Before I Knew It

• Grace Lange, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2020

I miss her. The girl I used to know.
The girl who smiled at everything no matter how seemingly small and insignificant. From the tiny little spider vaulting across the wall to the 5-month-old baby sitting in its stool. When it was raining and the lightning was ominously splitting across the sky and the thunder was threatening to end the world, she would look up in wonder, and laugh. Whenever I shed a tear or was standing all alone, she would reach my hand and stand there by my side. A rock against the tiding waves of the ocean. Unfaltering.
I miss her. The girl I used to know.
The girl who laughed at danger and climbed the highest trees.
Threatening to reach higher than any man could before.
But before I knew it, she disappeared like dew in the morning sun, like wax melting off a candle. Like footprints in the sand.
Before I knew it... she was gone.