Chapter One

It was a very lazy Sunday when i wrote this.

 

The underside of my arm is a long white plane and the skin there, if I examine it closely, looks like a map of a million roads that all fork off into one another. My brain is buzzing, and everything has a shape or a pattern to it that I’ve never noticed before. It feels like my eyes are swelling inside their sockets, and pulsing with a new life of their own. The searing heat has collected just behind my skull right in between my eyes. My nose is congested now and I hear this high-pitched ringing, as if there were a TV on nearby, but it fills my entire body with a sickening echo.

A cache of scars and crevices mark my black wooden bed stand. This is the bed stand I bought with my own money back in high school. It has curvy legs to stand on and a single drawer that’s too shallow to hold much other than a box of matches and a bottle of Aspirin. I bought it with the intentions of displaying it in my first home all to myself. One night, when I was sick with a fever, though, I spilled a bottle of water on it. When I mopped it up with Kleenex the soggy mess of tissue in my hand had turned purple, and on top of my bed stand was a faded bruise. There have been other watermarks and such contusions through the years, but I’ve still proudly kept my bed stand out for show. It’s like an extension of myself; scattered books here and there, a candle burned nearly to the pit, some half-empty bottles, and meds.

Somewhere down below me (oh, the joy of apartments) I can hear a guitar playing through the paper thin floor. Sometimes I feel like if I walk too hard I’ll fall right through, right into someone else’s world that exists completely apart from my own. This idea sends my mind into a reel of fresh new ideas, like, what if I became a part of that other universe? What if I became a piece of furniture in that guitar-player’s own world? Or maybe I’d fall right into their soul and live a new life for a day.

The only thing that sounds appealing about someone else’s life is that, in this exact moment, I wouldn’t have a migraine that feels like it’s pulling all of the threads of my knitted being apart. I wouldn’t be unraveling from the inside.

 

Morning light feels like tasting a cup of ice-cold water. It feels like I exchanged all my old, broken senses for new, fresh ones. I inhale the smell of laundry detergent and shampoo and when my eyes open there is no pain. Rebirth never seemed so sweet, I think, stretching these new-fangled limbs and popping stiff joints.

The sunlight makes my apartment look like a foreign place from where I’d fallen asleep last night. There is no guitar playing downstairs anymore and the shadows and patterns have slunk back to wherever they came from. It’s funny, but I feel like a portion of light that separated itself from the sun. I’m light and airy inside, and I’m clean from my shower the night before. I always seem to feel this way in the wake of a migraine. I remember all of the things I’ve taken for granted, and I want to be appreciative and deserving for all of the rest of my life.

My face in the mirror of the bathroom is a mess of pale exhaustion. The side of my head that I slept on is red and my hair that was wet dried in unnatural, frightening formations.

“Damn.”

I forget the name of the boy I agreed to have brunch with, but I can see his face just perfectly in my consciousness. He’s one of those brooding kinds; the quiet, shy kind that probably have a lot more to say than the louder ones. These boys peak my curiosity. I want to hear all of the things that their silent speculations have gathered. I want to see the world just like them.

A ponytail fixes the chaos on my head. I struggle to get the bathroom window open and stick my hand out into the air. It’s frosty and warm at the same time. By mid-afternoon it may be too warm for a sweater, but I have this inclination to wear my green one. One time a girl told me I looked like an orchid. She was Asian, and looked like American culture had swallowed her up and spit her out. She talked softly and shyly, and we were sitting across from each other at a table in a library.

An hour later I look like a stranger to the girl who’d woken up in my apartment. My jeans are beginning to fit a little tighter. I’d blame the loneliness and the Chinese take-out, but I know it’s my own fault. I grab my purse and head for the door when the phone rings.

For a reason beyond my comprehension a phone ringing has always filled me with an immediate sense of dread. I’d call it apprehension, or a gut-feeling, but it isn’t always bad news. Even so, the hairs on my neck stand up when I hear my land-line ringing, and my stomach feels like it’s dropping, and for a split second I refuse to answer it.

I always shake the feeling off, of course. It’s an illogical, irrational fear, like the fear of needles, or beards.

“Hello?”

“Ms…Kennedy?” It was a woman.

“Yes.”

“Ms. Kennedy, this is Dr. Bennett, of St. Mary’s Hospital in Houston, Texas.” She paused, waiting for this to register, maybe. “I’m calling to inform you that Mrs. Helen Kennedy was admitted at around eleven-thirty last night due to a mild stroke. I believe your father, Scott Kennedy, provided your number. He wanted us to let you know.”

