Winning Skylinn

29

The next morning, my mom took me to the hospital. She called in sick to work and everything.

I promised myself that I would be strong this time. I wouldn't cry. And everything would be fine.

When I walked in, he was lying there, still in the hospital bed, unmoving. As I got closer, though, I realized that his chest was, in fact, rising. He was breathing; that had to mean something, right?

"Hi, Jonny," I whispered. "It's me."

I knew he couldn't hear me, but somehow talking to him made things seem...easier. Less strange.

And then I got an idea. I would write him letters. I would read them to him, in the hospital. I would make him remember. He couldn't forget who I was. If he ever woke up, he couldn't forget me. I wouldn't be able to breathe if that happened.

So I would write him letters.

~~

When we were fourteen, Jonny left the country to be a foreign exchange student in Australia. He did it in the summer, and it was the worst one of my life.

The first letter came in June. It was two whole pages, front and back, and in his sloppy handwriting.

I was very excited upon receiving his letter, and learning all about what he was doing in Australia. He told me he'd gotten to see an alligator up close and in person! And he was already making lots of friends. I wondered if he had a girlfriend there.

Right away, I knew I had to write him back. So I did. I asked my mom to take me to the store and buy stationery. I didn't want my letters to be written on crumpled pieces of notebook paper. I bought new purple ink pens and everything.

In the letter, I told him that I'd been hanging out with Jake a lot, and that her mom was pregnant. I said I wished he could've been there, but Australia would've been much more fun for him than picking out baby clothes. I asked him about his friends, even though he'd already told me all their names in his letter. At the end, I told him I missed him and couldn't wait for him to get back.

We wrote letters like that back and forth for the rest of the summer. And when he got back, he had an Australian accent!

It went away in about a week.

~~

I left early to go home and work on my letter. I still had stationery saved from that summer he was a foreign exchange student. These letters probably didn't need to be written on nice paper, but I wanted to do that anyway. Maybe I'd switch once it ran out; I only had about ten sheets left. I'd been using it for Denver's letters as well.

I thought about what to write. Would he want me to tell him what I'd been doing since the accident? Or would he want me to tell him who he was? Who I was. I decided I liked the second idea better.

So I started a letter, and wrote almost a whole page. I would bring it to the hospital tomorrow and read it to him. I knew, even if he couldn't hear me, that he would like it.