So I'm kind of posting this as a short story on YWS, but it's really a self-experience essay I need to do for Engish class. What my teachers wants is for us to write about something we regret and wish we could change. He said that he really wants to see emotion on the page. So let me know how I've done, and if you see any nitpicks or think something needs changing, please let me know! Thanks guys.
* * *
The halls were white. I felt as if I were walking down an empty tunnel, drained of color. My mother was silent beside me, as if she, too, felt lost in the meaninglessness. Our footsteps echoed through the air, and even then, I felt as if I would never forget this particular visit.
Often I look back and wish that I had hidden my feelings more, acted cool and controlled, despite my tender age. But I was a child of loud laughter and unthinking words; that day would be no different.
On the morning of our visit I was nervous and excited all at once. I held only a vague understanding for the gravity of the situation. “Where is she, Mom?” I asked, my voice high and breathless as a young child’s often is. My hold on her hand was tight in my uncertainty.
“I don’t know, honey,” she told me. “We’ll see.”
It wasn’t like her to be so serious. Where was my mother’s smile, the teasing lilt in her tone? The tension grew inside of me until my stomach was churning painfully. I knew Jamie was sick, but my mind told me that it would all be over soon, and it would go back to fun and games, just as it always had been.
“I’m looking for Jamie Port’s room?” My mother stopped by a desk. A lady was sitting in a chair behind it. She looked up at us, her face solemn. I noticed the ducks on her shirt.
As the nurse and my mother talked, I wandered away, quickly growing bored of the questions. There was a fish tank by the wall, and I was drawn to it like a magnet towards its opposite. There were many fish in the water, so many colors. I watched them dart around, to and fro. They moved so quickly, as if they were creatures under a microscope. I put my hand to the cool glass, and some of the fish went into hiding.
Three minutes later my mother was at my side again, pulling me by my hand. Her palm was cool and clammy. I didn’t like the feel of it. “I know where her room is,” she told me. “Come on.”
I followed her, looking longingly back at the fish tank. I wanted to stare in at them for hours; at least I knew what to expect from the fish. Mom’s behavior was making me nervous, and suddenly I wasn’t so sure I wanted to see Jamie.
We got to ride the elevator, which cheered me up considerably. My mother even let me push the button. I loved watching it turn red. There was classical music playing over us, and I relaxed listening to the smooth dips and rhythms.
The floor numbers ticked by on a screen. One, two, three. We stopped at four, and when the door, opened, Mom was pulling me forward again.
It was very different up on the fourth floor. Children’s names were written on the walls—not so white anymore. There were stencils of butterflies and suns painted on the walls. I liked that. My emotions spiked yet again, and I thought how silly I was being. Jamie was fine, and maybe she would play with me until the visit was over.
There was a smell of food in the air. I lifted my nose and sniffed as we took a right and walked down the hall.
“Here it is,” my mother said. She took a deep breath and squeezed my hand. “I need you to be a big girl now, okay?” She smiled down at me, but it didn’t reach her brown eyes. I frowned.
“Okay, Mommy.”
“Good.” She nodded, took another breath, and lifted her fist to knock on the door. I’d never seen her so pale, so quiet.
“Gabrielle! Kelsey!” My aunt opened the door and smiled at us. “I’m so glad you came!”
She looked so happy, sounded so pleased, that I grinned up at her. She ushered us in the room, beaming. Her voice was bright and she never stopped talking. It wasn’t like her, but I didn’t care. Finally someone was acting normal.
“Jamie, guess who’s here?” my aunt said, lowering her voice abruptly.
Everyone was there. My two other cousins, Kristine and Maria, my uncle, Tom. But I didn’t notice any of them until much, much later. Because as soon as my eyes found Jamie, lying there in the hospital bed, all thought fled from my mind.
And what did I say? What wise, comforting words did I utter to the girl I’d grown up with, loved, played with? What did I offer her after she’d looked after me my whole life?
“You’re bald!”
My hands flew to my head, as if to make sure my own hair was still there. So many emotions flitted over Jamie’s face at that moment. Surprise, hurt, denial, regret. But she smoothed her expression to nothing but acceptance and forced a smile at me in a matter of seconds.
