Learning The Hard Way

In 6th grade, my friends and I loved roller blading and riding scooters. My neighbor, Samantha and I lived on a hill, that we rode down quite often, but there was a larger hill on the block behind us. We always wanted to ride down it, but never got the courage too. Until Memorial Day of 2005...

My friend Meghan was over that day, so the three of us decided to attempt riding down Glenn Drive. We were just in our day clothes, t-shirts and shorts. "Emily, you should put jeans on if you're going roller blading." I had heard that phrase so many times, that I just stopped listening. Meghan, Samantha, and I had settled on the decision that we were going to go down the hill. "We'll be back in a little bit, Mom," I called. It was going to turn out a lot shorter than I had originally intended.

We went down the hill once, and had a blast. So of course, we wanted to try it again. Getting up that hill seemed to be the hardest thing we ever had to do. The three of us finally did it though. I was the last to go down the hill and I hit a bump in the road. I fell on my left leg. I was in shock, not knowing if it was serious or if it was just a little scrape. I almost started to panic when I heard Meghan scream, "Emily are you okay?" I gave her thumbs up and told myself "You're fine. It's all good."

When I got up, I found out it wasn't "all good." My knee was bleeding down my leg, and so was the back of my thigh. My thigh didn't hurt, so I didn't think it was bad. My knee felt horrible. I finally made my way down the hill and had to keep telling myself not to cry. Meghan and Samantha decided I should go home right away. We started making our way back up to my house. My knee was dirty from the sidewalk, and that didn't help the sting. I didn't think I was going to make it up the hill.

I made it into the backyard where my mom was without crying, that is until I saw her. She saw my leg and