When I lost you

Dread pours over me like a pool of sweat. Amie is walking up the stairs to me room. Thump-thump. My fists clench.

"Natty! I-" Amie's voice stops when she sees me standing before her in my room. "Nate...what have you done?" she clasps a hand over her mouth.

"Amie, I love you. You know that I have cancer. You knew that this was going to happen sometime." I try to say this calmly but Amie's shock is making me nervous.

"Nate. I..I am so sorry. I can't do this anymore." Amie slowly starts backing out of the room. "I can't do this." she runs from my room. seconds later I hear a door slam from somewhere in the house. My heart clenches.

My name is Nate Miller. I'm 18 and have a rare form of Thyroid cancer. This morning my hair was shaved. Then my girlfriend of 2 years left me.

Walking through school is like a dream. People whisper about me. I am bald, and Amie left me. I have more attention around me then I ever could have wanted. I don't know what to do with myself anymore. I usually would spend my days with Amie and our other friends smoking pot in a nearby alley. Now I am all alone.

"Hi Nate." A small voice sounds behind. I whirl around the see Natalie Green. Natalie can't be more than 5 fl. sparkling green eyes and deep red hair that hangs down her shoulders in lose curls. She is beautiful.

"Hi Natalie." I reply not knowing what to expect from her.

"I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about your cancer, I know what you're going through. I have cancer too." she looks up at me with her strong eyes and I’m taken back.

"You do?" I ask, realizing how stupid I sound.

"Yeah for almost 6 months now." she looks nervous. Glancing around behind her. Like she’s afraid that someone is watching us.

"I'm really sorry." I want to slap myself.

"It's no biggie. well I guess it kind of is." she laughs to herself and I smile.

I know it's stupid to presume that I could be falling for someone so soon, but there is something about Natalie that makes me want to stay with her all day.

"Yeah. it can really suck. hey do you want to get together after school or something? We could talk more openly there." I ask this because I sense her paranoid movements.

She looks up at me surprised and for a moment she looks as if she is going to take off down the hall screaming.

"I would really like that." this surprises me as much as my asking had surprised her.

"Cool. Meet me here after 7th." I smile.

"Yeah. cool." she smiles back at me and walks off down the hallway.

§

"Nate! How could you?" Natalie screams at me with anger in her voice.

"I...I...I" I stumble for words but I can't find them. Nothing really makes any sense right now. Am I that high?

"I thought you were smarter than this." she holds up the small bag of pot that was jammed into my pants pocket.

"Amie I..." whoops. even I noticed that mistake.

"Amie? You don't even know who I am right now!" her eyes burn with tears and furry shakes her voice. "I have to go Nate. don't bother calling here again."

She slams the door in my face. it had only been 2 weeks since that day I had talked to Natalie. We started hanging out together a lot. then I confessed feeling of love for her. so did she, after just 2 weeks. it had been special. now it was gone, just like Amie.

As I walked home through the dark litter cluttered streets I sigh. my bad decisions had caused me to lose that one special person to me. I hadn't even wanted to go out tonight. tony had called me up saying that there was hot stuff going on. needing to get away from my dad I left as quickly as possible. things had gone down from there. everyone was smoking so I figured why not. it felt good too. until I was suddenly knocking on Natalie's front door.

The door slams behind me as I walk into the alcohol stanched living room of my house.

"NATE!" My dad. and I can smell him from where I am. he stagers into the room looking like he had been drinking all day."WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" he bellows.

"Dad, I was out with some friends." I reply trying not to make eye contact. my dad can be abusive when he isn't sober.

"I was out with some friends," he mimics me in a shrill tone, 'Well aren't you special you spoiled brat. What if I had fallen or hurt myself and no one was here to help me?" he slurs.

"I am sorry dad." As soon as I say it I feel a burning sensation in the gut and I fall to the floor. He kicks me again in the side and I fight off the urge to scream.

"You don’t apologize to nothing!" He continues kicking and punching till he is to tired and then he slinks off to sleep. I lay there for a while. tears brim my eyes but I fight them off. First Natalie, then my dad. I don't even know what to do anymore.

My eyes get heavy. I feel warm and tired. my body feels like lead. I hear voices, no, just one. screaming my name.

"NATE! NATE! where are you?" it's Natalie. she came. but she shouldn't have. my bedroom door flies open and Natalie burst in running to my sighed.

"Oh god no! What did you take Nate?!? What did you take?" She is screaming and crying at the same time. a horrible wrenching sounds. I don't like it at all. I try to tell her to stop but my mouth won’t move.