“It can’t be that bad,” she murmured. I was shocked at the sound of her voice: Hoarse, low, near silent.
I looked up at my mother, confused and, for the first time in my life, unsure what to do or say. She smiled at Jamie, approaching the bed and taking her hand to squeeze it, as she had just done to mine only minutes ago. It felt like an eternity ago, now.
“How are you doing, Jamie Sue?” Mom asked, using our nickname for my cousin.
I didn’t hear Jamie’s answer; now I was staring at her hand. Lying limp on the pale-green hospital blanket, it was thin, white, and boney. Who was this stranger? Where had my cousin gone? What happened to her? When my mother had used the word cancer weeks earlier, I hadn’t understood. Now I was beginning to realize just what the word represented.
“Kelsey? Aren’t you going to give me a hug?”
I looked back at Jamie’s face, met her soft brown gaze. Her skin had a tint of yellow to it and there were purple bags under her eyes. I’d always loved colors, but these… these colors I despised. Slowly, I edged towards the bed, my movements jerky and hesitant. I bent and put my arms, so carefully, around the girl in that bed. Her own arms encircled my own frame, and I caught an odd scent rolling off her. It wasn’t the smells I was used to—no home-cooked bread, no horses. It smelled like… medicine. I held this strange girl carefully, terrified that if I held her too tight, I would break her fragile body right in half.
As we separated, and I couldn’t help staring at Jamie again. I remembered the game we used to play every time Mom and I came to visit: When we ran to each other and hugged, we’d both squeeze as hard as we could, see who would squeal first. Somehow, in that instant, I knew we would never play that game again.
Eventually I noticed Kristine and the others, and I went to hug them, too. All of them were reassuringly warm and solid.
My mother and my aunt talked to each other in quiet murmurs, talking of everything but what was happening. I wanted to ask so many questions, but for once, they stuck in my throat and I didn’t try to release them. After I grew up some, I looked back and realized that my aunt wasn’t acting right—none of them had been.
And then there was the moment of the picture. Time was passing, the sky outside the window growing dark. Nurses had come and gone, and finally it was time for Mom and I to leave. It was the first time I’d ever been relieved to leave my family behind. That day had been a first time for many things.
There were more hugs. I hurried to the door, my throat still tight and oddly dry. Mom was behind me. But just as we reached the door…
“Kelsey, wait. Do you mind if I take a picture of you and Jamie before you go?”
I paused, and my mother gently steered me back into the room. I nodded at my aunt, but unlike Jamie, I couldn’t force a smile. I was directed to Jamie’s side, and she reached up and hugged me down to her. She pressed her cheek against mine, and as I finally smiled, I hugged Jamie back.
My aunt took two pictures. The camera was one that developed the pictures instantly and popped them out of a slot. She game me one, and Mom and I said our final goodbyes.
The walk was again silent down the hall, to the elevator, out the hospital door. It wasn’t until a few minutes later, when we were back in the car, that my mother spoke.
“Are you okay, honey?” There were tears in her eyes.
The picture had been black in the hospital, still drying. Now I looked down at it. There was me and Jamie, smiling. I felt sick at the sick of my pink, glowing skin beside her yellow and purple features. Her frail and boney fingers, my sturdy and healthy ones.
I didn’t answer my mother. She started the car and we drove away from that building. I didn’t look back. But just once I allowed myself to glance in the review mirror. There was one single tear rolling down my cheek, and I clutched the picture tight in my hand.
I never saw my cousin again.
) and so I was surprised to find this. How young are you/is she, in this story? 'Cuz if you're/she's anything below ten, and depending on what you were like, even above it, it doesn't make much sense for her/you to describe your own voice that way, or any way really. I'd give you an example, but since I'm not you, I can't say quite how I'd react - obviously - to going to see my sick cousin at the hospital. Just...try to sound more like a kid, if you are a kid. These little slip-ups seem to pop up a lot in the story, where you sound much more like a seventeen-year-old than a little girl. Let's just hope I was right in supposing you were younger than eleven (it certainly sounded like you were). Try to do them over? Here, I'll point out a few more, 'fore I go on.
