Love Letters

A sinical young man volenteers at a hospital because he likes watching people die. Little did he know he'd end up falling in love with one of the patients.

             “It really is a tragedy” Nurse Robin said as she slurped from her cup of low fat raspberry yoghurt. “She was such a beautiful woman” she sighed.

            Apparently the patient was in a serious car accident. Her car had been reduced to a steel ball of paper. Where you would normally find a door handle there was a dashboard sparkling with glass confetti. Before the woman even knew her car was upside down, it burst into flames trapping her inside. The rescue workers pulled her out of the burning vehicle and rushed her here, to the hospital.

            “She’s almost lucky to have lost her eye sight.” Nurse Robin paused. “I don’t think that poor woman wants to see what’s left of her face.”

            I rolled my eyes, unfazed by the story. I volunteer here at the hospital. I help organize fund raisers, set up bulletin boards and occasionally I sort and deliver mail to the patients staying in the hospital. Nurse Robin helps me sort through the letters. What wing. What floor. What room. She’s pretty chatty so I hear stories like this all the time. They really don’t bother me.

            Nurse Robin stared at me while she stirred her yoghurt.

“What?” I said dumbly

“What are you doing tonight?” she asked.

I stared back at her. She fumbled with her spoon just enough to leave a small spec of yoghurt on her bottom lip. The she gave me the old “Seductively lick yoghurt off my lip” move.

“Very subtle” I mumbled.

“Oh come on” she teased “Don’t you have any fun?”

I stacked up my pile of letters and went up to the recovery wing to deliver them. I DON’T volunteer to pick up promiscuous nurses.  I don’t volunteer here to be an upstanding citizen. I come here to pass the time. I come here to watch dying people die then feel better about my own crappy life. Really, I come here to make god like me more. It isn’t about the patients, its all about me.

I worked my way down the hall delivering each letter, noting every hideous deformity, every sickening malady and every prosthetic leg for me to think about next time I think MY life sucks…Then I came across room 217, the room of the woman from the car accident.

“This should be good” I thought to myself as I entered the room.

The woman was lying in bed, breathing with great difficulty but without the help of a machine. That’s a rare sight in this wing. The right side of her face was an array of bumps, blisters and craters. From her forehead to her chin were hundreds of raised blisters red and irritated. The skin between the bumps was blue from lack of blood circulation. Her face was slightly glossy, shining the way skin does with the sting of a freshly peeled scab. Most of her hair had been burned away. Her bare scalp had nothing to hide behind other than a small tuft of blonde hair behind her left ear.

I walked towards her bed slowly with her letter in my hand. The moment I set it down on the night stand she sat up abruptly. She looked around the room with her left eye; the right eye seemed to have lost its ability to open.

“Brian!?” she gasped. The woman looked around the room in a panic but soon calmed down; possibly remembering just as I had that she had lost her eye sight.

“Brian?” She asked again in a detached voice.

“Um… Uh… No… Um… I’m Maxwell. I-I volunteer here and um…” I glanced down at the return address on her letter. “I actually have a letter here, from Brian.”

Half a smile stretched across her face. The other half of her mouth remained dormant.

“A letter!?” She exclaimed. “Oh please let me re…” she pause with the kind of despair only half a face can convey. “um… can you… um”

I had forgotten again. This woman is blind, there’s no way SHE could read the letter on her own. “I could read it… to you… if you want.”

She nodded trying to avoid eye contact. I realized that it is a reflex to avoid looking others in the eye when you’re ashamed or embarrassed. But I couldn’t help but wonder how she knew where not to look.

“Brian is my fiancé” she announced “He’s my high school sweet heart” as she blushed her blisters turned a bright red. I feared they would explode so instead of watching what could be a bloody mess I involved myself more with the opening the envelope.

“I was driving home from the tailor.” She continued “I had to get my wedding dress altered. I few inches here and there, a couple extra ruffles.” She sighed “I wanted to look beautiful for Brian. He is the love of my life and he really deserves the best I have to offer he was my first and only love… We were so close to our dreams”

I was only half listening to her sob story. I was completely fixated on this envelope which seemed to have been sealed with concrete or someone with super glue in their mouth in stead of saliva. When I finally ripped it open I was surprised to see how brief it was. I read it over in my head.

Dear Amelia, I love you truly, I’m sorry it has to be this way but it you can’t see me I can’t see you.

I read it over and over in my head. She continued to tell me how he was her world. I continued to read his words while she kept saying he was all he had left.

“So what does it say? Please I’m so curious, please read it to me Maxwell” she pleaded.

I looked at her face, a mosaic of blisters and dry skin. I held in my hands the word that would put her heart in worse condition than her face.

“I love you truly” I began “and I’m sorry it has to be this way” I looked up at her face again. The working half of her face showed more happiness and excitement than mine ever could as a whole.

“I’m sorry it has to be this way but I know we’ll be okay” I just spat it out, I wasn’t thinking, and then I kept going. “You’re everything to me. I love you Amelia. No matter what the doctors say I know you can see that. Keep smiling. Love… Brian” I just said it. I don’t know why. The words just poured out of my mouth

Silence took over the room. I watched her stare at nothing. I watched a single tear fall from her left eye over the white smoothness of the undamaged side of her face.

“Maxwell…” she said softly “When I get my next letter, I want you to read it. That made me so happy. Really. Please, can you read to me again?”

I left the hospital in a hurry. Then I crashed right into Nurse Robin in the parking lot.

“Where are you going in such a hurry Max?” she asked

I kept walking, but she followed me. God damn skanky nurse.

“Come on, you can tell me” she begged, She is such a god damn skanky nosey nurse. “What are you doing later tonight?”

I pushed past that repetitive skanky nosey nurse and yelled back at her, “I need to go buy some stationery!!”

For the next month I wrote letter to Amelia everyday, in the words of Brian, not my own. I had to do it. Her smile sent waves through me. I needed to keep her happy, I need that smile. Dying people were dead to me. All I need to be happy now was Amelia.

I’m sorry I haven’t visited yet my darling. I’ve been so busy at work, but I promise I’ll see you soon. When I write to you I remember everything about you. I love your blonde hair and dark eyes, your soft white skin and your smile. I love your smile.

Amelia was crying when I stopped reading. “Isn’t he amazing?” she sobbed “Even after all that’s happened he still thinks I’m beautiful, he still loves me. His words are all I have. I love him so much Maxwell.”

I was almost happy she couldn’t see me cringing. She couldn’t see my teeth clenching. Those were my words and I meant every one of them. She needed to know the truth. I needed her to smile for me. The next day I confessed, in a letter.

My dear Amelia, I’m so sorry but I have to tell you the truth. It wasn’t Brian who wrote all these letters. I was writing to you, I wrote the letters. I was pretending to be Brian because he made you smile. But now that’s not good enough. I need you to be happy with me. I’m in love with you Amelia

I finally looked up at her. She was crying. Her one eye producing more sadness and disappointment I had ever seen. “What can I do!?” I asked desperately “I’m so sorry. What should I do?” She just kept on crying “I can still write… as Brian… Just please don’t cry.” She nodded. That’s what she wanted, and I couldn’t say no.

I went home and wrote to her. I was Brian again, but it was okay. I just needed to see her happy again. I arrived at the hospital early the next day with Brian’s letter. I went up to her room 217. I was surprised when I opened the door and saw Amelia standing right across the door way. She was staring right at me.

Amelia took a few steps towards me, and then reached out. I put her hands on my face. She was feeling it and getting to know it. She didn’t say anything and she didn’t have to. All she had to do was smile

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[cfix]

descriptive story with strong emotion.