My fingers feel numb, wrapped around the portable. It feels like my brain is ripping open file cabinets, searching for any information I’ve ever received on ‘strokes’. It’s like a computer sifting through data, but in the process I’ve forgotten to speak.

“Ms. Kennedy?”

“Yes.”

“Did you understand all of that?” Dr. Bennett’s voice sounds a tad gentler now.

“Yes.”

There’s a pause. I imagine Dr. Bennett is waiting for me to panic or respond. “Would you like to talk to your father, Ms. Kennedy?”

Would I? “Yes.”

There’s muffled voices, and the scratchy noise of the phone being handed off. “Ellie?” The sound of my father’s voice is like climbing into bed at night. It’s the feeling of your muscles relaxing and the tension trickling out of your pores. “Sweetheart, are you still there?”

“I’m here,” I whisper. “Is Mom OK?”

“She’s fine, sweetie, it wasn’t severe.”

A stroke’s a stroke, my mind finally comes up with.

“She’s resting now.”

“What happened?” I’m finally regaining a little bit of a normal thought processing.

Dad sighs, and I can picture him rubbing his temples or popping the stiffened joints in his neck and back. “We had just eaten dinner and were watching TV when she mentioned her arm was feeling numb. Neither of us thought much of it, but as we were getting ready for bed…it just came on so fast…” he sniffles.

“Does Beth know?”

“Yes, the doctor called her earlier this morning.”

It seems immature and unreasonable given the circumstances, but I feel a pang of jealousy to hear that they called Beth first. “Oh, good.”

“That’s why I’m calling you now, though,” Dad says. “Your sister can’t make it out from Oregon for maybe three weeks.”

“What?”

“Your mother’s going to be out of a job for a while the doctors say. I’m going to have to keep working, probably more than I do now, to pull both our loads and I can’t leave your mother home alone. They’re going to keep her here for about a week, in the hospital,” he clarifies, as if clarification was needed, “and then she’ll need hands-on care 24/7. Ellie, we can’t afford a stay-in nurse…”

It’s unbelievable that it took me so long to understand. “I’ll check into a plane ticket tonight.” I say, without really considering my “job”, my school, or the fraction of a life I have here in Chicago.

Dad heaves a guttural sob. “Ellie, I’m so sorry…I don’t mean to uproot you or your sister like this…I just…”

“I want to come,” I lie. “I’ll let you know when my flight is as soon as I know. I love you, Dad. I’m glad everything’s OK.”

“I love you, too, Ellie.”

Click.

Author's Note

Thank you for finishing it! :) Tell me what you thought.

Reviews

[An owl on the moon]

Your detail is equisite and your dialogue mingles like a dancer with your prose. I loved your writing style and your avoidance of cliche. Excellent!

[Alphachad]

I can't believe i actually finished this with my incredibly short attention span. Your words are so rich with vivid descriptions and fascinating activities that the readers interest is held throughout the whole story. I've seen some stories written like this, and i know that like the people who wrote them, you are going to be a bestseller writer. That conversation at the end was so believable even from the point of view of an awkward daughter. I enjoyed this one very much. Kudos to your excellence :D

[E.H. Monroe]

Morning light feels like tasting a cup of ice-cold water.

The side of my head that I slept on is red and my hair that was wet dried in unnatural, frightening formations.

She was Asian, and looked like American culture had swallowed her up and spit her out.

I always shake the feeling off, of course. It’s an illogical, irrational fear, like the fear of needles, or beards.

First of all, the style is fresh and honest. You don't go to extreme lengths to wow people with a thesaurus in hand. You let the story, and the pin point description roll in front of peoples eyes like a director's cut Movie.
You come in with some headache, and go into a tragedy giving us oinstant sympathy and start asking questions.
Im in my dear.

Up Up and away

[JC]

you are a powerful and perceptive writer, your observations strong..you flow with the gentleness of a jim jarmusch flick...honest writing, bare and rare.

[cartera]

You write very well, in my opinion. You use language well, your grammar is spot on so no worries there. You capture the tone of a youn g person well, which is understandable, given your age.
There is the occasional lapse into the conversational that, for me, does not quite fit.
There is the odd piece of overdoing it with images, one or two of which are not new. The 'voice' is good and well-maintained.
But overall, this is a good piece of writing that deserves to be worked.
Believe me, you are a good writer with a future. Try Hemingway, or even more Hemingway.
ATB
Alex.