Memory of you

A Story by Tayler Voteary

this is the story if a girl and her realization that pain and love can happen so fast

once upon a time there was a girl, whose heart had hardened from many years of pain, and so like water battered cold freezes, her once warm heart froze and with this gave way to cruelty. for years she would pick on one of her classmates and cause him pain to try and ease her own but with each insult, he would only smile and tell her he was sorry and she would walk away. each day she would walk home and see him walk down an empty side road to what she could only assume was his home, and every day she would wonder what he was doing but she simply ignored her curiosity and continued home. one day she had seen him coughing and so she walked up and lectured him on how he should have stayed at home instead of coming and risking everyone's health, to which he simply said he was sorry and that he only came to hand in an assignment and with that she left to continue her day. that afternoon she walked down her normal path towards her parents home but stopped to observe him walking down the lonely back street as always, only this time he seemed dazed and shaky, she shook it off and began walking away when she heard a thud on the sidewalk. to her shock, he had collapsed in the street and was unconscious she panicked and ran towards him and tried to wake him but to no avail, so she called for an ambulance and rode with him to the hospital. for three hours she waited around for someone to tell her what was wrong with him, and eventually she went home, that night she cried for many hours but she could not understand why, so she decided she would visit the boy tomorrow. after class she went to the hospital and walked up to his door and knocked, she could hear the boy tell her to come in, so she entered and this surprised the boy who would never expect her to show up. she asked him what caused him to pass out in the street the previous day, to which he replied by telling her he had necrosis in his lungs and this was making him sick so he was going to have surgery, suddenly guilt filled her heart and she began to cry. the boy grabbed her by the arm and told her that she should not feel so broken as she did not know about his pain, and she asked how he could not hate her for being so cruel towards her, to which he told her that she was the only person who talked to him and so even if her intentions were cruel he did not hate her. hearing this made her decide she would stay by his side until he got better, and so for the next two weeks she visited him every day and on the final day before his surgery she had been making tea when he began to cough very hard and this scared her very much and started to cry and this confuses the boy and so he asks her why she would cry because he was hurting, and she finally admits that she cared about him and that he was the only friend she had and she loved him. the boy looked happy and so he asked her to come close and she did, he whispered that he loved her too and overwhelmed with joy she kissed him and before she could pull back in embarrassment he kissed her back. she lay next to him and after a while hey both fell asleep, and she was awoken the next day by a doctor who was preparing to take him to surgery, fearing he may not see her again he asked if one day she would marry him and she replied by making him a promise to marry him. and with those words, she was escorted out so the boy could be prepped for surgery. she waited for hours for him and with each minute time seemed to have become an eternity with each minute feeling like a year but after some time the doctor came out and both joy and fear filled her mind as she asked him how the surgery went. the doctor asked her to sit down and he told her that the doctors could not fix the issue and that he had about two weeks to live, she nearly shattered like glass as the tears poured from her eyes and 1000 needles of pain and sorrow pierced her heart. she went to him in the recovery room and sat next to him, she asked him what they would do now and he asked her if she would marry him the day after tomorrow, she agreed and asked him if he was going to leave the hospital or if he would remain and he told her that he wished to spend his last days with his wife. they eloped a few days later and spend the next week and a half in a small cabin by the countryside that was owned by her grandfather, and on the final day of his life that lay together side by side and he asked if she would forget him, she placed his hand on her belly and told him he would never be forgotten and with that he closed his eyes and said his final goodbye. she buried her husband at 20 years of age and raised their child alone, but in her heart, he lived on proudly and strong, and so she pressed on into her life feeling not sorrow but hope, that his memory would live in her daughter's heart just as it has in hers,