Sunshiner

"Everyday is a new adventure," she used to tell me as we walked down the dirt path that led to the Lake. It was summer; mud squished between our toes and the humidity was sweltering and we loved every minute of it.

There are twenty-four hours in a day. There are one thousand, four hundred and forty minutes in those twenty-four hours. And there are eighty-six thousand and four hundred seconds in those minutes. If you think about it, everyday seems like it lasts forever. And that's a pretty big adventure.

But the days are so much better if you have a little sunshine.

She had been the one who made the summer days go by so quickly and the one who made the school days pass in a torturous slow motion. She had been the one who scared me half to death when she jumped off the tree branch and into the Lake; and she had also been the one to make me do the same thing. She had been the one who made me laugh so hard that I was terrified, terrified that I was somehow going to lose this feeling. She had been my entire summer.

And then, one day, my sunshiner was gone.