Trying to change my writing style a bit to space things out and hopefully make it a little easier to read the dialog. Is it better now?

Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed my story.

Look Toward the Sky

Chapter 10 - Sorry

Disclaimer: Bridge to Terabithia is not mine, it belongs to Katherine Paterson.

Jesse was running as fast as he possibly could down the dirt driveway towards the Burke house. He hadn't warmed up to do sprinting, and he soon started to feel a cramp in his leg, but he kept going, slowing his down only ever so slightly. Soon he reached the front door of the Burkes' house and stopped for a second to catch his breath before knocking. He could hear footsteps approaching a few seconds before the door opened, and he was greeted by Bill.

"Hey, Jess! How are ya'? I thought Leslie said you were grounded today. Get off the hook?" Bill asked him with a grin, and Jesse smiled and nodded back.

"Yeah, my mom went easy on me. Er.. is Leslie home?" Jesse asked, looking past Bill to see if she might be standing in the background somewhere.

"Can't wait to see her eh?" Bill said with a wink and a laugh. "Come on in! She's in the den with Lucas right now. I believe they are in the middle of an intense game of Uno."

Jesse stepped in the house and removed his shoes, leaving them outside on the front porch. He closed the door after he came in and started to follow Bill down the entrance hallway. He was glad to hear that Lucas was here as well, this would be a great time to find out what had happened the day before. On the way they passed the kitchen, where Judy was holding the wireless phone to her ear and hunched over the counter writing something down on a notepad. She noticed Jesse walking by, however, and waved and smiled at him. Jesse smiled and waved back at her as he continued walking down the hall.

"Judy is on the phone with our distributor. Our new book is set to release in a few weeks, we're very anxious," Bill began to say. Jesse's eyes widened, he had forgotten that Leslie had told him that her parents were writers.

"Wow, that's great. I didn't know you got books published!" Jesse said in sincere surprise. He honestly didn't know that. Leslie had only said they were writers, she never spoke about it any further than that. Jesse had always assumed that they just did some writing on the side for fun, not as a full time career. It made sense though, they had a pretty nice house, a nice car, fancy clothes. They didn't exactly live an upper-class lifestyle but Jesse had figured they had some money.

"You mean Leslie didn't tell you? Well yes, Jess, we have made quite a few books for young adults. They actually do pretty well around the globe," Bill said.

Jesse nodded, "So are you like, a celebrity?" he asked sheepishly. He felt really stupid asking that question, but it sort of just came out before he thought too much about it. Luckily Bill wasn't bothered by the question, rather he was amused as he started chuckling.

"Ha ha, no I wouldn't quite say that, but I have done some book signings before. Leslie tells me you are a great drawer, maybe someday we can collaborate on something. You do the illustrations for a book." he said to Jesse, sounding light-hearted but somewhat serious at the same time. Jesse wasn't sure if he was serious or not, but the idea was enough to make his jaw drop.

"Th-that would be great! I would be honored.." he managed to say after several seconds of disbelief.

They reached the end of the hall that led to the Den, and Bill patted Jesse on the shoulder, giving him a smile as he left. Jesse walked in to see Leslie and Lucas sitting at the roundtable on the opposite side of the room. The table was a large and made out of a very dark brown oak. There were very large seats all around the table, all empty and apparently rarely used, except for the 2 being occupied. Both kids were in the corner, facing the entrance of the room and would have easily seen Jesse walking in had they been paying attention, but they were both apparently so focused on the game that they didn't notice.

They were laughing as they kept throwing cards down onto the pile. Lucas threw a card and gave Leslie a grin, and she lightly punched him on the arm. "Stop making me draw 2!" she said loudly and they both started laughing loudly. Their faces were red and Jesse, now standing at the other side of the table, could tell they had been having fun for a while. He couldn't help but smile at the sight of his 2 best friends laughing.

Suddenly Leslie looked up and gasped.

"Oh my gosh! Jess!" she exclaimed and immediately shot up and ran over to him and gave him a hug. Lucas had looked up and his expression changed from a look of surprise to a smile, he seemed just as surprised and happy to see Jesse as Leslie was.

"What happened? I thought you were gonna be grounded for years!" Leslie asked excitedly, dragging Jesse to another side of the room where some more casual chairs were. Lucas stood up and walked over to join them, but he still had a very noticeable limp to his step, and it took him a little longer. By the time he was seated, his ears were red from embarrassment of his friends watching him struggle to not fall down.

"I dunno, my mom was real mad yesterday, but today she came in and said she was just scared more than anything, and then she let me go," Jess said with a shrug. He didn't want to get too detailed about everything. In truth, he still felt really guilty for what he had done. At least Leslie wasn't mad at him.

WHACK

"Ow! What was that for?!" Jesse asked as he rubbed his arm that Leslie had just hit somewhat hard.

"That was for going to Washington without me!" Leslie said, sounding angry but she was trying very hard not to laugh and Jesse knew she was just playing around.

"I know... I'm really sorry for not telling you about it. I was being really stupid and selfish. I don't blame you if you're really mad at me" he said with a sigh. Leslie just shrugged it off, however.

"It's OK Jess, I'm not mad, I promise. I'm just glad Lucas was around yesterday, I mean after what happened out by the river.." she said, drifting out at the end. Jesse's eyes widened as she said this.

"What? What happened at the river?" he asked, suddenly worried. Is that how Lucas got hurt? What the heck happened?

"Well, Jess, I don't really know how to say it...but.. the rope... the rope snapped in half yesterday," Leslie said, very worried about how Jesse was going to react. Unfortunately he reacted almost exactly the way she worried he would.

