexis in glorious bursts
As Alexis and Shelby sat together at their local bistro after a long day, Alexis remembered a beautiful memory they both shared and treasured. As the sun waxed and waned over the horizon, she recalled it exactly. Every moment, every second, down to the most basic details. She reminisced and saw that it could have been an ordinary day like any other day during that miserable year, but she realized that it was not.
On that day Alexis waited safely on the road side while cars sped by. She patiently stood and thinking as she waited for the school bus. She had recently moved back to her mother’s house. It was a house; it felt bare, cold and empty – unlike the days she spent at her childhood home in Garden beach. Oh how she wanted it to feel like home, she loved her mother and brother deeply. However, somehow there was a space between them that she could not close; no matter how hard she tried. This was something she wanted to mend, but she had only started living with her mother recently – in that dreadful month. Nonetheless, she was hopeful that something would change because school had also just not felt the same anymore either.
Moments after Alexis had resigned herself to the distressing fact that she would be desperately late for school, she saw the bus coming round the corner toward her at the lonely bus stop. The leisurely manner the porky bus driver drove that day made the seconds between her seeing it coming come round and it arriving seemed like forever. Finally it stopped before her and she felt the angst lift ever so slightly off her shoulders. It was short lived but she welcomed it, as she was a worrier by nature and didn't care for it.
She worried about her parents, she worried about her brother and she worried about her precious friends. It was an untenable fact of life for her, even though she was so young. At the wholesome age of 18, she ruminated hopelessly too much over things that were far beyond her control.
The youthful girl quickly climbed the stairs of the bus as if she was heading toward something wonderful to come. Of course, there was something special and madly beautiful that she would relish that seemingly bland morning. As she moved swiftly past the others on bus, she joined her friend Shelby at the very back of the single level bus. She began to forget about her angst once again and started beaming with the joy of seeing her closest friend.
As she quietly sat beside her kindred spirit Shelby, she let her gaze fall on her gently and gave her the tight embrace that she knew so well. She noticed that Shelby needed it desperately, as much as Alexis needed to feel something other than concern that summer morning. They had been the best of friends since their early childhood. Prancing around in dirt, spending endless hours at the beach during most sunny days and of course Shelby would wake poor Alexis up at the crack of dawn. Although she looked forward to the wild times spent together, she always found herself feeling most annoyed by the untimely wake up calls at her bedroom window.
As it started lightly drizzling outside, they moved at a steady but slow speed toward school. They talked with excitement about their adventures over that previous weekend and both seemingly would repeat their mischief during the coming one. They looked as elated as the day they first bonded. Their thoughts wondered to that day, to the very second they knew they would be friends for the rest of their lives. It was the sobering day, Shelby sobbed in Alexis’ arms over the regretful divorce of her parents. Something about that scary period created an unspoken pact, a tie unshakable had been formed between the two schoolgirls. They lived for each other’s pleasant company because they understood each other so well. It seemed life had dealt them a similar hand - they were both children of messy family relations. Alexis had her parents’ divorce one another and start separate lives too, that dreadful year.
Reason could not explain what happened shortly after they arrived jovial at school. They had unfortunately missed the first class of the morning and as their counterparts left quickly; all of them tired from the longest bus trip they had had thus far. Suddenly, the drizzling turned to a pouring out of rain from the great blue above. The sky was still its magnificent cerulean blue, although it seemed to flood them, soaking their school green school uniforms. As they looked on, their bus mates scurried out and ran for shelter. Be that as it may, it seemed everything turned to bright rainbow colours, pulling apart the grey and dull morning at its seams’.
They also sprang off the bus, but were in no hurry to find shelter or escape the drenching rain as much as the other children. Happiness seemed to sparkle off them as the sun light hit their wet faces. It radiated from them from deep within. Alexis quietly stretched out her hand and Shelby reached out to hold it tightly. They started running at once - straight for the tennis court. It was not too far from them and was precisely the place they needed to lose all sense of time and just delight in the dazzling sun and cascading rain. There was an outstanding combination of sunlight and rain.
As they reached the wide open space of the tennis court they seemed to welcome the gushing flow of rain from the illuminated sky. They started to dance and splash in the small puddles on the clay court. Alexis could not believe how positively delightful her dreadful morning had turned out. The search for sweet harmony - that she had so desperately searched for during the drawn out days in the preceding weeks - seemed to have come right in the nick of time. It pervaded the atmosphere and her many worries were a thing of the past. Finally, she knew that everything would turn out just as it should; no matter how much it appeared otherwise.
Just then, as quickly as they had reach the tennis court; they ran back to join their school mates – who were huddled underneath a nearby arch of the school. The cloudburst would be a beginning but not an end of an outpouring of serene bliss. The two friends would ever be still and fearless in their care for one another. There was nothing more precious for either of them. They were at ease and quite in the knowledge that they mirrored each other’s honest warmth for one another from that amazing day.
They had created a memory that Alexis would never forget in the coming years, as they flew by on the wings of their blossoming friendship. She looked back on it overjoyed whilst sitting across from Shelby. They sat together oblivious the passing time and all their past and present worries. Indoors on that dusky evening, the young women watching the pouring of the rain. That memory held a special place in them and they swore never to leave it uncovered, holding like a keepsake time and time again. Alexis trusted Shelby completely and what she treasured most was how Shelby changed that trying time. It was the pivot point of the madness of her life. A beautiful dawning and likewise burst of sunshine from which she grew in boundless courage.
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