Life Saver
Prologue:
Every day is a winding road. Those are the lyrics I live by. Sheryl Crowe speaks the truth about everything she sings about. You have to live life like you were dying, and you have to make each decision your own. No one else can tell you to live your life except you. If you want to eat pizza today, then eat pizza. If you want to jump off a bridge and end your life, then go right ahead. It's your choice what you do with your life and no one else's.
I didn't realize how short life was...not until mine ended.
Chapter #1: The Lake House
"Let's hit the road!" my dad announced. "Get a move on, Isabelle!"
I sighed and zipped my suitcase up. Weekends were always busy with plans, and they always involve the lake house. My father is a boat junkie. He has at least three boats at our one story lake house. I asked him one time where the money came from; he said the lottery. I didn't believe him. My dad never does anything with lotteries. I told him his was lying; he said no.
"ISABELLE!" he hollered.
"I'm coming!" I yelled.
I yanked the pillow off my bed and my stuffed teddy bear from its place. Lastly, I trudged downstairs to the front door. I placed my suitcase down and sighed. My dad opened up the front door, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. He grabbed my suitcase, and the door shut closed. I went to the kitchen to grab a quick snack. In the kitchen, I found my ten year old brother snatching Oreo cookies from the package and shoving them into his mouth.
"JEREMY!" I shouted.
Jeremy stopped dead in his tracks. He looked at me and tried to smile, but his mouth was too full to speak. He started to mumble, but I interrupted him.
"DON'T talk with your mouth full!" I put my hand up to stop him. "Please. It's gross enough seeing your mouth filled with chocolate-especially with your braces."
I scoffed and headed to the car without getting a snack. In the back seat, I laid my pillow on the window and tried to fall asleep. It got interrupted by my brother yelling when he got on the other side of the car.
"ROAD TRIP! ROAD TRIP!"
I groaned but didn't shout at him; I wanted to...SO badly...
Dad took the driver's seat, and Mom climbed into the passenger seat. A minute later, we hit the road. At the lake house two hours later, I was the first to jump out to stretch out my legs. My cat Whiskers meowed as I turned around to pick him up. My brother had brought him when he had gotten in hours earlier. He put Whiskers in between us. He just fell asleep the whole ride; I didn't.
Inside our lake house, I tossed my bag on my bed and relaxed. Whiskers leaped on my bed too, curled onto my lake house pillow, and fell back asleep. I giggled inside and went back outside five minutes later to go see Leila. I met her about six months ago when my dad bought our lake house. She lives next door to me, and I told her I was going to be up here this weekend-the usual routine. She lives in a small town west of my town of OakRidge. I think it's called All-Star County.
"Leila!" I nearly screamed when I ran to the front door. She was heading out too because she heard me pull up. She's been in Paris, France, for the past four weeks, and I have missed her dearly.
"Isabelle!" She was talking in a French accent.
"Well bonjour!" I joked. She beamed and hugged me. "So how was Paris?"
"Paris," she began in her French accent again, "was amazing! There were cute French boys everywhere! I couldn't keep up! There was Philipe, James, Ryan, Stephen, and Hester. They were SO sweet...they gave me their last names for Facebook!" she grinned and tossed her sandy blonde hair to the side. "So, how was your summer, Izzy?"
"Eh...it was interesting..." I shrugged my shoulders and smirked.
"No boys?" the sound of disappointment filled her voice.
"Nope," I lied.
She stared at me hard and then nodded.
"No nothing?"
I shook my head no again.
"Well...anyways," she started. "Let's go get some ice-cream," she suggested.
"Sure!" I chirped. "Let me go get some money."
"Girl, please!" Leila whipped out a twenty dollar bill from her pocket. "I got this."
I laughed, and we linked arms and jogged to the ice-cream shop down the street.
"One of those red, white and blue popsicles and a chocolate fudge," Leila ordered at the cash register. The man nodded and turned around. Few seconds later, he handed us each what we wanted. My eyes grew wide at my colorful popsicle. Leila already started ripping hers open after giving the man her money. The cast register went ching! He handed her the change back. Then we went back outside and started to walk back home.
"So, what should we do today?" she asked. She took a bite of her fudge bar. I shrugged again and opened up my popsicle. I stuffed the wrapper in my jean pocket.
I licked my snack and mumbled, "I don't know."
"Let's go on the Wave Runner!" she jumped in front of me and smiled. I could see her eyes light up like Christmas trees. "You wanna race me?" she challenged in her serious but fun voice.
"Oh girl it's ON!" I declared. I took another lick. It started dripping down the stick and onto my hand. I began to lick my hand too. "Umm...you wanna meet up at our docks in like twenty minutes?" We reached the front side of our houses.
"Sure!" she agreed. "See ya then." We waved good-bye and went our separate ways to go change and get ready for the race.
In the kitchen, Mom asked, "Were you with Leila?"
"Yup," I replied.
"Well, I just heard there's this new family that moved from OakRidge. They have a son your age I do believe. They're new to the lake house, so I was thinking that you and Leila could go introduce yourselves to them and just be nice to him and include him in your activities because he doesn't know anybody here."
"So he doesn't know I'm up here?"
"Nope. Could you do that today?"
"Yeah sure-after my Wave Runner race!" I beamed.
Mom's face froze.
"Isabelle!"
"What?"
"What have I told you about racing?"
"Mom, we're not even gonna go that fast!"
"Jasmine told me the same thing!"
That name hit me like a bullet.
"I know," I cut her off. "I'll be careful, Mom. I promise."
Her face softened a bit and then grew sad. She went back to cutting up the vegetables for dinner tonight. I almost felt like crying too. A year ago, my oldest sister Jasmine to the Wave Runner out to race her best friend, and they ended up dying because they accidentally crashed into each other.
Mom told me never to race someone from that day forward, but why she's letting Leila and I do it is unquestionable. Leila and I are only fifteen, but Jasmine and Hanna were seventeen. I miss her a lot. Leila is like my sister to me.
I walked slowly to my room at the end of the hallway and collapsed on my bed. I was exhausted, and I don't even know why. I saw the time on my nightstand and realized I had twenty more minutes left. I got back up and changed in my swimsuit. Outside five minutes later, I went down to the dock and put on my life jacket. I looked to Leila's house and saw that she was coming out too. She got on her dock and slipped on a life jacket. Next, we lowered our Wave Runners into the water and stopped. She and I inserted our keys and started it up.
On the water, we were about three feet away from each other, and we were going at idle speed of 0-1 miles per hour until we were outside of the wake zone.
"You ready for this?" I questioned.
She nodded. "Yup. First one to the state border wins!"
"It's ON!"
"So...did your mom mention anything?" she asked five seconds later.
"About what?"
"About us racing."
"Nope."
"Izzy, you're lying to me."
I snorted. "What? No. She didn't. Honestly."
"I mean, we can turn around right now if you want to."
"Nope. I don't."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. Let's go."
I pressed on the gas lever, and off we went. I was going at least thirty miles an hour; Leila was nearly next to me too. We served past boats and other Wave Runners too. Leila and I reached the border, and we stopped. We had both tied.
"I guess we're both the winners?" I said, asking it like a question.
She nodded. "Yup."
We stayed at idle speed again and just talked for twenty minutes.
The sun started to go down, so we started to head back when we another Wave Runner come right at us.
"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Leila asked me.
"If you're seeing a Wave Runner coming at us, then yeah," I answered.
"So, yeah, we're seeing the same thing."
The person on the Wave Runner was obviously a male, and he began to slow down and finally stopped seven feet away from where we were idle speed. He waved. I dropped my jaw. No way!
It was none other than my ex-crush Stephen!