Short story- pt. 2

Sorry it has taken so long to get this next, short section. It's been a pretty crazy month.


      It's a little ironic living in a town called Peace especially considering all that has happened there. We are the number one crime capital of Mississippi. That's not to say that good things don't happen, they are just very few. There was one good thing in my life though, my daughter. She was born on October 8, 2009, and was absolutely perfect. Despite spending the second semester of my senior year pregnant, I would not think of having it any other way. She was my saving grace, so fittingly, I named her Grace. It seems cliched because everyone thinks of their child in this way, but for me it was more than just a thought. She was my whole life, well what little I had left. We'll get there, but to understand the extent of my wound, I must first tell her story. Her story, the hope I cling to so desperately in these dark times, begins long before she was born. It started with a boy.
     Her father, if you could call him that, left us shortly before she was born. He didn't even show up at the hospital, not that I expected him to. However, it did sting considering all that we had been through. See, he wasn't always like this. I remembered happier times. He and I had been grade school sweethearts having practically grown up together. His family and mine were close friends because we all went to church together. We officially became a "couple" in sixth grade when we were playing baseball outside after church one sweltering Sunday. I had hit him in the head with the ball while pitching and embarrassed, I cried fiercely while trying to hold a bag of ice steady on his now swollen forehead. He laughed it off, and later divulged that it was at this moment that he fell for me, the clumsy, knock-kneed girl with the tender heart who despite everything would manage to take care of him. We referred to this moment as the Newton's apple moment, like when Newton had the apple plop on his head and discovered gravity in action. It was a metaphor in a way for his falling in love with  me, when the idea struck him, literally.
     We continued dating all through high school. He played baseball and I was a band geek, not your ideal couple that you would imagine. He wasn't your typical, self-centered jock though. He was different. At lunch, we sat with a little boy in our class who had Down syndrome. They were best friends! But his personality was not the only thing I loved about him. He had toasted, brown hair with natural flecks of honey blond mixed in. His eyes were the color of the ocean water off the coast of Hawaii, that  deep, clear blue with an almost transluscent effect to them. I teased him that someone would trip and fall into his eyes and never be able to escape. He would always laugh at my cheesy attempts at flirting, not my strongest suit. To say the least, he was very easy on the eyes and I would sometimes catch myself staring when we were together. He never noticed though. He was too modest to think anyone would be interested in his looks. It was just this about him that made me so blind as to never see coming what he did.
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Until next time loyal friends! :) If you haven't read part one, you can check it out here.
Thanks for being so awesome!!!