The Park by Lexy M

It was a bright warm & sunny day in Taylorville. Taylor & Turtle walk around in the park playing with the fallen leaves and looking up at the clouds, trying to makes animals out of them. Turtle is now full of energy and much more alive and excited by the fact of life, then he was a year ago, thanks to the exceptional care of Taylor & the family at the hotel. Lou Ann & Dwayne Ray are with Taylor & Turtle. As they walk the cement path through the giant park Lou Ann & Taylor lag behind while the two bundles of energy run ahead. Taylor chats to Lou Ann about everything that they have been through in the last four years. Just then she looks across the parkway and notices a strange man sitting on the park bench. He’d been looking at her too. She excuses her self from Lou Ann and quickly but cautiously walks over to him. She stops a little in front of him and allows her eyes to focus on her subject. That’s when she realizes who it is.
"Jay Gatsby?" she says almost too quite for human ears to pick up on. He smiled a perfectly white and bright smile, which made her stomach seem to flutter around in side of her.
"Hey Taylor," he said. "That is what people are calling you know isn’t it?"
"Yea," She said shortly. "Ever since I moved into Taylorville. How is it that you are here in this same park miles and miles from both of our homes?"
"Well you just got up and left flat out a few years back, without so much as an explanation and at first I was shocked, mad, and felt betrayed but then I began to realize that you had the most wonderful idea out of anyone I know. People back home get into a rut and their life is boring and not what they want for themselves. Eventually everyone grows tired of it but they’ve already been sucked into that rut and no matter how hard you try to get out the town, the expectations that society and the people in our town have allows you nothing. And so they have no choice but to stay there and keep working at a job that makes them constantly sick or gives them no time to watch their own children grow up." He paused and looked up at her. "You were right. That’s not the kind of life you wanted, and I admire you for being able to leave and go out on your own like you did. It must have been so hard to do and now that’s what I realize and that’s what you never were able to give me an explanation as to why."
Taylor stared blankly at Jay. She knew him for such a long time but she had never realized how special he was to her until she left. Every night she would think of him and what it would be like to have someone always with her besides Turtle. Would he have stayed with her through everything with Turtle or would he end up like Angel, leaving Lou Ann to deal with everything by herself? She has no clue.
"That’s the main reason I left. But things are different now."
"How?" he said "You still look the same, still have the same spark in your eyes, the confidence in your walk no matter how tough things may get for you. That’s what I admired most about you."
He looked so hopeful like he was living in a fairytale which he had been for most of his life. Taylor’s lifestyle was much different then Jay’s. He had money, more money then he could possibly count in a life time. Taylor had never had money her and her mom lived from pay check to pay check. She felt like she couldn’t bring herself to tell him about Turtle. She couldn’t take the blame for turning his world upside down. His fantasy world would go up in flames.
"I have Turtle now!" She blurted out.
"You have a turtle," he said slowly.
"No, Turtle, she’s my daughter."
His face turned sheet white and he stared blankly at her. Finally after a few extremely uncomfortable seconds that seemed to last minutes he was able to put some kind of sentence together.
"You had a kid?"
"No! Not at all. She was left in my car when I was stopped for some food on the way down here."
Jay seemed more open to the idea now that he had the understanding that it wasn’t actually her’s.
"Well where is she," he asked way more relived.
At that second Taylor fell back in love with him. Head over heels in love. She recognized the funny open-minded Jay she had fallen for back in grade school. She was in love and now it was occurring to her that her feelings had never really changed for him since she left. She had only put them out of the way because there was bigger and more important matters to be dealt with.
The rest of the day seemed to drift away as if she was being pulled into Jay Gatsby’s reality. He met Turtle, Lou Ann, and Dwayne Ray. Turtle clicked surprisingly well with him and they played with leaves in the park until the sun went down and the tall trees loomed over the park and shadows grew bigger then buildings darkened the pathways. Everyone left and Jay went back to the house. By the looks of it I would doubt he’s going back home anytime soon.