Teddy Roosevelt

A short story with inspiration from a family member and his girlfriend.

I was fifteen years old when I first saw her walking down the hallway at Wilson High. With tanned skin and not a single drop of makeup, she was stunning. Later that week I built up the courage to ask her out. It was a simple movie date. I’m sure the movie was great, but for those two hours she was the only thing I saw. After that day, I knew I would spend the rest of my freshman year falling in love with her.

       I was sixteen when she broke my heart. She tried her best to tell me the words she should’ve told me sooner. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, I refused to believe it was true. How could one simple sentence, only nine little words, have created this unfathomable reality? “I’m sick and I’m not going to get better.” I finally understood why her parents fought so hard against us being together. I understood why she had to quit her job and give up running track. I understood why she barely fought them on any of their ridiculous rules. They were only trying to protect her. But that was the problem. They didn’t understand that this was something they never could’ve saved her from.

Once the secret was out her parents stopped trying to force me away, so I spent every spare second I had with her.  For a while she seemed to be getting better; some days she would even feel up to walking laps around the nurses’ station. I was so naïve and convinced myself she would get better. I should’ve known it was only the calm before a storm.

On the day his wife died, Teddy Roosevelt’s diary had one single entry, “The light has gone out of my life.” I never truly understood the depth in the meaning of his words. At least, not until that day. I would say I felt my heart break, but that didn’t seem accurate. My heart didn’t just break, my entire soul longed to bring her back. I understood there was nothing I could’ve done to save her, but my God, I wish I could’ve. Every ounce of my being ached for something I would never get back. I now felt the meaning of his words stronger than I ever knew I could, because the only light I had ever known was gone.