My birthday is on June 29th. In other words, today. My second day before my next race which would be the 400 IM. I was sitting in my hotel room celebrating with a breakfast in bed with Ava and Emma, who were stealing my food. "So," Ava said as she tried to sneak a hand around my defenses. "Sammy?" "What about Sammy?" I replied as I slapped her hand away. Emma cut in, "wait, you mean that boy who was with you when the car hit you?" "Yes." She managed to steal a piece of toast and was splitting it with Ava. "He seemed like a nice boy." I smiled to myself, "he is. He's a very nice boy." Ava looked at me and declared, "something happened! Did he kiss you or did you kiss him? It was probably him because you're a chicken." I threw a pillow at her as I replied, "I kissed him for your information." Emma grinned at me, "was it nice?" I rolled my eyes, "what do you think?" "Well judging by your expression I'd say......you absolutely hated it." I threw my other pillow at my mother. "Yeah well I had to or he'd have never talked to me again!" Ava looked up, "wait, why? What did you do this time?!" "Why is it always me that did it!" She grinned as she dodged another pillow. "He was the one driving." Ava stopped fooling around and stood up. "You're kidding." I shook my head. The happy feeling that had been in the room two seconds before was now gone. Emma came over and sat next to me. "So why did you kiss him?" "Because...I have no idea. I mean, I knew him before I knew he caused the accident and he's amazing, and he really makes me happy. The fact that he did that to me didn't change any of that. Besides, now that I know it was an accident and not some daredevil or drunk driver, it's easier to forgive. Plus, my memory is kind of coming back so it's all good." Emma hugged me, "that's the most mature thing I've ever heard my beautiful, amazing, talented daughter say." Suddenly there was a knock at my door. Ava got up to see who it was. As she came back she had a weird smile on her face. "Rowen your booyyyyyyyfriend is here!" I threw my last pillow at her, "shut up! And tell him to come back in twenty minutes!" "Ok!" I heard a voice yell from the other room. I got up and slammed the bedroom door shut, but not before yelling, "leave!"

20 minutes later I emerged from my room with jean shorts and a new shirt I'd just gotten today, it was really pretty, it was a butterfly shirt that had a rainbow pattern on it. My brown hair tumbled over my shoulders in soft waves and it was actually shiny for once. (As opposed to the rest of my life when it was dry like dead leaves) oh my god that drives me insane my hair always gets so dry. I took a deep breath as I opened the door. Sammy was standing there in a nice polo shirt and shorts with one hand behind his back. He looked and me and smiled a little, "you look beautiful," He said. "So do you." I replied, "I mean you don't look beautiful, well you do but-" he cut me off with a laugh. "These are for you." He pulled his hand out from behind his back, he was holding flowers. "Really?" I asked, "can you get any more cliché for a first date?" I realized what I'd just said but I decided to ignore it. Did he want it to be a date? WHY ARE BOYS SO HARD TO READ??! He laughed as he responded, "what can I say? I'm a romantic."Bwahahahahahahaha😈 I rolled my eyes as we began walking out of the hotel. "So now are we going to go to some fancy restaurant and then kiss under the setting sun?" "Not quite," he replied mysteriously.

One long can ride and a long blindfolded walk- which I punched him hard for after he took it off. Then he turned me around and I realized what we were looking at. We were at the top of a waterfall somehow looking out over the mountains. Ok I know there's probably not mountains in Omaha and I'm too lazy too look it up so just go with it. "Like this a little better than a kiss under the sunset?" His voice broke through the calm "Hm...how about a kiss on top of a waterfall?" He grinned as he leaned towards me, "sounds good." So far this was turning out to be a pretty good 16th birthday.