When she was young, she'd go for long walks. On the side of the cracked road where grass grows, she walked and smiled because of the way the sun was a blanket on her arms and how the trees danced with the wind. She would never tell anyone where she would go, she just went. And she would stare up into the sun and would cry because it shone so bright. She loved the clouds and the way they changed because of the same wind that made the trees dance.
She use to believe in magic, she believed she was capable of flying. Bella would run up to the tallest points of the hills and spread her arms like wings and lift her chin to meet the sky and she'd spin. She'd spin as fast as she could with her mouth open in a smile and eyes staring up at the sun until she fell into the soft meadow of grass. She would lay there under her favorite tree. She would pretend her favorite tree was the Giving Tree from Shel Silverstein's book, but she never asked anything of the tree. She would just sit and talk with the tree and hug it, she would tell the tree how much she loved it. She would tell the tree all her secrets and of the cute boy in her class and the tree listened because no one else would.