Christa- Third Person Scene

It's exactly 11:46 according to my Toshiba...

Christa was doing her best to ignore the high-pitched winey wailing of the three-year-old in the car seat behind her. She'd stopped at the car wash earlier that day, pitching the trash that seemed to magically appear ont he floorboards of the Expedition and raising the third-row seats, mistakenly believing that this would solve the problem. Even though the seven-year-old was sequestered to the third-row, he still managed to antagonize his sister into a fit. She gripped the wheel a little tighter and punched the keys on the Sirius radio unit.

November Rain.

Why had that been their song? She had avoided this song for the last ten years, avoided the memories that it conjured up, avoided the band that sang it. But today it usurped the arguing and rendered her mind unaware of the kids in the car. Why?

There were plenty of songs, plenty of sights- even smells that brought back memories of him. But normally there were flashes here and there, with little contemplation of the past. Usually just a moment of life that had been spent, of which the memory could produce a smile. There were plenty of firsts with him, for both of them. But this song... it was one of theirs, and she couldn't remember why.

And then the memory came back clearly, nearly effortlessly. They sat on the bleachers of an obscure game field, done with their individual events. He ran the mile, she did the long jump. There was nothing left but to watch their teammates and get back on the bus. So they sat there, the Mediterranean sun high, the breeze light. They'd been sharing his Walk-man for weeks, listening to mixes they made for each other. Somehow their conversation turned to their feelings, and with the tinny sound of November Rain in the backdrop, he told her that he loved her. The first time anyone not related to her had spoken these words to her. And the first time she gave her heart to a boy.

Oddly enough, it was November nearly two years later that she had taken it back. The velosa-raptor-like screech from the back seat brought her back from that moment in time, and she smiled. Someday her daughter would find her first love, and by then she'd be the adult that would be convinced it was all hormonal. And she would try to remember what young love was like, real love. Because she did love him, and somewhere in a piece of her heart she always would. It wasn't that he didn't deserve to have her heart, it wasn't that he didn't love her anymore or she didn't love him- it ended in November because it wouldn't last. They were too wrapped up in each other to make real decisions about their future. She had an acceptance letter from the University of Florida and he would have followed. And that would have been the worst thing she could have let him do.

So never mind the darkness
We still can find a way
'Cause nothin' lasts forever
Even cold November rain...