Have you ever felt like you don't belong somewhere? I feel like that every single day. Here I am in this messed up world searching. Searching for love, compassion and especially peace but all those things are nowhere to be found especially in the environment I live in. In the house, I'm more like a maid than a child. The kids aren't even nice to me even though I take care of them more than Isabel. Every night I cry myself to sleep and pray that a miracle will happen and Jake will be cured and that my parents will come back to life but it never happens.
I wake up two hours before Isabel so I have time to buy groceries and visit Jake. I put on a plain black shirt, denim jeans, and black boots. I go outside and realize it is raining and instead of getting my umbrella inside the house I jog to the grocery store. Everybody is looking at me weirdly and then I see it. There is a medium sized hole at the bottom of my shirt. I ignore it and open the door to the grocery store. I look around for things that the kids might like so I don't get a beating for not getting the right stuff. I go to where the cashier was and wait in the long queue that went all the way down into one of the aisles in the store. I look down at my shopping cart making sure I have all the food and things that the kids might want or want to try. The shopping cart was full with about 20 king sized Hersey's chocolate bars, snickers, a box of dinosaur chicken nuggets, a box of frosted flakes, bags of sour cream and onion and potato chips, and Vaseline for me because it helped me with wounds. I would have to hide it in a secret place so Isabel won't know I got it. I look down at the shopping cart once again and think to myself" damn, these kids are fat." I would eat anything but not that much food. After about fifteen minutes, finally it was my turn in the line. I heard the lady at the cashier say " Next!" very loudly. The lady looked like she hated her job but I would too if I worked at a place where you had to stand around all day putting money in the cash registers and putting goods in paper bags. I moved my shopping cart forward to where the cashier was. The woman looked about in her early twenties. She wore a big sloppy looking yellow shirt and black jeans. She had her auburn colored hair in a messy bun. She would actually look really pretty if her appearance didn't look all sloppy like it did now. I placed all the items I got carefully in her hands. She swiped all of them and then I handed her a thirty dollar bill. She took and then gave me a dollar and a few cents as my change. I took the Vaseline and put it in my shirt hoping that no one would notice.
I get out of the grocery store holding two big brown paper bags in my hands that were covering my face and walk towards the hospital. When I get inside the fat lady behind the desk asks me what my name is. I reply and say" Hope Parker. I'm here to see my brother, Jake."
She tells me to follow her and she gives me a dark blue sticker that says visitor on it with black capital letters. I follow her through many hallways and stairs.Every first Saturday of the month I see Jake and every time he got sicker and sicker.I have always thought of hospitals as a place where people die. It made me sad every time I came here. I didn't want to see him die. I know it was a bad thought but at some point I knew he would and I hope it isn't soon.
We come to the room where Jake is. Jake has straight soft brown hair that he usually kept short and the palest skin I have ever seen on a human being. He inherited most of his characteristics from our mom and I inherited most of my characteristics from my dad. When I come in he says " Hey H.P." in a weak voice. It made me smile when he used my childhood nickname.
" Hey Jake. You look great," I say lying. He looks worse than ever but if I tell him that he does, it will break his heart and that is something I don't want to do because it will also break my heart. I hate to see him sad and depressed. He doesn't smile much but he doesn't frown much either. It's just a straight faced look that sits on his face everyday.
"Thanks," he says.
We go on and talk for what felt like hours. I wish I had more moments like this with him. Every month, we talk about the previous month and what has been going on in our lives. He would tell me about the nurses and how some of them were nice while the others were mean and I would tell him about what was going on in my high school and about the kids and Isabel. I could tell that Jake felt kind of lonely here. Whenever I came, his face lit up.
I look at the clock. Its 10:00. I should have been at Isabel's an hour ago.
"I'm late," I say.
"Your leaving me," he says. He said it so sadly. It made me want to stay but I knew I couldn't. If I did, I would get an even worse beating that I was about to get
" I have to get back at the house. I love you," I say and leave. I could hear him say I love you, too when I'm out the door.
I know that when I get home I'm going to get a beating. Isabel will get her whip from her hidden closet and beat me and it will give me scars that will that will stay there for the rest of my life.
