The Other Side of Eternity

A small excerpt from a novella I wrote for class years back, called The Other Side of Eternity. A typical girl meets boy story, Ellie Baxtor has a form of luekemia that she's been living with since a baby. When Will Harding, the cousin of her best friend moves to her school they instantly click. Ellie keeps her illness a secret, afraid that Will might run if he knew the truth. But is it enough to run everything they have? Reviews more than welcome!
_________________________________________________________________________________________

I woke up in a hospital bed.
The sheets felt scratchy against my skin, like they had been washed one time too many. Every part of my body felt weak and heavy, as if someone had tied a weight to my legs. I willed my eyes to look down.
I could feel the tubes under my nose, the plastic sitting by my top lip like a familiar friend. There was a needle sticking into my right hand, connecting up to various machines. I looked away, feeling nauseous and dizzy just looking at it. As my gaze dropped to my right, I caught sight of two elbows resting on the side of the bed. My heart stopped, only for a moment, before thudding rapidly against my ribcage. Somewhere in the room I could hear the constant beeping of a machine.
I willed myself to look up. After all, what was the worst that could happen?
My head turned slightly as my eyes travelled up his body to his face, lingering longer than necessary on the stubble around his slightly opened mouth, his lips curved upwards in amusement. I could feel my face turning red as I blushed, remembering what it was like to feel the roughness of his skin on mine.
I continued lifting my gaze, until our eyes met, locking onto each other. Panic rose in my chest as I wondered what his reaction would be.
He didn’t betray any emotion. If he was angry, I couldn’t tell.
“Hi,” I whispered softly.
“Hey,” was his reply. His arm came forward, sweeping a piece of stray hair away from my face, tucking it behind my ear. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Sleeping Beauty.”
I gave a weak smile. What did I say next?
“My parents…” I started to say as Will took hold of my right hand, turning it over so I couldn’t see the needle. Or was it for his benefit?
“Have gone home for a bit, to collect some of your things together,” he explained. My breath caught in my throat. My things? I was going to stay in the hospital?
I tried to sit up, but it was too much of an effort and within seconds I was out of breath. “Hey, hey, whoa. Slow down there El.” Will’s arms came around my torso as he helped me to sit up.
I tore my eyes away from him as I gulped down some air. Someone had left the window open, and a fresh breeze wafted through. The noises of the outside world all mingled together, the background music of what had become familiarity to me.
The hospital room was one of those familiar aspects of my life. I had seen it all before, mainly because hospitals are so alike, and this one was no different. The white coloured walls, the yellow blinds. The standard painting on the far wall, usually of some exotic location like Greece or a flower painting. This one was Van Gogh’s sunflowers. There’s an armchair in one corner of the room, covered in green velvet to make it look more comfortable than it actually is. There was a bedside table on my left side, and another chair where Will now sat.
“Did they tell you?” I finally said, interrupting the silence. Will had been tracing small circles on my palm, and I felt myself relax into the pillows with this familiar gesture.
“No.” My heart seized up once again. “They thought it best if you told me once you woke up,” Will explained. It made sense, to hear it from my lips instead of my parents. My throat closed up. I had been planning to tell him last night, telling him why I didn’t want to see him anymore. I hadn’t counted on my blood cells being against me.
“ I was born with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia,” I started suddenly. It was the only way to begin, with the truth, even if it hurt. “They didn’t expect me to last past the first week, my white cells were ‘immature’, as the doctors put it.” I quickly glanced at Will, to see what his reactions would be, but his face was blank as a canvas.
“It’s acute because if you don’t respond to treatment, it’s only a matter of weeks or months before you die. But for some reason, I’ve managed to live with it all these years. I go into remission, but then it comes back. Sometimes worse than before, sometimes not.”
I turned my head to look at Will again. He was still silent, and I couldn’t read the expression on his face. And that killed me. I wanted to know what he was thinking so bad, but at the same time I didn’t. What was stopping him from getting up and walking out that door, right this very moment? That thought scared me.
My voice was barely a whisper. “I didn’t want to tell you because I was scared. I was scared that you might leave me and never come back, and that would kill me. This disease won’t, I know it. It may be eating me up inside, but you are what has kept me going. And if you left…”
I couldn’t take it anymore. My voice faltered, and a tear fell down my cheek.
I felt Will’s thumb caress my skin as he rubbed away the tears and he began to speak.

Thar was AWSOME!!!!!!!! I can't wait for the next one!

It was very...real. That's what I liked about it most. How, even though the wording wasn't always elegant (and good, because it seems to me she's something of a practical person anyways), I could almost feel the scratch of hospital sheets against my skin, and that nasty smell of death and disease barely - clumsily - hidden by antiseptics and such. The one thing that bothered me was the repetition, such as:

. I looked away, feeling nauseous and dizzy just looking at it.

It just makes the sentences clunky, makes the reader pull up short and lose the storyline. What helped me, when I had the repetition-bug, was simply to remind myself there would be repetition and try my very hardest to avoid it, like so:

I tore my eyes away; the mere sight of it made me dizzy.

Something like that. It doesn't take that long to eliminate most repetition--just a bit of mind-power, which I can tell you've got in full supply. There was some other overly repeated words, but of course I'm sure you can take care of that. =D

One more thing: could you describe Will for us, pleeeaassee? He sounds like a really cool guy, but it ruined it for me that I knew nothing about the way he looked, beside the fact he hadn't shaved in a couple days. Maybe just stick in a few references, how she loves it when that certain thatch of hair falls into his eyes, how his hands are rough, calloused, but well-shaped, like a pianist's. Anything, really, to give us a better idea.

