Haunting Grey

The first day I met Natalie, I was ten years old. When she told me her name, I laughed.

"Well, Gnat, it's good to meet you."

She scowled at me, her brown eyes hard, and said fiercely, "It's Nat. I'm not a bug."

Afterward, she called me a jerk and didn't talk to me for a week. I wasn't bothered by it. Mostly because we'd just met, and I wasn't the type of kid to obsess over why someone was or was not talking to me, especially a girl.



When I came out of the woods that night and told my father what happened, he was angry. Angry because he thought the two of us were playing him, that Nat was in those woods somewhere, hiding until the perfect moment.

I wanted to believe that, but as I looked toward the trees, I felt this weight on me. It was impossibly dark and heavy, almost crushing.

I knew in my heart that something terrible had happened to my friend, and I was determined to find out what.



Natalie had been such a constant part of my life over the years that I barely knew a day without her. Until it came in a rush, and my heart seized at the knowledge that I may never get her back.

If I was honest with myself, my feelings for her had changed at some point during our friendship. I never told her. She had gone through a string of boyfriends and one night stands, cried on my shoulder, and yet, I said nothing.

Now I wonder, if I'd had the guts to speak up, would things have changed? Would we have still run through the woods, or would we have been safe inside, holding each other?

Or was this fate's way of testing us?

I told myself that when I found Nat again, I would tell her everything, and no matter what the outcome, I would never let her go off alone again.