Wings

Stop Being Afraid

"I have a surprise for you." I was covering Franny's eyes with my hands "Oh no, I hate surprises." I smiled, who couldn't love surprises? Strange huh? "I had a feeling you might say that, don't worry, it's nothing to be afraid of. Couple more steps and..." I took my hands away from her eyes. "Tada!" She looked disgusted as she beheld my big surprise, this was just the beginning. "A brick?" I smiled, I was quite pleased the way this was working out. It's not often I have such good ideas. "Stand on it." She looked at me. "I said. Stand on it." She looked at me again and stepped onto the brick. "What's supposed to happen?" I was really quite proud myself, I think I it's safe to say this plan was extremely well thought through. "Well... Nothing. Your confronting your fears, and I'm helping you," I said with a proud grin. She seemed confused though, I guess she didn't know which fear this was. "B-but I'm not scared of bricks..." I laughed "you're not confronting bricks, you're confronting heights." She looked down at the ground which admittedly was only about two inches away from her feet. "Well... This isn't exactly high?" I sighed, maybe my plan wasn't as good as I thought, I was a little disappointed with her reaction. "Step down then, we can do something higher. But do like the idea, you don't even seem that grateful." I came close to her and she jumped down. "I'm trying to help you." She smiled at me and twisted the ends of her hair around her fingers. "I'm super grateful. And we can try. But my fears aren't going to disappear without a fight." She smiled "but we can try." I smiled back, something told me we were going to have fun trying. "Right... Since you're not afraid of the brick... there's a wall right there, I'll give you a leg up and you jump straight off, conquering medium heights." She shook her head, something told me there was going to be a lot of that as well. "Why not?" I kicked the brick out the way "it's just made up of lots of bricks. And I think we've established that they're not scary." When I kicked the brick I was meaning to symbolise that they're not scary, but instead, really hurt my toe and I was having a hard job at hiding it. "I- I might fall and break a bone." I ran over to the wall and sat on it. "Its very hard to 'fall' badly off of a two metre wall. Besides you can't fly unless you let yourself fall." She smiled and shook her head, and snorted slightly with laughter. "What a load a chiz." She stopped and looked at the wall, thinking about it. "Fine... I'll do it. But gimme a leg up like you said." I jumped down and held my hands at step height, she put one foot on them cautiously and clambered up onto the short wall. "Now jump!" I held my arms out as if I was going to catch her, she laughed. Even she was probably stronger than me. "1...2...3!" She jumped down, but forgot to bend her knees. "Oh ow, jeez, my ankles." I waved my hand dismissively. "Don't worry, it'll ware off. You forgot to bend your knees when landing." She smiled at me and picked up her bag, it was getting dark, so we started to leave the car park. "You know what that reminded me of?" She foraged around in her pocket and brought out a girl's wallet, she opened it up and inside there was her tuck money and a couple of photos, her school photo samples, a picture of a boy and a picture of her and that boy jumping into a lake off of a dock. "That's my cousin George, they moved to Texas two years ago, they just up and went. Shame really, he was like a brother to me. He helped me try and avoid some of my fears. But they never went away. Our family shared that lake house bit we can't really afford it on our own now. So we had to sell it, plus we lived closer to it back then, so we went there more often, every summer, sometimes even winter when you could snuggle up by the fire. You remind me a lot of George. But one day we jumped into the lake and George got bitten by something, a fish of some kind. Which is weird because we always had the whole house and lake checked and anything dangerous we had exterminated every year. But anyway, George was rushed to hospital... We all thought it was a fish that bit him... but it wasn't, there was a smashed glass bottle floating in the lake and one shard had settled at the bottom which had gotten stuck in his foot. He had to have a minor operation, and unfortunately it went wrong, he can't use or feel from the bottom of he knee downward anymore." I was totally shocked. "Can he walk." Franny took her thumb away from the bottom of the small picture of George, it was obviously a recent photo. "He walks with a crutch, but he can't play sports or anything." Franny-Ruth held my shoulder tightly and squeezed the photos in her hand. "He got hurt trying to help me overcome my fears. And I don't want the same to happen to you." She looked at my in the eyes with a worried, sort of meaningful look. "It's not your fault George was hurt. These things happen." I removed her hand from my shoulder but held it firmly in mine. "You wouldn't understand. I wanted to jump in. It was me! It was a J2o bottle in the lake, how do you know it wasn't mine from the night before?" She was almost crying now. "Don't get upset." I was scared I sounded angry. "I just don't want you getting hurt... Promise me you won't do anything stupid just to help me." I felt for her, I really did, she's been through a lot I suspected, the way she was saying this. "JUST? I would do anything to help my friends, I'm sure George would never blame you. You need you settle... everything will be fine. I promise." Franny sighed "what's the matter now?" I must admit, that sounded a little rude. "Just thinking, I don't think I can just learn to get rid of my fears, they have to be here, head on, and that's something we can't plan, no way no how." She didn't like my plan, obviously. "Well you're going to have to learn. Some way some how. You need to learn not to be scared." Franny stood up and picked up her school bag and swung it over her shoulder, to be honest  I didn't want her walking home alone, near Atlanta. It could be very dangerous, and it was just getting dark. Twilight as they say. "And I think you have to learn to be afraid sometimes, be more aware." What did she mean? Sometimes I could jump to conclusions and maybe I am a little cocky but apart from them I am ver aware of my surroundings and I can be very fearful. She walked off.