this is an essay that i wrote for my English 100 class. the assignment was to take a memory that i had of a significant experience, and write about it in a narrative form. it took me literally 3 months, 4-5 hours a day working on it, with nearly 8 different drafts. i got an A on it..but i don't think that i deserved it. i would like that if anyone has any comments, criticism, and help to make this better, that you would post them. no matter how harsh, i need to improve. thank you. enjoy.
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The Heart Shatters
"Dustin, over here!" The sound of an angel's voice calls me over as I step off the sun bleached-yellow school bus. The sound of her voice is deafening. I struggle to catch my breath as I spot her in the crowd of elementary school children. There is a slight breeze blowing, keeping me from her. I stand, trying to find a clear path to this shining angel, my light in the world. The sky is overcast with shining gray clouds, threatening to abandon their stockpile of rain on the world. We have only minutes till class starts, I need to hurry to her. I push past the throng of students hurrying to meet up with the only thing that matters in school, friends. I reach her. This feeling in my stomach now only too common.
As we walk over to the play ground, I reflect on how we met. I remember walking into the kindergarten classroom, and being only five years old, I was very nervous about it. My mother there beside me telling me I would make lots of friends was not comforting to me…what are friends I wanted to ask. Throughout that year, I came to know one person in particular. Wendy Rosattie. The meeting was nothing special; she was just another student in class. Until we had to do a project together, making links out of strips of paper, I had seemed to have no interest with being her friend. Our links got pasted together by "accident." From that time on, we were inseparable, seldom one away from another. We would play together during recess, and after school, I would find myself at her house more than my own—her house was right down the street from mine.
The time flew by, and we kept finding ourselves in each other's classes, first grade, and then the second. Third grade came around, and again we sat next to each other. By this time, I had turned eight, and it did seem the feelings came early. I soon discovered I liked being around Wendy for reasons I couldn't explain. The feelings didn't go away, and I soon discovered what it was! I had a crush on my best friend. It was new to me, so needless to say, I didn't know what to do. I kept it to myself; after all, girls had cooties. Though, that didn't stop me from playing with her all the time before that.
Well, today is Valentines Day, and I had decided a few nights ago that I would tell her how I felt. What harm could it do? As we walk the playground, I try to bring up the nerve to do it…after all, it is the day of love…even if this is just puppy love. The bell rings. She takes off quickly for class as I follow a bit disgruntled. We take our respective seats, and are soon given paper on which to write a Valentines card for the other students. Mine is a blue heart shaped paper that folds in half at the seam. Wendy loves blue. I seize my pencil as my hand trembles, and I write. I write my heart out, as best as I can. That note would turn out to be the first and last love letter I would ever write.
When I finally finish, I sign 'Your secret admirer.' I look up at Wendy. Her head still down, her hand moving across her paper, wiping away the stray paper scraps. My mouth opens in a vain attempt to get her attention, to tell her I have a gift. The bell rings.
The class is dismissed, and Wendy grabs her money, and takes off for the lunch line. I hold onto the letter, grabbing my usual PB&J sandwich, and leave to eat. I sit at one end of the long row of tables. My friend Dylan sitting with me to my left. Wendy, for some reason, isn't sitting with me this time. She is on the other end of the tables with her friend Ann. The butterflies in my stomach start to go into a frenzied flutter. I look over at Dylan, and quietly ask him to give the letter to Wendy. He agrees to. I watch as he strolls over as if what he held was nothing important, he is so confident. I'm so envious. He leans over, hands her the letter, and comes back…simple.
Eternity passes by slowly. Suddenly Ann pops up in front of me. She asks if I had written the letter. My stomach does a ten eighty back flip. My cheeks become rosy red as I acknowledge that I had written it. Ann just grunts, and walks away, back to Wendy. I look over at them, and it's obvious that Ann is telling Wendy it was me.
Our eyes meet with anticipation, nausea. There is no sound, I'm deaf. Not the sound of kids playing tetherball, or the noise of mindless chatter among those who sit eating at the tables. It is just me and those bright, empty, hazel eyes. I'm certain that my face is showing my anxiety at this moment. Her eyes show nothing; absolutely nothing. I don't know what to make of it, but I would find out too soon. As suddenly as the fly sees the frog's tongue before it is devoured, her hands tear the words of my heart in half, devouring the fly, my heart. As an ice berg melts one drip at a time, my heart was beholding its own melting into nothing. A glacier cutting through a hillside as my heart breaks with the words on that page.
Then, her hands took the two pieces, and rip it again, and a third time. God, my eyes want to move away, to stare into nothing, to examine my heart, the damage that I could only feel, but I can't move. I am stuck in her grasp as the note that bore my all; being ripped. She looks away, severing the contact. It is as a trance is lifting. She tosses the note in the trash can, and I sit petrified, immobilized with my mouth open in shock. How long have I sat here, trying to pull myself together, gather my thoughts? The next thing I remember, I'm chasing her down. I am frantic. I walk right over to Wendy and ask why she did what she did. I don't understand what just happened. She is the only one that can explain it to me. There is just one problem with that! She's not saying anything. She turns walks away onto the playground, leaving me standing confused. The bell rings.
Ten years later, I reflect on what happened that day. I had never been given any kind of explanation. And after ten years, and many classes with her, I have yet to hear her voice. She has not said a single word to me since. I don't know what happened. But since then, I have never looked at a woman the same way.
Love is an emotional tornado. You are sucked in by it, and eaten up if you don't guard yourself. The only way to escape it is to lie low, and pray to God that you are not taken for the ride of your life, because it's just a runaway train to the heart, shattering it.
And because I'm easily amused. Also, before I start, I may go and change tenses, because that really bothered me. You used present in the first part, and the second, and the first was in the past. Thus, it didn't make sense in my head at first.