"You can't do this Nate!" I hear ambulances pull up. I feel myself being lifted words are floating around me. but I feel like I am floating. I shut my eyes to sleep, but not without hearing the gut wrenching sounds of Natalie's sobs.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Steady beeps fill my ears with sound. I life my heavy eyes and bright white pours in. it hurts my head so badly I have to shut them again. but they open wide as footsteps enter my room. Natalie?

I see a stout black women at the end of the bed with a tray of food. she looks at me with kind eyes but when she opens her mouth she speaks sternly.

"Boy, why are you trying to hurt yourself like that? You got that pretty little lady sitting out there all night worried about you." her eyes soften as she sees my guilt flicker through me.

"Where's Natalie?" I gurgle out feeling a massive head rush.

"Is that her name? She is waiting out there. I’ll go fetch her." she bustles out of the room with her cart in tow.

I feel like she has been gone for days when she finally returns with Natalie at her side.

"Nate!" Natalie rushes toward me and I hold onto her like there has never been anything so special. there hasn't.

"Nate! How could you do this to me?" She cries into me. "I was so scared when you didn't come to school all week. I knew something was wrong."

"Natalie, I'm sorry. You said you never wanted to see me again and my dad...I just didn't know what to do. I thought it would be easier to leave like that. it was harder then I thought." I look down unable to look at her straight in the eyes. she grabbed my chin in her hand and pulls my mouth up to hers. I missed her kisses. soft and sweet.

'Don't you ever do that to me again Nate Miller." she says with her eyes closed.

"Never." I whisper.

I get out of the hospital 3 days later, to find that Natalie had an accident, she passed out in the shower and was checked straight into the hospital. The doctors found out that her cancer had started shutting down her organs and she was going septic.

I stayed with Natalie all the time in those weeks. we talked about love and college and what we wanted to do with our lives. But I knew, and she knew, that she may not have much longer. they started her on chemo not long after and it became hard for me to watch her throw up her every meal. but I held her hand through it all.

then a few weeks after chemo had started Natalie didn't talk back to me. she would nod or moan, but she didn't talk. she was to weak. she slept more then she was awake, but I stayed with her still. I read to her from the books at school. I told her what she was going to do once she got out of the hospital. I described the view from the hospital room window which she had moved to. I told her how much I loved her.

It happened one cold day in September. She was sleeping peacefully, a nurse came in to check her blood levels as usual. But today she stopped quickly and walked out. she returned with a doctor and Natalie's family who had been eating in the cafeteria. NO. The doctor looked her over quickly and turned to us. Natalie's mom grabbed my hand.

"I'm sorry, but Natalie seems to be in a deep coma. her heat is slowly shutting down along with her other organs. you have about 3 minutes to say goodbye. Natalie's mom let out a wail and ran to her daughters side. as they said their goodbyes I stood, not able to move with tears slowly running down. this couldn't be the end.

"Nate," Natalie's mother said, “She needs you to say goodbye. she needs to go now." Mrs. Green looked so sad as she took my hand in hers and walked me over to the bed.

"She can't leave me yet." I cried.

'She has to."

I leaned down next to Natalie’s small worn body. her peaceful slumbering eyes. I leaned in to her ear.

"Natalie, I love you. You have made my life special. it's ok to go. I will always love you." I kissed her lips one last time and I swear I could see her smiling.

I stood back and was embraced by her family.

Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep...

Hi there!

First off I want to say that this was a very depressing piece. Not that that's a bad thing. I understand this is about cancer patients, but I think you could add a little bit of happiness into this. It seems like everything in Nate's life is horrible. Maybe you could just focus on the cancer part of Nate's life. You could keep the beginning the same, but then skip all the pot and the abusive father. That way you can really get inside Nate's head and tell us what he's thinking. I felt like we didn't really know what he was thinking except for how he felt about Amie and Natalie.

Your grammer and spelling was a little off in places. I would suggest reading back through this carefully and fix your grammer and spelling.

Overall, this piece was very interesting. With some work it'll be great! PM me if you have any questions about anything! Keep writing!

Hi there

So, I think this story is pretty obvious in itself. I understand what's going on, and I get that cancer is the object of conflict here. I think that when creating something as serious as cancer as the object of conflict though, you should strive to portray as much emotion here as humanly possible. And oddly, I think what was just what was lacking in this story.

