Ally

The things we gain can be big or small. They can be life changing, unexpected, and instantaneous. But personally, for me, I think the best changes are the small ones. The ones we don't really notice at first, but later on realize that, in some strange way, they unknowingly changed us, whether it was all of us or a small part of us.

The higher I climbed that tree, the more the pit in my stomach delved deeper. I wasn't even quite sure why I was climbing, or how I'd actually come this far. I hated climbing. I hated heights. Yet I kept going, eager to retrieve that darn kite. A small chunk of hair fell in front of my face and I blew it out of the way, grabbing onto the next branch and heaving myself up. I felt my arm graze the bark of the tree, probably scraping some skin there, but I still kept going. When I finally reached the top, I reached out my arm, grasping for the string that the wind was whipping back and forth. I concentrated harder and gave one least heave, then grabbed it.

"Hey!" a voice called. I felt myself jump in surprise and suddenly I was screaming, falling out of the tree and landing not so softly on the grass with a loud thump. Footsteps were quickly running towards me, but I was too busy squeezing my eyes shut in pain, clutching my knee, which now held a giant cut. The person knelt down next to me, breathing a sharp intake at the sight of my knee. I opened my eyes to see who the culprit was, coming face to face with a small blonde boy around my age.

"Hey, you got my kite!" he exclaimed, cheerfully. I glared at him, angered by how oblivious he was being.

"Yeah," I muttered, handing it to him with my free hand. It wasn't even a nice kite; it was wimpy looking, a too bright shade of red that bothered my eyes. Why had I even saved the thing?

"I thought this was a goner," he sighed in relief, happily looking up at his kite. I blinked.

"You're welcome," I snapped, rolling my eyes and beginning to get up, clearly realizing that he wasn't going to help me at all. I dusted off a few leaves in my hair and tried to lean on my good leg. His eyes shifted down to my knee again and he bit his lip guiltily.

"Don't you have a band-aid?" he asked. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Of course, I just carry them around with me in my back pocket," I retorted.

"Oh, well you should probably put one on your knee. It's gushing pretty bad," he suggested. I gawked at him in disbelief.

"It's called sarcasm," I replied, beginning to walk away. Oh no, excuse me, I mean limp away.

"What's that?" he asked, and I whipped around only to find him standing there with that stupid kite and a confused expression on his face. I rolled my eyes, not caring if my vocabulary was a bit expanded and wide range for a seven year old.

"Never mind!" I yelled, absolutely furious. The walk home seemed so long and painful, but not due to the fact that my knee was bleeding. It was more towards the fact that that boy had been so blind to everything. All he cared about was that silly kite. It was just a kite. And when I arrived home, trudging through the door, I wasn't sure how to explain to my dad just how I got my injury.

"Ally, what happened?!" he exclaimed, getting up from the dinner table and running towards me, bending down to observe how banged up my knee was.

I folded my arms. "A boy," I mumbled angrily. He stood up quickly, his voice dropping dangerously low.

"A boy did this to you?" he asked, and my eyes grew wide as I watched his hands shaping themselves into fists. I shook my head, rephrasing my sentence before he got the wrong idea.

"No, no, not like that, Dad! I was trying to save this boy's kite, and I fell out of the tree while doing it."

His expression immediately softened. "And here I thought some boy was bullying my daughter," he breathed, wrapping an arm around me as he led me to the kitchen. "Let's get you some ice and a band-aid."

I smiled up at him when a thought occurred to me. "Dad?" I asked.

"Hm?"

"What would you have done to that boy anyway?"

He began to laugh, shaking his head. "We'll have this talk another time, honey, when you're older," he answered, sitting me down carefully onto a chair. I nodded and promised myself one thing:

This would be the last time I'd let some silly boy influence my pain.

Austin

"You excited, son?" Dad asked. My mom sat in the passenger seat, turning around to send me a bright smile. Those were my parents: always seemingly exuberant beings, constantly radiating happiness. I shrugged my shoulders.

"Yeah, I guess," I said, staring out the window. I was originally going to play video games at my best friend Dez's house, but then my parents ended up not having work and they wanted to do something "family related,"plus my mom thought video games could rot a seven year old's brain. Flying a kite on a day like this, though? Well, it was a perfect idea to her. So that's what we were setting out to do on this bright and sunny day: fly a kite. I tried not to let this dampen my Saturday afternoon. Maybe flying a kite could be just as exhilarating as shooting zombies?

