[This week's Fiction Friday was my submission for Scene Stealers #24. Scene Stealers is a fun writing prompt from Write to Done. For this prompt, we had to use the sentence they provided to open the story (as written) and it couldn't be longer than 350 words. Click the link above if you want to give it a try. In the meantime...enjoy!]

She settled herself in the shallow water and looked at him, waiting to be amazed.

It was a gorgeous day. A day rife with possibilities. But, he’d never been one to seek out the possible. No, he’d always been content to sit safely by as the rest of the world took chances around him. Staring at the sand sparkling around his firmly planted feet, she wondered if he would ever aspire to anything greater than just existing.

She turned her attention to the water and marveled at how the sun danced along the ocean’s peaks. She inhaled the salty air and lavished under the sun’s kisses. She wished for him to truly see how beautiful it all was.

From the corner of her eye, he came into view as he took one tentative step followed by another. She held her breath when he paused, his toes touching the craggy edge of the darkened sand where the ocean had met the earth. His toes seemed to dance in rhythm with her heartbeat before disappearing under the frothy edges of the crystal blue water crashing into the beach.

The sound of the surf faded under his giggles and the sun seemed to dim in comparison to the sparkle in his eyes.

“I did it, mommy! I did it!”

The calls of the seagulls circling above were no match for his squeals of delight. The rays of the sun no match for the heat of pride swelling in her bosom.

Today was a gorgeous day. It was a day rife with possibilities.

He ran around the creek with reckless abandon.

She watched his bare little feet kick up the water darkening the denim that she had rolled up to his knees. Frogs hopped all around him making tiny splashes of their own. She worried he would fall down as his head darted back and forth trying to take them all in. He had no worries at all.

She had shown him how he could use the net to catch them. Despite the lesson, he was holding it with both hands waving it in the air like a flag and squealing along the way.

She knew he didn’t want to catch them anyway. He was just enjoying the moment.

Jealousy gripped her chest with each splashy footfall.

It was his laughter that she envied the most. Real, from the gut, tears in your eyes laughter. It was so powerful that he would throw his head back and the sun would wash over his tiny features bathing him in an angelic glow.

She felt the corners of her mouth turn down before she felt the tears mark their path down her cheeks. More powerful than the jealousy was the overwhelming feeling of sadness that had slowly crept over her.

Years from now life would wash away this moment from his memory. He would forget what it meant to truly laugh with abandon. He would forget that running around the creek was more fun than actually catching the frogs.

That was when she sat back and allowed herself to take it all in. The way the sun caused the water to sparkle at its peaks, the sound of the running creek interrupted by the rhythmic splashing and laughter, the look of absolute joy on his face.

She finally allowed herself to live in the moment because she now understood that it was her job to never let him forget.

Fiction Friday: [Up From The Shallows]

Fiction Friday: [Chasing Frogs]