“Claire!!” Someone yells but my eyes feel too heavy to open to see who’s yelling my name. “Ouch.” I whisper. “Oh my gosh! Thank goodness! You scared me for a second there,.” I can see who they are now. It’s Mary. And she is leaning over me.

“Pretty.” I thought out loud. “Ha, that’s the first thing you say to me?” Mary says, laughing but with tears falling from her eyes. I reach my hand out to wipe her tears away. She lets me. In fact, she leans into my palm and finds comfort and smiles.

‘Wait. What am I doing?’ I think in panic. I pull my hand back abruptly and try to sit up. But I feel too lightheaded to stay stable. “Woah.” I say, trying to grip onto to something. I fall back into Mary’s arms. She’s so gentle and kind and so comfortable. I think I could fall asleep. And before I knew it. I pass out.

I wake up and Mary is sitting down beside me. “Where am I?” I ask with confusion. Mary responds, “we’re at the hospital. After you passed out, I saw that you were bleeding from your head and so I took you to the hospital.”

Right, now that I’m awake, I remember what happened.

Mary and I wanted to visit our old tree house that my father had built for us when we were younger. When we arrived, the tree house looked rotted, as if it was going to fall apart. But my stupid butt still wanted to try to climb the latter and go inside.

But before I could reach the door, the wooden steps, my feet were standing on, snapped from under me.

Which resulted in my losing my grip and falling.

Mary is now silent. What’s wrong? Why won’t she talk to me?

Maybe she was stunned by what happened. Was she mad at me? Before I could wonder anymore, Mary begins to speak. “I..” she hesitates then continues “Today, I thought you died.” I adjust towards her.

This was serious. “It was scary. Too scary. The thought of losing you, scared me to death.” She added. Mary takes a deep breath and takes a few seconds to find her words. “Claire, we have been friends longer than I can say and I know this may or may not come as a shock to you. But I can’t hide how I feel about you anymore. Not after what happened today.”

‘What??’ My mind is blank yet thinking of a million things of what she means. But before I could react, she gets up and begins to leave saying “never mind, forget about what I said.” She starts walking away from my bed.

Everything’s moving so fast and before I know it, I grab her hand.

“Wait!” She looks back at me. I clear my throat and take a deep breath before saying, “I love you.” Mary’s eyes widen. But I needed to make sure she understood. So I make sure to say it clearly. “I. Am. In. Love. With. You.”

Mary looks at me with a stunned face. Almost couldn’t believe what I had said.

She sits back down, stares directly at me but this time smiling and says, “I love you too.”

The End