Janet and Grace

Janet Sahlin kept walking past her house and her Grandma's. She needed time away. Far away. If her brothers found out what she was doing, they'd tell mom for sure. What she was doing needed to be kept away from everyone.
"Hey, Janet! Janet! Janet, wait up!" yelled her friend, Laura Grandholm.
"Oh, hey, Laura. What are you doing down here?"
"I want to know the same thing about you. I came down to check out the library when I saw you here. Are you okay? Lately you've been, I don't know, avoiding me."
"I'm not avoiding you! I just need some time to think about...things."
"Not to be rude or anything but, I've given you six weeks to think about things. I don't want to waste my summer waiting for you, Janet."
"Give me one more week and than I'm back to the old Janet."
"'Kay. See you tomorrow, maybe."
"Maybe."
Janet kept walking down the street. She turned and saw the glass calm waters. She remembered when her dad and brother taught her to wakeboard on this water
Janet started crying. She sat down on the dunes and thought. She started thinking of the good old days when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned around to see Grace Wahlin walking down the dunes.
"Are you okay?" Grace asked.
"Um... yeah...I think so," Janet replied weakly.
"The one thing my parents always taught me was to believe in myself. Now, they don't mean just to know that I can do something. My dad always told me that when I say something, I've gotta know that I mean it. You don't prove that your okay."
"It was six weeks ago this day that my dad was down here, teachin' me to wakeboard. I couldn't wait for tomorrow. Now I'm regreting tomorrow. Half of me wants to die and the other wants to stay alive," Janet said while she tried to stop crying.
Grace started comforting her. Then she stopped dead and realized she was crying. She hadn't cried for four years.
"My parents died four years ago," Grace started.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Grace. I never knew!"
"Not many people do. Four years ago I became head of the cheer squad, valedictorian and a big sis'. I accomplished that because I learned to get over the fact that they are gone. Instead, I use that to my advantage. Whenever I try somethin' new, I think of what my dad would want me to do and what my mom would want me to say."
With that, Grace left. She knew she had said the right thing to the right person.
"Grace, wait up!" hollered Janet. "I just want to say, thanks. You have changed my live. Yeah, I'll remember them but, I need to get over this hill. Thanks for the help."
Grace ran up to Janet and gave her the biggest hug of her life. Arm in arm, they ran up the steps.