"What?! How? Wait.. Really? It's just snapped in half now? That's how Lucas got hurt?" Jesse asked loudly in rapid-fire succession. At the mention of his name Lucas looked down embarrassed. He had been worried that Jesse would start blaming him Although Lucas didn't know exactly what the rope signified for Jesse and Leslie, he knew it was important to them, and he had felt immensely guilty ever since the accident happened. It had been him holding it when it snapped off. Leslie assured him countless times that he shouldn't feel responsible, and that they should just be glad that he wasn't hurt more seriously.

Jesse put his head in his hands and stared between his feet at the carpet. He was slowly running his fingers through his hair and he looked really upset and stressed out. Without even thinking, Jesse just said the first thing that came to mind. "How are we going to Terabithia now?" he asked, looking up at Leslie. His voice was quiet, almost pitiful, and Leslie felt very sad for him. She knew how important Terabithia was to him. To both of them. Now that their entrance way was broken, she had worried that he would be upset.

But what surprised her was that Jesse had openly referred to Terabithia for the first time in Lucas' presence. He had made great strides to keep it under wraps for the last month around him, but at that moment he said it with no hesitation.

"Don't worry, Jess. We'll find another way to go," Leslie said softly and stood up, beginning to walk over to Jesse to comfort him. But suddenly he bolted up and ran out of the room, before Leslie could reach his chair. Leslie sighed heavily and looked over at Lucas. He was still sitting down and looked horribly confused, and still had that look of guilt he had been carrying since the rope broke. Leslie had no doubt he was trying to figure out what Terabithia is and why Jesse was so upset.

"Dang it..." Leslie muttered under her breath and ran out of the room to follow Jesse.

Leslie ran down the hallway and grabbed her shoes on the way out the front door. She was not far behind Jesse but she knew it would be tough to catch up to him as he sprinted away from the house, but at least she knew exactly where he was going: the river. Leslie began running after Jesse, calling his name every few seconds, trying to get him to slow down, but he was unrelenting in his sprint.

Soon Leslie reached the opening in the forest that held the river bank and the now-severed rope. Leslie walked up to find Jesse's back to her as he sat on the old fallen tree stump facing the river. He seemed to be shaking slightly, and sure enough as Leslie rounded him and took a seat next to him, he had some tears in his eyes. Before Leslie said anything Jesse started speaking.

"How can this.. How can this be? I can't imagine not ever going back to Terabithia, Les." Jesse said with a shaky voice, he didn't look at her as he said this, but rather continued staring at the rippling waves of the river. The sound of the water clashing against the rocks and the slight breeze gave a peaceful sensation to the otherwise tense and dreadful scene.

"Jess... Just because the rope is gone doesn't mean we have to give up on Terabithia.." she said, trying to comfort him but not sure if it would work.

"But the rope is how we enter the kingdom," he retorted, and Leslie started wondering if she had made a mistake by declaring the old rope as the entry way into their kingdom. She tried to quickly think of a solution, but couldn't so they sat in silence for several minutes. The quietness was interrupted only by the sounds of some birds chirping and the continuous sound of the river flowing. Leslie thought for a second that it was a really nice moment, until she remembered that her best friend was in tears a foot away from her on that log.

After what must have been about 10 minutes they heard the sound of a twig snapping behind them. Jesse and Leslie turned around and were surprised to see Lucas walking toward them. Well, limping toward them anyhow. Nobody said anything as he approached. When Lucas reached them a few seconds later, he stopped and looked at Jesse.

"Jess, I'm... I'm really sorry about the rope. I was just going to swing on it and then suddenly it s-snapped.. " he said, looking extremely nervous. Leslie and Lucas both expected him to get more upset or even angry, but surprisingly Jesse just looked up and nodded.

"You don't have to apologize Lucas, I know it's not your fault. It's just...we..used to play over there a lot," Jesse said as he made a gesture with his head to the other side of the river, "It just stinks that we can't get over there anymore." Lucas looked across the river and then up at the severed piece of rope still hanging from the tree.

"Well, what about that?" Lucas asked, pointing at something down the river. Jesse and Leslie both looked up to see what he was pointing at, and they noticed that a huge tree had fallen over, presumably in the storm a few days beforehand, and it spanned across the river.

"What, that tree?" Leslie asked, and Lucas nodded.

"Yeah, it looks like you could use it as a bridge or something," he said with a shrug.

As he said this Jesse was staring at the log and suddenly started imaging, what if we really did have a bridge? The bridge to Terabithia... He started thinking if he could find any lumber to use to make an actual, realistic looking bridge. Suddenly he remembered that the Burkes' had a bunch of extra lumber in their front yard that was left over from the remodeling they had done on the house before moving in.

"Hey Leslie, you think your parents would let us borrow that lumber in your yard?" Jesse asked, turning to face her. Leslie got a big smile on her face when he asked, and he knew that they had been thinking the exact same thing.

Definitely safer than an old piece of rope.

Standard fare excuses time! :) I wrote this between 12:30 AM and 3:00 AM, so if there's any weird spelling, grammatical, or continuity errors, leave me a note and I'll try to clean it up. But thank you for checking out my story, really. I appreciate every single review I get.

Obviously this chapter ends up mirroring and slightly altering an important part of the real story. I hope this will be interesting, not unoriginal and stale. As you may have guessed, Lucas might be visiting Terabithia soon. I'm not sure how much I will incorporate Terabithia into the story. On one hand, I think it can work quite well and it's very imaginative, but on the other hand I have some ideas that will take place in the real world, and I may end up sticking with those instead. What do you think?