Two days after the police showed up to question me about Jackson Gafferty Peter announced that a few of us would be going on solos. He explained that during a solo you go out all alone in the woods to, like, a deserted campsite and you stay there 3 days to reflect or whatever. I was not looking forward to it. It seemed sort of pointless to me. Couldn't we do the same thing here on campus? But it didn't matter. I had no choice but to go. We were leaving early the next morning so we had to pack everything that night. This kid David and I were the only Cliffhangers going. There were these two guys from the Ridgrunners and another girl from the Trackers.
Thursday morning we all met by the shed. Once we were all there Peter asked, "Everyone ready?" When we all mumbled in response he started heading for the woods and explaining a little more about our solos. "This is going to be a personal time for you but in your backpacks we've put a journal that you should write in and a paper with a few questions we want you to answer."
"We also had your parents send us something from home that meant a lot to you." Sophie said.
Peter added, "That's right, and the theme of your solo is 'reaching deeper'." I rolled my eyes at that. Reaching deeper? How lame was that? We dropped everyone else off at their solo sites and all that was left was me. When we reached my site Peter asked, "Do you remember how to get back to the cabin?"
"It's right down the path, yes." I replied.
Sophie, always the reasonable one, said, "We'll see you soon." and they left. I had no idea what to do. But I was kind of cold so I decided to sat up my tent first. It took me and entire hour to do it. I'm not that great with tents. Afterwards I was feeling a little hungry so I made myself some dinner. While I was eating I went through my backpack to see what surprises Sophie and Peter left me. First I pulled out the journal. Nothing special there. Inside was the paper with the questions. I read a couple and rolled my eyes at their stupidity and patheticness, if that's even a word.
Finally I pulled out a plastic bag . I felt something somewhat heavy in it but the Jackson force was there not letting me open it. It was cold, dark, and I was tired so I slid into my sleeping back and fell asleep.
When I woke up it was still dark. I checked my watch. 1:30. I sighed and rolled over, trying to sleep but it wouldn't come to me. Flinging my arm over my head I hit sometimg plastic. The bag Sophie and Peter put in there. It was the only thing left to do. I pulled it over to me, opened it, and pulled out a large book. I instantly recognized it as my photo album. "Oh man." I said out loud. I hadn't seen it in months.
I took a deep breathe and slowly opened the album. I could barely see anything, though, through the dark so I turned on the lantern next to me. The first the thing I saw when I turned back to the photo album was a picture of Crystal. She and I were standing in her living room in our winter formal dresses. Crystal with her long brown hair up in curls. It was then that I realized how much I missed her. I felt this horrible ache in my chest and I felt like I was going to cry. I thought my throat expanded about a million times while I choked back tears.
I turned the page and there we were again in her living room with our dates. I went with Josh and Crystal went with her boyfriend James. They looked so handsome. I noticed a difference in Crystal's smile in the two pictures. In the first ne she looked happy but in the second one, the one with James, she was, not to be corny, glowing. She was that happy. You could see in her face how much she loved James. "That must have been one of the reason's she did it." I thought. Crystal found out James had cheated on her three weeks before she died.
My heart wrenched when I thought about what happened that last night. "No," I thought,"I'm not doing that again." I closed the book and layed back down on my sleeping bag. Sometimes everyday life was so hard. Sometimes I wished . . . I wished I could just die and not have to go through stuff like this anymore. It was so hard and I didn't want to go through it anymore.