...Who am I kidding?

"We're here!" my mom squealed as we reached the park, filing out of the car and finding a good spot in the field of grass. I looked around. A woman jogging. A man walking his dog. A group of kids playing soccer. Sometimes I forget that my life isn't the only life being lived. There are other people, with their own lives, their own priorities.

"Hold this, will you, Austin?" my dad instructed, handing me the string of the kite as he began to unroll it. Let me tell you: it was a looooong string. By the time it was all unraveled, I thought I'd turned eighty. But when that kite floated up to the sky, man...

I felt like I was flying. I felt like I could stare at it for hours, the way it hung up there so peacefully, just waving and dancing around with the wind. I wondered what that felt like, to fly. It must feel awesome. But then I heard a cellphone ring. I turned around, and it was my dad, jabbering away at his cellphone again. I felt a pang at my chest. There he was again.

Talking on his cellphone while we were flying a kite.

Talking on his cellphone at my basketball game.

Talking on his cellphone when I asked him if I could get a guitar for my birthday.

He talked more on his cellphone than he did to me. I felt the string of the kite loosen from my hand. Guess I didn't have the strength to really hold it anymore. My mom suddenly gasped, then looked at me guiltily, mouthing an apology. She walked over to me, placing a gentle hand on my shoulder.

"Why don't you go get the kite, sweetie? Your dad's just taking a very important work call, that's all," she explained, giving me a comforting smile. I managed to send back a grimace as I ran, my eyes searching for where that red thing could have possibly landed. After five minutes, I found myself standing in front of a tall tree and, to my surprise, when I looked up, a girl was already scaling the dang thing, trying to get my kite back. I looked up at her and suddenly felt the earth move beneath me.

I felt the sky around me, I felt the mist of the clouds, I felt the wind against my cheeks. I felt like I was flying just looking at her. Strange pitter patter sensations were occurring in my little seven year old heart, and I wasn't sure what to call them. I forced myself to open my mouth.

"Hey!" I yelled. She looked up in alarm, her eyes growing wide and her cheeks flushing a bright pink. Before I could even take a step forward to help her, she had lost her footing on the tree branch and was sliding down the tree, hitting the grass hard. I ran over to her, my heart beating out of my chest.

Was she hurt?

Did she break any bones?

Had I killed her?

I knelt down next to her and immediately saw her knee. The cut was pretty deep, probably from scraping against the rough bark of that stupid tree, and it was bleeding really bad. Then I noticed that the kite was in her hand.

"Hey, you got my kite!" I said, smiling, although I'm not sure why. I hadn't even wanted to fly the dang thing, yet now here I was, acting like it was my most prized possession.

Idiot.

"Yeah," she said, giving it to me. When I looked up at her, her eyes were flashing at me, probably from the pain she must have been feeling from her knee. I racked my brain, hoping to find something that sounded even remotely intelligent.

"I-I thought this was a goner," I stuttered, trying not to stare into her eyes too much. They were brown, that much was clear, but since the sun's rays were hitting them, they were turning an extremely light shade of brown that was making my heart do those weird pitter patter sensations again. She started to get up, combing her fingers through her hair.

"You're welcome," she said, and I rose my eyebrows. I hadn't even remembered saying thank you yet. Guess she was just one step ahead of me. I looked at her knee again, and the blood was starting to increase even more now. I bit my lip in concern, wishing I had some sort of towel or patch on me.

"Don't you have a band-aid?" I asked, worried that if she didn't put one on soon she might die or faint or collapse or something, and I don't think I could handle seeing that, not her, not this girl. Then she said that she actually carried them around with her, which not only made me feel much better but it also seemed like a pretty reasonable thing to do, carry around band-aids, I mean.

Maybe I should start doing that.

But then she got this look on her face like she was irritated with me, and she said this word that I didn't recognize because we hadn't learned it yet, at least not in the Second Grade. And then she stomped away, and I stood there for the longest time, watching her walk away while my heart and my ears and my mouth and my entire body buzzed. I don't really remember what happened after that; it was honestly all a blur.

All I remember was that on the car ride back home, I realized that my anger towards my dad had disappeared and been forgotten because I was too busy hoping that someday I'd see that girl again.