Cadence and I
take a walk
outside
one night
when it's
relatively warm
and I can
actually breathe,
Christmas lights
twinkling in
the background
to a song
no one
can hear.
She finally
admits
she couldn't take
all the
pressure.
To be excellent
so people
will give
her money
for college.
To be perfect
so her parents
and grandmother
will be
proud of her.
To be strong
while her
best friend
degenerates.
To be everything
Trey could
ever want
from a girl.
I see
flaws in her
thinking,
but I
understand now
what hearing
someone tell you
what you feel
is wrong
feels like,
so I just
listen
as she tells me
how she
stopped trying
in school
until
her advocate
called her in
and listened
and started
getting her
back on track.
How Trey
was perfect
but couldn't handle
her nightmare
of a family.
How
she loves me
with everything
she is
but sometimes
it feels
too hard to
pretend
I don't have
Emphysema.
How she's grateful
for the scholarship
but she
doesn't know
what she wants
to do with it.
When she
winds down
to a stop,
it is then
that I
hug her
and tell her
everything
may tell her
she needs to be
perfect,
but all I
need is
her
as she is.
What I
don't say
out loud
is that
no matter what
anyone says,
she doesn't have
to be anything.
Because I
am still learning
that lesson
myself.
I say
together
we will
get through
everything
and the
only thing
that matters is
that we
get through.
YOU ARE READING
Remember; You Have the Universe
Teen FictionCover by kyromaniak Everyone wants to be different. I just want to be like everybody else. ---- Seventeen-year-old chronically ill Emma has traded dreams of flying into space for, "Support Therapy," aka, "The Dying Kids Group," and Student Council...
