When China Breaks//Ed Sheeran #Wattys2016 #NewVoices

how do we say our goodbyes?

The thing was that there were more people who were far more deserving of a new bionic leg than me. Some of them were marines or smaller children who had their childhoods stolen from them in hit and run accidents. I was a dancer, who hated dancing, that lost her leg in a car accident that was her mother's fault. It didn't take a genius to see who they would choose over me.

It was hard explaining this to Doctor Z, who, despite all of the lives he'd seen destroyed, was an optimist through and through. He called me a few days after I was released from the hospital for the second time. I enjoyed the fact that he remembered me, considering that I was easily forgotten. "Miss Snow," he said. "I currently have three minutes, maybe less."

"Okay, I'll make it fast then." I joked although he was the one that called me.

"So how have you been? No more falls, right?"

"Yeah," I say without much enthusiasm.

"What about your pamphlet? Are you still working on your essay?" He asked me. I didn't say anything for the longest amount of time until it was considered awkward.

"I stopped working on it. I decided that I didn't deserve a bionic leg." I explained simply and flat out, not beating around the bush at all.

"Aaliyah, why wouldn't you deserve it? You wouldn't deserve it say you amputated your own leg on purpose for the reason of getting a bionic leg. Or maybe you were smuggling children in some illegal sex trade and you managed to get your leg cut off by the Feds--"

"That's so unlikely I can't even explain to you--" I laughed.

"No, now listen to me. You're as deserving as any other." He assured me.

"Marines need bionic legs and arms too." I reminded him. "Not a little girl with a crushed dream."

"Little girls with crushed dreams are important and special in their own way. Promise me you'll finish it, will you? You have no idea how happy I will be if you get the leg." He tells me. I smiled.

"Okay, Doctor Z. I'll finish it. But I don't get it, I won't be sad. That means someone more deserving got it." I say.

"Okay, Aaliyah. You really have a heart of gold, you know that?"

I wouldn't confuse my heart of gold with a girl who has a heart of guilt. Somehow that made me feel even worse, wishing that someone else got the prosthesis simply because I couldn't handle the guilt of being the undeserving bearer of it. It only made me seem guiltier.

"Hey, since I have a minute left, have you seen Ed at all?" He asked me. My body went cold and a knot formed in my stomach that I didn't want there at all. I remembered Ed telling me that he only wanted me because I was a cheerleader and he had a thing for them. Despite the fact that I was different, he was willing to put up with my problems if it meant he got...what did he want from me again?

"Nope. And I'm not looking for him either." I said.

"He hasn't been by in a couple of days. I'm sure he's really sad you left, Aaliyah." Doctor Z pressed on.

"Ed and I didn't exactly leave off on good terms. But if I see him, I will tell him that you're looking for him, okay?" I say politely, even though I prayed that I would never see his face again. He broke me in a way I have never been broken before. I've had feelings broken, bones broken, I've even had my dreams broken, but I have never in my life had my heart broken. Now I have to deal with the fact that the first relationship that I was in after my amputation was nothing but a hoax. It was based solely off of my status, not who I really was.

"Thanks, Aaliyah. Take care okay?"

I hung up and sighed, closing my eyes. "Back to complete boredom."