It's funny, I thought at first that it was one of those, "Oh no, I hate my life, I'm not good at anything so I'm going to cut my wrists and bleed to death in my bathtub!" stories. There seems an uncanny amount of suicide stories lately, or attempted suicide stories, and they start to give one a bit of a tic, yeah?

Thanks for the read! The leukemia thing really caught me by surprise, which is nearly always good in a story, and certainly was here. PM me when you put the next bit on? ^^

-SELA

Thanks for the review people!!

Sela, yours was really helpful. I did think I got a bit too repititive in some parts, but I couldn't think of the words to change it to. I'm definately going to take your advice there.

As for the description of Will, because this is an excerpt from a scene about halfway through the book, the reader would already have a description of him. But I am going to take away some of what you said, because one thing I'm trying to get Ellie as a characteer to be is observant. Spending half your life in hospitals does that to you! You took the words right out of my mouth with the hands though, that describition is spot on!!

Will let you know when the next part is up

I woke up in a hospital bed.
The sheets felt scratchy against my skin, as though they had been washed one time too many. Every part of my body felt weak and heavy, as if someone had tied a weight to my legs. I willed my eyes to look down.
I could feel the tubes under my nose, the plastic sitting by my top lip like a familiar friend.(nice description) There was a needle sticking into my right hand, connecting up to various machines. I looked away, feeling nauseous and dizzy just looking at it. As my gaze dropped to my right, I caught sight of two elbows resting on the side of the bed. My heart stopped, only for a moment, before thudding rapidly against my ribcage (this sentence is a little too wordy. You could just say "my heart stopped for a moment"). Somewhere in the room I could hear the constant beeping of a machine.
I willed myself to look up. After all, what was the worst that could happen (this sentence sort of breaks the tension you had been building. I recommend getting rid of it.)?
My head turned slightly as my eyes travelled up his body to his face, lingering longer than necessary on the stubble around his slightly opened mouth, his lips curved upwards in amusement. I could feel my face turning red as I blushed, remembering what it was like to feel the roughness of his skin on mine.
I continued lifting my gaze, until our eyes met, locking onto each other. Panic rose in my chest as I wondered what his reaction would be.
He didn’t betray any emotion. If he was angry, I couldn’t tell.
“Hi,” I whispered softly.
“Hey,” was his reply. His arm came forward, sweeping a piece of stray hair away from my face, tucking it behind my ear(cliche move, but cute). “Welcome back to the land of the living, Sleeping Beauty.”
I gave a weak smile. What should I say next?
“My parents…” I started to say as Will took hold of my right hand, turning it over so I couldn’t see the needle. Or was it for his benefit?
“Have gone home for a bit, tocollect some of your things together (awkwardly written.),” he explained. My breath caught in my throat. My things? I was going to stay in the hospital?
I tried to sit up, but it was too much of an effort and within seconds I was out of breath. “Hey, hey, whoa. Slow down there, El.” Will’s arms came around my torso as he helped me to sit up.
I tore my eyes away from him as I gulped down some air. Someone had left the window open, and a fresh breeze wafted through. The noises of the outside world all mingled together, the background music of what had become familiarity to me.
The hospital room was one of those familiar aspects of my life. I had seen it all before, mainly because hospitals are so alike, and this one was no different(you don't really need this, but you can keep it if you want.). The white coloured walls, the yellow blinds. The standard painting on the far wall, usually of some exotic location like Greece or a flower painting. This one was Van Gogh’s sunflowers. There was an armchair in one corner of the room, covered in green velvet to make it look more comfortable than it actually was. There was a bedside table on my left side, and another chair where Will now sat (but his elbows were simultaneously on the bed?).
“Did they tell you?” I finally said, interrupting the silence. Will had been tracing small circles on my palm, and I felt myself relax into the pillows with this familiar gesture.
“No.” My heart seized up once again. “They thought it best if you told me once you woke up,” Will explained. It made sense, to hear it from my lips instead of my parents'. My throat closed up. I had been planning to tell him last night, telling him why I didn’t want to see him anymore. I hadn’t counted on my blood cells being against me.
“ I was born with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia,” I started suddenly. It was the only way to begin, with the truth, even if it hurt. “They didn’t expect me to last past the first week, my white cells were ‘immature’, as the doctors put it.” I quickly glanced at Will, to see what his reactions would be, but his face was blank as a canvas.
“It’s acute because if you don’t respond to treatment, it’s only a matter of weeks or months before you die. But for some reason, I’ve managed to live with it all these years. I go into remission, but then it comes back. Sometimes worse than before, sometimes not.”
I turned my head to look at Will again. He was still silent, and I couldn’t read the expression on his face. And that killed me. I wanted to know what he was thinking so bad, but at the same time I didn’t. What was stopping him from getting up and walking out that door, right this very moment? That thought scared me.
My voice was barely a whisper. “I didn’t want to tell you because I was scared. I was scared that you might leave me and never come back, and that would kill me. This disease won’t, I know it. It may be eating me up inside, but you are what has kept me going. And if you left…”
I couldn’t take it anymore. My voice faltered, and a tear fell down my cheek.
I felt Will’s thumb caress my skin as he rubbed away the tears.He began to speak.

So, my corrections and comments are in red. This is very good! Unlike the last thing of your I reviewed, this has lots of nice descriptions. Keep up the good work!

-Dreamy

Oh my gosh, this was amazing. You are an amazing writer!