You have this male character, and his situation is briefly described in the beginning. He loves this girl Aimee, and then he loses her very quickly it seems. But then you create this other character, Natalie, and it seems that he quickly falls for her as she is in quite the same predicament as Nate. This seems a bit to "good to be true" if you can see what I mean. I don't think by immediately throwing in this special connection in the way that you did helped the story in the way you may have intended it to. Because you decided to throw things out there so easily and quickly, the reader doesn't have enough chance to properly take in what's going on as it's going on.

You tended to jump from situation to situation. There was no smooth and gradual flow to anything here, and I think you should have used that to your benefit if anything. You should have chosen one simple scene and rode it out through the length of this short story rather than compile a whole huger list of events into such a short piece. It never hurts to take the time to let events in a story smoothly take their course. When you do, it only allows the reader to take in the importance of each scene when they eventually come to be. Otherwise, there's not as strong as a reaction coming from your reader as you would like to see.

I also think that you should have taken it slow with this sparked love you decided to create between Nate and Natalie. You mad it seem as if they were immediate soulmates when in actuality, it would have just been nice to maybe see them as really close friends. Maybe after they grow close and either one of them passes on due to their illness do they realize they truly love each other. Only to realize they never had a chance due to their limited time. That makes much more sense to me in my eyes. Obvious romances aren't always the best or strongest romances. Complicate things a little. Have some imagination with these two unique characters.

When Nate is saying goodbye to Natalie in the end, I was only wishing there would have been more honest emotion involved, rather then everything being written so bluntly and clear as day. I don't know clear enough how Nate felt as Natalie was about to pass on. It's vital to include these types of things in a scene like this.

I also had quite a few nitpicks, which I'll just quote below here.

Amie is walking up the stairs to me room.

"I can't do this." #BF0000 ">She runs from my room. #BF0000 ">Seconds later I hear a door slam from somewhere in the house.

I am bald, and Amie left me.

It seems you repeat this same statement twice. There's only need to say it once though.

Natalie can't be more than 5 #BF0000 ">feet[color=#BF0000](,) [with][/color] sparkling green eyes and deep red hair that hangs down her shoulders in lose curls. She is beautiful.

Right here it just reads off like this girl almost has his eye in a way by the way you end this so simply with "she is beautiful." It makes the reader forget about the other Amie girl that just broke up with him almost too instantly.

#BF0000 ">She looks nervous#BF0000 ">(,) glancing around behind her.

"It's no biggie. #BF0000 ">Well #BF0000 ">(,) I guess it kind of is." #BF0000 ">She laughs to herself and I smile.

"Yeah#BF0000 ">(,) it can really suck. #BF0000 ">Hey do you want to get together after school or something?

She looks up at me surprised#BF0000 ">(,) and for a moment she looks as if she is going to take off down the hall screaming.

"I would really like that." #BF0000 ">This surprises me as much as my asking had surprised her.

#BF0000 ">She holds up the small bag. . .

"Amie I..." #BF0000 ">Whoops. #BF0000 ">Even I noticed that mistake.

#BF0000 ">Her eyes burn with tears and furry shakes her voice. "I have to go Nate. #BF0000 ">Don't bother calling here again."

#BF0000 ">Then I confessed feeling of love for her. #BF0000 ">So did she, after just #BF0000 ">two weeks. #BF0000 ">It had been special. #BF0000 ">Now it was gone, just like Amie.

You seemed to leave out quite a few capitals at the start of sentences. I think I'll just let you catch the rest, but there were quite a few and it tended to get a tad bit annoying not seeing this as polished off as far as easy editing goes.

#BF0000 ">He #BF0000 ">staggers into the room looking like he had been drinking all day.

#BF0000 ">My bedroom door flies open and Natalie burst in running to my #BF0000 ">side.

a horrible wrenching sound#BF0000 ">s.

Remove that s there. That's about it as far as nitpicks go though I think. This story could use a little fixing up I think. Maybe soften it up a bit. I think the scenes came together a little too roughly for me. It was a decent first draft, don't get me wrong. And definitely do not grow discouraged by my monster of a review either! x) I can be very blunt and detailed, but it's only when reviewing certain pieces. But it's only because I would like to see the writer improve their work in some way or other. I hope something I said may help you should you choose to revise this in some way or other. If you have any questions though about anything included in my review, feel free to PM me about it.

-Smylin'

Hello! I'm not much of a long reviewer, so I'll keep this short.

First off, this short story was catergorized in the wrong category. It should've been placed in Romantic Short Stories. Just thought I'd point it out.

Second, this story has multiple errors. There are many errors in your capitilization, and just spelling correctly in general. There are some punctaution errors. Your grammar was very difficult to read and understand.

