33 Days To Live (Under Revision)

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TRIGGER WARNING

My name is Lucille Ross Burke but my friends and family call me Lucy, or the people who supposedly care about me call me that.

When I was younger there used to be so much joy in people's voices when they called me Lucy and I'd always respond to them happily. Whether it was my friends calling me out to play with them, my mom calling me down to look at her most recent graphic design, my dad calling me to put down my art work and come watch Animal Planet with him, or our mailman saying hello when I skipped down to the mailbox to meet him.

I believe every child is purely happy at some point, that every child doesn't understand what sadness is until they experience their first heartbreak. Usually a child's first heartbreak goes along the lines of a pet dying, or a friendship ending, or losing your favorite toy; mine was tragedy.

When my dad died a part of me died with him and so did the joy in people's voices when they called me Lucy. Instead the happiness was replaced with sympathy. Quickly things changed as the sympathy became more prominent.

My friends stopped wanting to play with me because I would always sulk around instead of leading them into some fantastic Narnia quest like usual, my mom stopped talking to me, the mail man didn't bring the mail to our door anymore and I found myself sitting alone at recess and at lunch.

A few years like this went by and slowly I began to find some sense of happiness again even though my mom started dating some guy named Oscar and they had a baby together. The year I found out I was going to have a baby brother my art piece had won a young artists contest and was displayed at our museum. I was so happy I took the money I had also won as a prize and bought myself a journal so I'd have someone to tell all about it.

Because I won the contest my confidence built and I joined an art club and a bunch of other clubs and started making friends. Friends that didn't know anything about me and suddenly the joy was back when they said my name. I finally felt like I could do it, I could make it through life even though I had a big void and it was because of this feeling I managed to survive middle school, my mom getting engaged to Oscar even though I didn't like him, and becoming an older sister.

When high school came around, everything went down hill again. I started dating Jamie and a lot of my friends became jealous and started blowing me off and eventually all the friendships I made in middle school were gone.

When my parents got married all everyone foused on was their marriage and my new brother, quickly at family gatherings I was ignored and overlooked. It was actually the morning after one of those dreadful family meetings that I first heard Ben's voice on my radio.

Because we were still Freshmen, he had a big of a squeaky voice and I remember hearing it and his stupid jokes made me laugh. I was always to afraid to approach him in the school hallways though because of how popular he was, even though he was best friends with my old best friend Luke.

So I settled for listening to the radio show.

Soon freshman year had passed and I was going on Sophomore year and by that point the only sense of happiness I had left was Jamie. By the middle of the year though that to had become another tragedy when he became possessive and abusive. I spent the second half of tenth grade struggling to get away from him and trying to tell someone what was happening but no one of importance believed me. I think if he hadn't broken up with me I would've still be stuck in that nightmare of a relationship.

Unfortunately by the time he broke up with me the permanent damage had been done. I hated myself, I was lonely, I felt unloved, I felt like invisible, I was struggling to do simple things like brush my teeth, but still I didn't pick a date because if I did that meant I wouldn't be able to be an artist. I told myself every morning,