Free Lost in the Wilderness - The Forest of Evergreen Book 1 by Teresa May B. Bandiola Page B

overcame it with Jericho’s support.
    They watched the three swim in the lake, and Sophia took photos of them.  
    Taking a brief look at Sophia, Elizabeth noticed her pulling face, as she focused the camera to her father and siblings.  
    “Hey, are you all right?” Elizabeth approached her across the dock.
    “Mom, I am fine! I am! I am, Mom!” Sophia asserted so she could not take everyone’s joyfulness away.
    “Are you sure?” Elizabeth flippantly confirmed as she caressed Sophia’s hair.
    Sophia nodded, giving her mother a strained smile. Then she continued taking photographs to escape the clashes of her own mixed emotions.
    When she finally took a lot of photos, she craved to rest her legs when, unexpectedly, she saw the huge blue stone in front of the lake house that was naturally square in shape. It was still the same where it was located, still surrounded with peanut grasses. She paced towards it and remembered the day when she was sitting there with Jericho.  
    It was Mother’s Day at their school but she made up her mind to skip the program. She was so downhearted that she was the only student whose mother was not there to attend it, so she swept her sadness away by agreeing to Jericho’s invitation to the lake house. That day, he waited for her outside their school with his assembled cab. It was an Italian scooter with a trunk welded with metal tubes at its side, supported by another wheel, making it a tricycle. There was a rectangular wooden plaque that served as a seat. Jericho was fond of inventing so he was able to pull them altogether. He thought of it as a means of taking Sophia to the lake house for it was, somehow, a one-and-a-half-hour trip from the town proper, and he did not want them to walk, nor to hitchhike with deer hunters.
    Crystal clear, Sophia unearthed all these memories and smiled, a smile between sadness and joy. Her smile widened when she further remembered how Jericho spread a blanket onto the grasses for them to sit on, and he served her wafers and a can of soda.
    At that memory, she could scarcely impede her tears from flowing. She needed to wipe them; she did not want to be seen crying by her family, so she hurried inside the lake house to pacify herself.
    “Why is this still happening?” she asked herself as she opened the main door. “I thought I have moved on.”
    Then, she went straight to the sink to wash her face, and ran for her shades to cover her reddened eyes.
    Elizabeth and Grandma Lucy were watching the three enjoy the water when they noticed Sophia’s sudden disappearance.
    “Where’s Sophia?” Grandma Lucy asked Elizabeth.
    “She’s just taking pictures a while ago. I don’t know where she went.”
    They continued wondering of Sophia’s whereabouts when Sophia walked down the dock and joined her father and siblings. The moment she dove into the lake, everyone was put to a tense halt.
    “Sophia, no!” Grandma Lucy yelled with bursting panic but she was surprised to see Sophia swimming as if a mermaid.
    “What?” Elizabeth was solidly staggered.
    “Whoa! Did you just see that?” Nadine asked her father and Alex.
    “I thought she’s afraid of the water,” they all asked each other.
    Sophia finally got her head above the water and fixed her hair, uncomfortable with the way they looked at her, including her mother and Grandma Lucy from the bank.
    “What?” Sophia asked them.
    “I thought you’re afraid of the water,” Nadine answered while being carried by Philippe on his shoulders.
    “Who told you that?” Sophia contemptuously asked, still uncomfortable with their reaction. Then she got out of the water and walked through the dock dripping wet, self-questioning why it was such an issue.
    Instantly, Elizabeth came to wrap her with a towel and asked when she learned to overcome her phobia.
    As well, Grandma Lucy went after Elizabeth to ask the same question.
    “Long time ago,” Sophia replied and grabbed her flip-flops.
    Hearing it, Grandma