Young Love Lost

Preface

SO, I hope you enjoy my story. It's a subject that I think a lot of people would be interested to read in.

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My mother smiles at me sadly as I adjust the hospital bed in a view that can clearly see the television. The nurses were being extremely nice and calling me all sorts of names like sweetheart, honey, and girlie. Let’s just say it was getting weird.

I was in a bad mood, as I should have the right to be. I’d been crying for the last half an hour and was so confused. I just knew a lot of people had died and I was going to die too. I was going to be just like everyone else. No one had told me yet, with their sad smiles set permanent on their faces.

I wanted to demand them to tell me out loud, to my face. No such luck, as I was eavesdropping when I heard my dreadful news. I was rubbing my hands together in my I-am-so-uncomfortable- way. My mom smiled up at me and looked me straight in the eyes.

I diverted my eyes but it was too late. She saw right through me. She did this a lot when I was a kid and I would lie so smoothly to her. She’d just look at me and say, “Now, my little Jill, are you lying to me?” Her eyes would bore into me as she said Jillian, and then I’d tell her the truth guiltily.

This time I wasn’t lying, I was just keeping things to myself.

“Jillian, listen to me, you’re going to be okay. Don’t you worry your little butt off,” she laughed as best as she could.

I could feel the strain she had to make to force a laugh to escape her throat. She was trying so hard, and she knew in the end it wouldn’t matter. She stroked my hair comfortingly as I lay my head against the hard, uninviting pillow. It didn’t smell like him.

It didn’t smell like my boyfriend Calvin. The smell of a bit of axe, and a woodsy smell. He also liked to hike out to places, take my hand and climb mountains. I closed my eyes and thought about how he would go, “Hey Jelly! Look at us! We’re on top of the world baby; that’s where we are!”

My throat closed up as images of his bright smile were replaced with a bloody mess. I wanted to hold him again. I wanted him to call me Jelly, my nickname, in a soft whisper. I wanted to grab his hand and say it was going to be okay, but I knew that he wasn’t there, a sleeping beauty forever. His cheek still felt warm against mine. I rubbed my cheek like it was something fragile, and forgotten.

His hand had been there a day ago telling me he got to dance with the prettiest girl in Pillar, California. I wanted my mom to go so I could cry alone, and take pity on myself forever. Luck was somehow coming up for me as my mom was called to talk with the doctor. He looked like he just threw up a thousand doughnuts after visiting all these wounded patients.

She left and I grabbed the remote of the television turning it to channel eleven. Calvin’s face smiled brightly at me as my heart lurched forward and jumped out of my chest.

I listened in to Hailey Bean’s soothing voice on channel eleven tell the story for the millionth time.

“Here at Pillar High School chaos has been non-stop. Just this morning Riley Summers open fired on kids who he didn’t like. In an interesting twist, Riley’s two best friends, Jillian Griffin and Calvin Terence, were also in the shooter’s range. Many people nearby described the scene as horrific as Calvin argued intensely with Riley to stop shooting. Finally Riley seemed to have ‘had enough’ and open fired on his two closest friends. Riley first aimed at junior Jillian Griffin directly at her head. Although it was directed toward her, her boyfriend Calvin jumped in front of her and took the bullet to his heart. It struck right in the middle killing him. Jillian Griffin had apparently bent over him crying. Given the opportunity, Riley shot her in the back. While the hero, Calvin, was still down, Jillian had not had enough. With enough power of a true hero-” and she stopped and sniffled.

She was crying. She excused herself from the telecast and I realized she had attended this high school too. She felt it close to her heart like I did. My whole body was screaming, dying to run away from this horrid place as she had with her newscast.

My body was silently shaking with tears as I tried to control them. The hero, it was Calvin. Calvin had saved me with all his life, with his cute green eyes. Those rare green eyes that stared back at me.

I switched channels without the faintest idea why I had gone there in the first place.

It’s not like I hadn’t been there watching with my own eyes as Riley screamed words at me. It wasn’t Calvin he was screaming at; it was me. I loved Riley in my own way too. He was my best friend, and yet he looked at Calvin as if he had betrayed him.

When he shot me, when he had looked at me, it was with a faint of innocent in his eyes. I could see no evil. Still, this was not the Riley I remembered.

My chest heaved as I pulled the plastic bucket to my mouth. I threw up chunks in the basket, my heart pounding. I looked at my reflection in the doctors’ instruments. I looked like crap.

And I was going to die.