I got the idea for this story from a song by a Danish Rock/ Rap group, Nik & Jay. It didn't take me as long as any other story has ever taken...two weeks, a record for me and a good story. I read it over and over again, wondering if I should submit it and I have finally made the decision to release it, I know it's long but stick with it, it's full of honest love and all of that, not so much as sex but still a good one. If it makes you cry at the end or at least feel something, that's good because it made me, and I'm a tough guy. I took the girl's point of view, so you know it's going to have some good thought in it, and I'm just like that even though I usually take the guy's point of view. So, uh, enjoy it, leave some feedback and your e-mail address if you would like to discuss it or ask questions...good comments are welcome and bad well, whatever.
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En Dag Tilbage (One Day Left)
What would you do if you had one day left? Well, if you were anything like my brother you would do everything...including your sister. My brother, Ben, was in and out of hospitals since he was seven years old. I never saw much of him except when he would come home on rare occasions to get another stuffed animal for comfort. I was honestly afraid of him, but he would always smile at me when he saw me, giving me the large grin with his bald head from all of the chemotherapy, the tubes sticking out of his nose made me imagine him as a monster, the deepening "HUH!" sound he would make every time he would take a breath only enhanced my imagination. I would try to help him when he was home and we would play together when we could, I went to go see him in the hospital only eight times out of his countless visits, everything made me uncomfortable. The smell of antiseptic, the smell of cleanliness, and the stark whiteness of that plain and sterile place. I told my parents, who said it was all right. I stayed home all the time and almost forgot I even had a brother.
When the doctor told him that almost all of the cancer was gone from his body, he came home excitedly, and tried to talk to me, but everything was still so uncomfortable, so I tried to avoid him. He celebrated his sixteenth birthday alone, just home from the hospital and hadn't made any friends that were out of the hospital, I watched from the fortress of my room as my parents cheered for him as he blew out his candles. I would emerge from my room only three times a day and all three times I was getting food. He didn't say anything when he saw me as if he knew my uneasiness around him, but soon his hair grew back and he was just like a normal person again, he wasn't the sick and feeble young boy, I had known clad only in a hospital gown, but he always had a smile on his face.
We started High school together but he was in a grade lower than mine was, even though he was around the same age as I was. He didn't complain though, and still had the biggest smile on his face whenever he saw me in the hallway. Sometimes he would just smile at me and pass if it was very crowded, but if it weren't, he would strike up a conversation, asking me if I had a boyfriend yet. The answer was always no, until I was in my senior year of high school. I met Dan and we dated for a little while until I caught him making fun of my brother, even though I didn't know much about my own brother, I still felt the urge to stick up for him, I dumped him in front of everyone and he called me a crazy bitch but I didn't care.
I wondered why I had stuck up for him and knew that if he wasn't there I would still be dating Dan, and everything would be normal, instead of always having to make sure he was all right, sometimes I even wished I had another family, but I quickly stopped, shocked by my coldness. It wasn't his fault that this had happened to him, it was nobody's fault, just the luck of life I suppose.
When I was a couple of weeks away from graduating High school, my brother got sick again, almost worse than before. My parents rushed him to the doctor and they did too many tests to remember and on one sunny Saturday in April, they announced that he had cancer again. It had spread to his brain and was inoperable unless they wanted him to live with major brain damage or even die on the operating table. My parents didn't know what to do and spoke to Ben, who said he was tired of operations and made the final decision to die. Only he didn't know he would die at the time, he didn't feel terrible but said he had a dull ache in his head a couple of times a day and then it would go away. The doctor gave him four months to live, which my parents rejected before when they had heard it before when he had cancer the first time and the doctor said he would only have two months but he lived.
Our parents took him home and told him that he didn't have to go to school anymore unless he chose to. Of course trying to be normal teenager, he was excited and withdrew from school. I, on the other hand, stayed to graduate. I had worked hard for thirteen long years and was not ready to give up.
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"Can I come in?" Ben knocked on my door and stuck his little head inside; still clad in the large smile he had had almost all of his life.
"Sure." I replied as I turned a page in my biology book. I had memorized all I could before the final exams for the next day and was exhausted and wanted to go to sleep but Ben seemed troubled and I wanted to be nice.
"Well, I was thinking..." Ben stopped and flopped down on my bed, picked up one of my stuffed animals and smiled. "I remember when I gave you this for your ninth birthday...I found it in one of the hospital rooms...someone had left it behind when they left...you told me that you would never let it go and would love it forever." He turned it over in his hands then made it do a little dance that brought a little grin to my face. "You still have him." He said as he made it dance.
"Yeah, please put Mr. Stickles down." I said flatly, the smile leaving my face.
"Mr. Stickles?" He said with a curious look.
"Yes, Mr. Stickles." I snatched it from his grasp and set him down on my pillow.
"All right, all right...sorry." He said looking dismal at my intense emotion I had just expressed for nothing but a stuffed animal. "Anyway, I was...wondering...who are you going to the prom with?"