Short Stories Collection

The Things We Give Up

It was raining when she got to the beach. Skylar thought this might happen. Exactly a year after her mom dies and she is ready to give up her mom's heirlooms, the weather is stormy. She looked down at the vintage box she held in her shaking hands. There were so many memories in that box that she didn't want to see again.

The tears that streamed down her face mixed with the rain as she dragged her shovel behind her in the soggy sand.

Skyla found her mother's favorite spot and decided to bury her things there. Each pile of sand she scooped up with her shovel was another fond memory with her mother fading away.

She kept digging until she finally realized how long she had been there and that her hole had become about four feet deep.

Skylar ran her hands over the box one last time before she gently placed the box at the bottom of the hole. As she carried the sand away from the mound she created and into the hole, she thought of every good memory being locked away in that box for a rainy day.

Yet Sky knew that today was not that day. As she trudged back to her car, she felt more guarded, as though she wasn't capable of loving anyone again.

The drive to her apartment seemed to take forever. She knew that she had so many things to do that day, but she couldn't bring herself to complete any of her mundane tasks. So, Skylar settled on taking a nap on the couch.

-------------------------------

When Skylar woke up, the patter of the rain had stopped but, outside it was pitch black with only a splatter of stars. She tried to remember what had happened the day before, seeing as it was 3 am. A hazy memory came back as she dreadfully regretted it.

She wished for all of her memories to return, good and bad. Skylar needed some sort of object to keep her mother's memory alive and well. As this realization hit her, she grabbed her favorite rain boots and shovel as she sprinted out the door.

In the car, Skylar didn't wait for the lights to turn green, she sped down the slippery roads. She wasn't even sure if she remembered where they were buried.

At the beach, a figure was seen sprinting in the opposite direction that Skylar was headed. It looked as though the figure was carrying something, but Skylar didn't pay much attention to them. She was so focused on getting to the place she had foolishly buried the last of her mother's memory.

Skylar started furiously digging at the spot under her mother's favorite palm tree.

Five feet of sand later and there was still no sign of the box. She thought back on everything she had done that day, concluding that she did, in fact, bury her mom's belongings in that exact location.

She then remembered the running silhouette. They were carrying a box, a box that looked about the same size as the one that she had buried only six hours ago.

Skylar couldn't believe that the last thing she had of her mother had been stolen within the short time she had given it up. As she slowly sank down into the sticky sand, she thought of every little object in that box.

Her mother's wedding ring, Skylar had never seen that ring come off her mother's finger until the day she died, her mom looked strange without it. All of her beautiful necklaces she would attempt to wear to school as a kid.

The penny that her mom always considered 'lucky' because it was Skylar's father had found and given to her mother the day her two parents met. That penny became a symbol of their love, and now it was sitting in someone else's pocket as 'useless' change.

This was all because of Skylar. With all of her jumbled up memories flying through her mind, she began to grow drowsy.

Her mind slowly fogged up as her head began to drop and her eyes slowly closed. She forgot where she was in the moment and drifted to sleep on the soggy sand.