“Okay, and there HAS to be roses too. And when they are carrying me down I want you to switch the CD from that silly somber music to ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ by Guns N’ Roses, okay? Promise?” Cleo laughed.
  The day was sunny and full of opportunity as Shayla and Cleo marched down the sidewalk. Cleo’s auburn hair rippled and shone as the sun bounced off it. “Cleo, please, I don’t like talking about this stuff. Can we please change the subject?” Shayla scowled.
Cleo matched her scowl but only as a joke, Cleo was the jokester. “Fine” Cleo agreed. “I can’t believe that I can actually stay and month here at your place and good to your school too!”                                       
Shayla nodded “Yeah, it’s amazing.” The sidewalk burned through their sneakers and right into their feet. The warm breeze in October could only mean one thing: they were in San Francisco.

   Later that night Cleo announced she was going for a walk near the pier. Being the overprotective mother that Jasmine (Shayla’s mother) was, she demanded that Shayla walk with her. “It will be dark soon! Be safe!” Shouted Jasmine.
Shayla and Cleo were walking along the pier when something caught Cleo’s eye. “Do you see that?” Cleo said.
“See what?” Shayla snapped, annoyed. They walked closer to it and indeed, Shayla began to see something that was reflecting light from the street lamp.
“It’s a phone!” exclaimed Cleo, and it was. The phone was located on a small boat, but the boat’s tether has broken so it was floating away. “I’m going it get it.” Said Cleo. 
“Wait, what?” said Shayla distractedly “No! Cleo!” But she had already jumped into the bay. She sank and then she tried to push off and shoot herself up to the surface, she found her sweater snagged on an old piece of metal debris that was buried deep into the sand at the bottom. Cleo tugged and tugged, she was losing oxygen. Maybe if she let her shoe float up she could signal to Shayla that she needed help. Her shoe was halfway off when Cleo started to feel lightheaded. Finally her shoe was off and floating, but she was barely clinging to consciousness.
Shayla was pacing quickly on the dock when she noticed Cleo’s shoe was bobbing on the surface just above where she had jumped in. She shouted and grabbed her phone and dialed 911.  “Come on… pick up…”
Finally the ringing stopped and a cool female voice said “911 operator, what is your emergency?” Shayla jumped.
She said “Yes, my best friend is drowning we are on pier 39 please send an ambulance as fast as possible!!” Shayla heard the operator reassuring her that everything was going to be okay as if she was on the other end of a long tunnel.
When the ambulance arrived, Shayla was huddled into a ball crying. 3 people with oxygen tanks leaped off the pier into the water where Shayla saw Cleo jump into a good 3 or 4 minutes ago. Some woman had her arms around Shayla whispering kind and assuring words into her ear. The three men had resurfaced with a limp figure in a torn orange sweater. “CLEO!” Shayla screamed. “CLEO! Come on! CLEO!” One of the men with the oxygen tanks set her on a stretcher and rolled her into the ambulance. Without even asking, Shayla stepped up into the car and sat down onto her seat, never taking her eyes off Cleo.
 
   When they arrived at the hospital Shayla refused to leave Cleo’s stretcher’s side. They wheeled her in and told Shayla that she had to wait outside while the doctor did some tests. Shayla’s head was spinning and her vision was tunneled. Finally, after what felt like a century to Shayla, the doctor opened the door. “She… ah, couldn’t make it. There was too much water in her lungs. I’m so sorry. Would you like to come see her before we take her to the mortuary?” Shayla’s feet were lead as she walked into the room. Cleo was deathly pale, her auburn hair was wet and spread out on the pillow. Shayla’s face was also wet, but it was sticky because of the thousands of silent tears pouring down her face.
Shayla grasped her best friends hand and squeezed it. “I’m so sorry” she whispered and then with a kiss on Cleo’s cheek, she walked out of the room.
                                                                                                 -------------------------------------------------------

  The slow drone of a funeral tune saddened even the most chipper birds that morning. As per Cleo’s wishes, no one dressed in black, but everyone felt black and empty in the inside. Cleo’s casket was almost to the funeral truck where it would be taken, burned and then her ashes spread on the top of a grassy hill overlooking all of San Francisco, when Shayla grabbed the CD player, grabbed out to somber disk, and shoved a Guns N’ Roses CD into the player. “Welcome to the jungle” blasted through the funeral precession and Shayla began to smile and said “This is what she wanted.”

  Up on the grassy hill people drank lemonade and ate ice cream and danced and sang. Because, it’s what Cleo would’ve done. Hanging on a tree, blowing in the wind was a torn orange sweater, like a sort of significant flag. After that Shayla was always longing for her friend and she never felt complete, even after she married the man of her dreams, she always felt empty; like half of her was missing. Gone.