Young Writers Society

Mackenzie dangled her long legs outside of her living room window sill, leaning her back against the edge of the window frame. She had just finished unpacking all of her boxes into her new room, and she was taking a moment to breathe in the crisp October night air. It was Halloween, and she had been invited to a party tonight with the star of the football team, Jay Codey. She had always been made fun of in all of her old schools and she knew that after tonights party, she wouldn’t have to deal with it any longer. Her smile seemed like it would never fade. “I’m finally going to fit in, I can just feel it,” She said softly.

She pulled her long brown hair over her shoulders. She couldn’t help but curve her smooth red lips upward and think to herself, “I want to be popular for who I am, and I’m going to me, I just know I will. To be known in this town you need a well known pose’, and where is better to start than at a party?”

She knew that fantasies always had bridges to cross with a troll in its way. In her fairytale, the trolls were her parents. They felt that Mackenzie was too young to start dating boys. Time and time again they told her that as a freshman in high school her job was books, not boys. “Well, I just won’t tell them the entire truth. What they don’t know can’t hurt them, and they won’t know the difference between the truth and what I tell them, so what is there to lose?”

Mackenzie skipped into the living room, in which she found her parents hand in hand, watching the news. “The new lounge will be open as of midnight tonight for ages 21 and up, and will have a free entrance for the night” said the hoarse and raspy voice of Sam Owens, her parents’ favorite reporter. Mackenzie eased her way into her parents’ view as the screen switched to a green lizard talking about car insurance. She couldn’t help but wince at the thought of her brother Brandon, and how he would make jokes about the commercial. She could hear his voice saying, “if that gecko knows that much about insurance, then animals really are smarter than the average American.” Mackenzie squeezed her eyes shut, the feeling of guilt overpowering her heart. She was only seven years old at the timewhen she found out Brandon had died in a car accident. She had nothing to do with it, yet it felt like it was all her fault.

“Yes, darling?”

said Mackenzie’s mother, Kaitlyn.

“I wanted to know if I could sleep over a friend’s house tonight and watch scary movies with her. Her name is Jennifer, she goes to school with me.”

Mackenzie said, her blue eyes twinkling with desire and hope, as her parents looked at one another discouragingly.

Neither had wanted their baby girl to be out on Halloween night, yet they trusted her enough to do the right thing, so they nodded reluctantly in agreement to let her go sleep over Jennifer’s house. Mackenzie beamed, her enlightenment causing her to rush over and hug both of her parents close to her.

“Thank you!”

Mackenzie squealed, before rushing to her room to get ready for her big night. As she rummaged through her stuff like she had no sense, her guilty conscience kicked in, and she began to feel bad for all of the lies. But what could be bad about a pizza, a party, and a moonlight ride? It was just cheese, friends and the smell of sweet serenity, the chilly, fall air coating her pale arms, and the sound of the white, foamy water lapping against the shore line to sooth her after a long night. It was truly harmless.

Well, the pizza was good, and the party was great, but the moonlight ride would have to wait, because Jay was half drunk at the time. Mackenzie felt someone tugging at her slender arms, removing her limb body from the twisted rubble of car parts. She faintly heard the panicked voice of a man call out, “Call an ambulance, these kids are in trouble!” Voices she heard, a few words at best, everything around her seemed to be spinning and red. One thing was for certain in her mind: She knew there were two cars involved in this wreck. She wondered to herself if Jay was alright, and if the people in the other car were alive.

She woke up to find her body laying still in a white bed, in a white room. She heard faint beeps every few seconds, and once her eyes fixated on her surroundings, she realized all of the people in soft blue scrubs with small white masks over their mouths, looking helplessly down at her frail body. “You’ve been in a wreck, and it looks pretty bad.” The voice of the one nurse with her mouth uncovered had echoed throughout Mackenzie’s mind loudly as the nurse continued to tell her that Jay was dead. “Mackenzie, we have done all we can do, but it

appears as though we will lose you too.” “But, the people in the other car!” Mackenzie cried. The nurse sighed, “We are sorry, but they have also died.”

Through her tears, Mackenzie began to pray. “God forgive me for what I have done, I had only wanted one night of fun. Tell those people’s families that I have made their lives dim, and that I would do anything to give their loved ones back to them. Tell mom and dad I am sorry I lied and that it is my fault that so many have died here tonight. Oh nurse, won’t you please tell my parents that for me?” Instead, the nurse just stood there and never agreed. She took Mackenzie’s hand, and sat with her until the moment Mackenzie died.

A bystander looked over at the nurse with genuine curiosity and asked, “Why didn’t you do your best to give that girl her one last request?” The nurse let go of Mackenzie’s hand and looked at the man, before slowly stating, “I didn’t fill her request, because the people in the other car were her mom and dad.”