Dead Leaves...

And so it was that I found her body on the ground. We were just out. We were just having a good time and laughing. Angel was the type of woman you truly wanted to be around. She was funny, she was encouraging and she was mesmerizing. She was all the things I wanted to be.

And to be honest, I hated her. I hated her for having everything I didn't. She had the smile, the hair, the courage, and the popular personality.

And damn her if she didn't have the fashion sense to match.

But back to the part where I simply found her body on the ground...

She had asked me to dinner but before that we agreed to go on a hike. I'm not really sure when we got separated. One minute she was about 15 or so steps in front of me, and the next she had completely vanished.

I was confused for quite a while. I wasn't sure what happened at all but I continued walking the path we were on. Maybe she ran? She does that. She likes to run.

I've seen her jog. Can you believe she gets up at like 4:45 am to...jog??

I've never seen a person so committed to...jogging. I'm sorry if I'm fixated on the jogging. It's honestly just so disturbing because of all of the things you can be obsessed with, why would it be jogging?

Anyway. Her body was kind of strange. Not like out of shape, just kind of gray. I've seen TV shows. It looked like she had been gone for a long time. But I just saw her. It's odd. We literally have only been out for a couple of hours.

The day didn't start early, at least not for me. She knocked on my door a little after 2pm. That was when she asked me to dinner. She wanted to go to this new Japanese restaurant and try their ramen.

I think that was one of the things we had in common, ramen. Ha.. a rhyme.

But I digress. As we were talking she mentioned hiking. She saw my face scrunch up and tried her best to let me know that we wouldn't be on the trail very long. They put in a new butterfly habitat farther up the path and it's said to be quite beautiful. She was excited because Monarchs peak in September and it was just the beginning of October so they should still be lingering.

Why did she know that? She knew lots of random facts like that. Just adding to the long list of reasons to not only love her but hate her at the same time.

Once I finally agreed to the hike only because at the end of it, we could go get food, I threw on my green Nikes and my windbreaker. By the time we finished I figured it would be kind of chilly.

The walk itself was pleasant. I was telling her about my neighbors. They all stare at me when I leave the house. It's actually super creepy. And of course it's creepier because they're old people.

Have you seen that movie? Or any movie that involves the community of senior citizens? It's unsettling. We laughed about it and she called me irrational. But she did agree some old people can be on the strange side.

The walk was longer than I thought. She was ahead of me because of course she was. I'm still not sure where I got distracted. I'm not sure how she disappeared without me noticing.

But there she was. On the ground. My windbreaker, which is white, had red stains on it. I don't know where that came from. I don't think she was bleeding. I'm not really sure. It's all so blurry right now to be honest. And really, this rock is kind of heavy. I don't think it was that heavy when I picked it up. Whenever that was.

I turned around and there she was.

"Girl come on, I want ramen!"

I happily jumped up and left the rock on the ground next to her. It was there that I realized amongst everything else, the dead leaves.