And It Begins

              She sat upright on her bed.  Dark wash skinny jeans, black converse, dark shirt.  Her hair tied back,
and her arms wrapped around her bent knees.  She was staring straight ahead, eyes open, and she was lightly biting her lip.  "I'm scared," a little whisper in a big room, but it was heard perfectly.  The silence was thick, loaded, like a gun ready to go off.  Her heartbeat was almost audible, beating against the inside of her chest, a constant reminder of the time ticking away.  The sound her legs made on her comforter when she moved cut through the silence like a wave.  She lifted her hand to rest on the latch of a little wooden box, with a metal latch holding the lid shut tight.  Nothing  special, just a humble little box, but so different from the rest.
            In frustration and fear, she pulled her hand away from the box, and sat further back on her bed. 
Her  face was wrinkled in the act of trying to keep back her tears.  She rested her head on her knees, hugged her legs, and wept.  Tick, Tick, Beat, Beat, and the box stood unmoving in front of her.  "I know!  But you have to promise me!" Tick, Tick, Beat, Beat, "When it all comes crashing down around me, when  they all turn their backs, because you know they will.  When I can't walk anymore, you have to be there.  You have to pick me up and run with me." Silence.
          Carefully, and slowly, she made her way back over to the box.  Running her hand over the rough
Wood, finally to reach the latch, she slowly began to find courage.  As she contemplated her decision in her head, the ticking came back, the beat of her heart started resounding in her head.  "Ok," she said.
          And she opened it.