The almost meditational stream rushed and flowed and flooded over rocks on her stream. Yes, HER stream. She had just settled into town  and her family had already flaunted their cash like a bird, his feathers. She wasn't necessarily an irritable person, but she hated, Hated being rich. Even the thought of the word was sure to make her gag. Alex directed her attention back toward the stream in a deep state of thought.
   She was derailed when her father called her inside. It was most likely time for dinner, but she wasn't quite in the mood to eat.
  “Grace! Come on inside, now!”

   “Coming!” She would just have to suck it up for today. Alex had an odd…..feeling about today. In her gut, something stirred. It felt like-

    “NOW, Alexandra Grace Barnes!” Alex stood up begrudgingly and dusted off her black skirt. She forced open the sliding glass doors and entered the mansion. Her dad was obviously not in the best mood and she knew he was completely justified. After all, they had just been to his sister’s funeral. Alex wasn't all too upset. She was no monster, she just never knew her fathers side of the family.
   
     “How’s Mom doing?”

      “Still in the hospital,” he stuffed a spoonful of mashed potatoes in his mouth to punctuate his sentence. Most of the rest of the final meal of the day was silent, so she hurried upstairs to her room, simultaneously yanking her phone out of her pocket. Why didn't Alex know much about her dads side of the family? Well, he wasn't exactly her dad, or rather her FATHER. He, at the time, was a wealthy young man who swooped in after her ‘accidental’ birth from a wealthy young woman. Alex hated the man, Patrick, her step father.

        Alex lay on her empty stomach in her perfectly made bed and powered on her bedazzled phone. She had been bursting at the seams all day to video chat with her mother.

…………………………………………………………………………

    Alex trudged down the stairs somberly, and I noticed her face. She had obviously been crying. Her eyes barely feast on her face, all red and puffy. Her cheeks, swollen and scarlet. I immediately dropped the obnoxious, barely understandable book and rushed to her. She was silent. Until I pulled her close and trapped her in a tight grip. She finally let it out as I stroke hairs on the very top of her head. Through her sobs she managed, “She is dead. My Mother is dead.”

       I began to cry with her and over his sounds I faintly heard her say, “It was grief. In my gut….” I had no idea what she spoke of and I had no time to think. For the first time ever she put her arms around me to return my grip.