How far would you go?

Short Story #1

People may forget a short moment in their life, may it be important or unimportant, time always finds a way to heal us and, leave the past memories behind. The term "Motivated Forgetting" exists for a reason, and its meaning is forgetting unwanted memories. That was exactly what Bryan was trying to do, trying not to make this unwanted memory from popping up, ever again.

Bryan is a senior at Belle View High, living day per day, getting past his SAT practice tests and preparations for college. He tries to keep his eyes open while Ms. Brenda keeps droning on, as I barely got enough sleep last night thinking about my scholarship at Georgetown University. In short, Bryan is an honor student whose aim is to get into an outstanding university and get his high school life over with, but everything changes when Abigail gets assigned to Bryan for the school newspaper, to share the role of Editor-in-Chief. As I sit outside the office of the principal waiting for Abigail so our principal Ms. Schneider, can explain the guidelines to us, I look at her walking towards the office, and it isn't what I had imagined. I always thought that the "love at first sight" concept was just like in the movies, music from the 90's, her hair rolling backward as she walks, all perfect. This wasn't exactly the case, she was wearing baggy clothes, hair all messy, looking like she hasn't washed her hair for days, she was a type of person to leave an impression. Not all that "wow, she's cute" kind of impression but more of the "um, who is that girl" kind of thing, wherein you kind of wonder what makes her leave the house looking like that sort of thing. So, moving on. We enter the office as Ms. Schneider explains that we must form a group of editors and share the room together and hands us two keys for us to keep, then proceeds to explain the basic guidelines and rules, after ten minutes of Ms. Schneider droning on about the guidelines, we finally leave the room. As we leave, I tell Abigail that we are splitting the work tasks. Which as she responds that she no longer writes, and is incapable of helping with any of the writing for the school paper. I ask her, why did you stop writing? She says, "because I lost all my motivation as a writer", that's why I can't write anymore. I could only stare at her as she crossed the street, walking down the road that looked shallow. I arrive home, as usual, a letter from my mom who's working at her store in the main area of the town. "Bryan, I left some food for you inside the microwave, you go ahead and have dinner first, ill be late today". I go to my room, figuring out my opening speech for the scholarship at Georgetown. After working on my speech for a couple of hours, I decide to get some fresh air and take my bike out for a ride. I spot Abigail walking down the road heading to the cemetery, I slowly follow her getting off my bike to prevent unnecessary noise. I just see her going up to a particular grave, sitting there for almost 30 minutes now, I just leave not knowing what the hell she was doing there. I go home, finish my sat prep then I fall asleep.

Today, we the editors of the school newspaper are excused from class and required to go to the club room to plan the paper for next week. As I arrive, I already see Abigail and the newly picked editors for this year. We discuss some topics that would make sense, and decide to agree on "going green to save school environment". I stare at Abigail as she doesn't speak at all, and just quietly listens. We end our meeting and go back to our classes, I sit beside Abigail during our English Class and I talk to her about our topic for the next paper, she tells me that she's going to support me on what I write for the main article. Then I ask again, why did you stop? She says that something in her life impacted her writing career and stopped her from writing forever.

As my daily routines went by, I continuously saw Abigail going down the road, where the cemetery is. Every day I see her go down that road, I wonder why I couldn't stop to ask her even once. Turns out that the reason she stopped writing was because she had witnessed her lover die right in front of her eyes when he died two years ago. She lost all motivation because he was her motivation to write...

"I believe that short stories need to leave some curiosity within the readers, and that is why I ended the story right here".