Second, he dialouge. The conversations seem to jump all over the place. You should lengthen the conversations between the characters.

Third, Natalie. This boy, Nate, he fell for her, just all of the sudden. It doesn't make any sense how she tells him she has cancer and he falls for her instantly. You should've made it to where he slowly fell for her. Just throwing them together will confuse the reader and make the story seem terribly written. Also, really? Nate and Natalie? Couldn'tvyou have changed one of the names to something else? This makes their relationship seem too good to be true.

Fourth, the ending. If Natalie was in a coma and needed some immediant medical attention, the other characters would be kicked out of the hospital room while the doctors operated on her. You dhould've have researched tjis cancer before you wrote this.

Last, the onomotapoeia. When the I.V. "beeps", you put it in italic. Beep, beep, beeeeeeeeeeeeep. The same for any other sound.

Please correct these mistakes. Keep writing.

- Ariel<3'

Hello there!
I think what you have in this story is great so far, but there are some things that could definitely be refined more.
First, you have many grammatical errors that were very distracting to me while I read and need to be fixed. However, I won't go over those because they have been mentioned in previous comments.
A lot of what you have lacks action. I know that sounds a little weird but let me explain what I mean.

Walking through school is like a dream. People whisper about me. I am bald, and Amie left me. I have more attention around me then I ever could have wanted. I don't know what to do with myself anymore. I usually would spend my days with Amie and our other friends smoking pot in a nearby alley. Now I am all alone.

Here, you do a whole lot of "telling" and "summarizing" instead of showing. For example, instead of saying, "I am bald," you could possibly describe what the character goes through emotionally every time he wakes up in the morning and looks in the mirror. Something like that would make the story so much more real. In fact, most of the things you say in that paragraph could be expressed through showing, instead of telling, which is what you're doing. This can pretty much be applied to a lot of the rest of your story. It has a lot of potential for expansion.
One nitpick that I noticed:

Natalie can't be more than 5 fl.

First, that's a typo and second, those should both be written out. So should the "7th" you have later on.
Back to the idea I was telling you earlier:

she looks nervous

Think about what actions would cause Nate to notice how she's feeling and describe that. It will make it that much more effective.

"Nate! How could you?" Natalie screams at me with anger in her voice.

One could infer that if Natalie is screaming, she is probably angry

"NATE!" My dad. and I can smell him from where I am. he stagers into the room looking like he had been drinking all day."WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" he bellows.

First, it should be "staggers." But that's not really the point I'm trying to make. What I noticed here is that you use capitalized words to express the fact that his dad is yelling. However, if your writing is strong enough (which, in this instance, I think it is) the caps isn't necessary. This especially in the second part, when you use the word "bellows." If you think that "Nate" doesn't come across as loud, you could use italics instead.

"I was out with some friends," he mimics me in a shrill tone,

The dialogue here should be italicized. Teehee, I can really hear that voice.

"You don’t apologize to nothing!"

The way a person speaks can say a lot about a character. Here, your use of improper grammar (gasp!) leads me to think that Nate's dad isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Or maybe it's just caused by his intoxication. I think this could be more effective if you changed it to "nothin'." Just a thought.

"Oh God no! What did you take Nate?(take out extra punctuation) What did you take?" She is screaming and crying at the same time.(This should be a comma) a horrible wrenching sound. I don't like it at all. I try to tell her to stop but my mouth won’t move.

"You can't do this Nate!" I hear ambulances pull up. I feel myself being lifted words are floating around me. but I feel like I am floating. I shut my eyes to sleep, but not without hearing the gut wrenching sounds of Natalie's sobs.

You also repeat the word "wrenching," which is a bit awkward.

I get out of the hospital 3 days later, to find that Natalie had an accident, she passed out in the shower and was checked straight into the hospital. The doctors found out that her cancer had started shutting down her organs and she was going septic.

This is another "showing not telling" thing that could be improved upon. Perhaps you could have Nate talk to her parents and find out about it, etc. You get the idea.

"I'm sorry, but Natalie seems to be in a deep coma. her heat is slowly shutting down along with her other organs. you have about 3 minutes to say goodbye.

I hope, that unless the doctor is a total jerk, would be more kind about this and break it to them more gently. It seems a little unrealistic to me. Also, you're missing a quotation mark there.
Overall, you have a very good story idea that has an incredible amount of potential. Aside from what I mentioned before, it's wonderful. Nice Job!
Keep Writing!
~Devan