Based on the following writing prompt:
Quote:
How does your character view love? Do they view love? Try writing their feelings from a first-person perspective.
What is love, really? I have to wonder that sometimes. Is it as simple as two people feeling affection for each other? Or is there more to it? What if life chooses to complicate things? Is it sometimes best to leave love alone, to never pursue it?
I never really thought about it; at least, not until he came along. Nicholas Parker, a volunteer at the local hospital. I first met him when I was young - how young was it, really? I think I was ten. He was sixteen at the time - the youngest our hospital would allow. Since he was just a volunteer no one seemed to mind when he stole away to my room during my stays. Well, maybe it just felt like he took time away from his job to visit me. Perhaps it was childlike wishing the entire time. All I knew was that having him there in the room with me was better than anything I ever could have imagined.
He did all sorts of things with me. There were times when he brought a tray in, a plastic cover over the top. Sometimes, it was just the plain meal that came with the hospital stay, but sometimes... sometimes there was something extra. This ranged from day to day, but I always thought he had brought it especially for me. How was I to know that it had been requested by my parents?
When he didn't have a tray, he still came in and made my day, making funny faces at me as he checked the IV dripping from my arm - never mind that I was too old for funny faces at the time. For him, I laughed at them every time. They were just another part of him that I adored, even if he didn't know it.
Things became even better when I turned thirteen. I was well enough to stay home, rather than spend my days at the hospital, but Mother still worried about me. She and Father both had jobs, shifts that extended throughout the day, and she didn't want me home alone. She had taken the job up because of me, I know; or, rather, because of the medical bills that I racked up from time to time, between the surgeries and simple visits to the doctor, and everything in between.
I hadn't liked the idea at first. Certainly, I was old enough to stay home alone! But there was always the risk that I would suddenly collapse, or that something else would happen, and no one would be around to know. No, I needed constant supervision, and thus, one lucky volunteer got to be my permanent babysitter.
I went through a few different ones before I found one I liked. Or, rather, enough volunteers grew tired of watching over a fragile thirteen year old. Never mind that I wasn't fragile at all; I was simply disinterested, and at thirteen, one can be a bit rebellious when they don't like something.
By 'one I liked', I mean Nicholas finally came. I had known that the hospital was going through a list of people that had the credentials to watch over me. It was pure luck that Nicholas' turn had come up before some stubborn volunteer refused to leave despite my attempts.
I remembered our time together in the hospital well, and hoped to make our days at my home just as much fun. For a time, it was. Then, I began to notice that I felt differently about Nicholas than I had before. My adoration from my pre-teen years had blossomed into a full crush before I even turned fourteen, and still, he had no idea.
This crush continued to grow as Nicholas and I spent time alone together. To add to my delight, I soon began to notice signs that might have pointed to him liking me in return. Perhaps it was simply wishful thinking, but any chance I had, I was willing to take. I was still fourteen. I had time for a relationship, even according to the doctor's standings.
Thus, I began to try and pursue this romance. I never actually let on that I liked him, not out loud, at least, but I left the signs. For a while, he showed no indication of noticing my subtle advances, but out of the blue one day it all came fitting together. Under a bit of pressure, he admitted to liking me more than a friend, despite his attempts to think of me as a charge that he had watched over on and off for the past four years. Naturally, I was delighted.
I received my first kiss from him a few months before my fifteenth birthday. It was to be my last, as well, but how was I to know that? Even if it was to be my own fault.
It was on my fifteenth birthday that everything went downhill. I began to notice signs of fatigue. My hands would shake, just small tremors, and not be stilled for minutes at a time. Before I knew what was happening... I collapsed.
My heart had finally started to give out, the doctors announced as I woke in the familiar environment of the hospital. I had known this point was coming, had known since I was born, but why? Why, when everything was going so well, did this suddenly have to happen?
I had to undergo surgery. According to the doctors, whatever they did would prolong my life for a while longer, but as to how long, they had no idea. It could be as little as a year - in fact, they predicted as much - but with luck, I would be able to live happily for a few years yet. If I underwent another surgery at a later point, I might have longer still.
I changed, after that hospital stay. I decided that it was unfair of me to pursue any sort of relationship. My love for Nicholas - for that was what it was, I knew - would only crush him along with my inevitable death. I couldn't bear to do that to him. Wouldn't do that to him. Even if it meant breaking his heart now, it would only be better in the end.
Our relationship ended shortly after I made my decision. I knew he wasn't happy - then again, neither was I - but he knew that what I was doing for the best. He could never know how hard it was for me to finally say it out loud, though. I wouldn't let him know.
I tried to tell myself that I had been fooling myself the entire time. Surely he had just been indulging an ill girl's fantasies. Still... I found myself recalling that first kiss, the emotion behind it. Who was I fooling? I found myself crying for the first time since I had been told what would eventually happen to me, all those years ago. This time, there was no one around to see it.
I don’t know what it was that enabled me to prove them all wrong, but I found myself still alive on my sixteenth birthday. And my seventeenth. As my eighteenth rolled around, I decided that enough was enough. I still refused to consider the notion of romance – refused to think of all the lost time since I had forced myself to give up on Nicholas – but I knew that I wasn’t about to sit around and simply count the days until the inevitable occurred.
It took a lot to convince my parents to allow me to travel, but I had the upper hand. I was eighteen now, and thus had control over my own life. If I wanted to spend what could be my last days, or weeks, or months, or even years out on some sort of journey, then by God, I was going to do it, and no one was going to stop me.
