I stared at the white and dark blue water. It crashed against the jagged gray boulders. I could hear the whistling wind swirl everywhere, pushing me side to side. It blew toward the sunless gray sky that blocked me from all happiness. As I bit my lip, I thought of the day that my father died. Just thinking about him brought salty tears to my eyes.

As I closed my eyes, I could see my father on a bed with a thin blue sheet. He had both arms at his side. His body was covered with dark red blood. My head started to spin. I felt like
I was going to fall to the floor. I held myself up beside the wall. His eyes were closed and he looked in pain, like he was trying to fight away death it’s self. He was surrounded by people wearing blue and white masks, like they thought he was contagious or smelled bad. It looked like three guys and two women. They would keep glancing back at a computer that had a bright red line fluctuating. The computer made a beeping noise every time it shot up.

I could see a man shocking my father’s chest with two rectangular metal blocks, yelling “clear!.” As the shiny blocks touched him, he would jerk quickly up as if he were in great pain. They just kept shocking him multiple times. I started screaming at them to stop it. What if he couldn’t breathe? What if, instead of saving him, they were just killing him? How did they know that what they were doing would even work?


As I looked back, I could see my stepmother Bren, sitting on a black plastic chair. She was staring at my father. Her face was composed and serious. How could she just sit there? I put my fingertips against the cool window.

I remembered screeching as I saw the doctors all drop their tools on a silver plater, like they were just... just giving up. I didn’t understand what was happening. As I looked at the computer, I saw what used to be the bright line fluctuating... straight.

I could feel my painful heart racing. It was like it was going to spring out of my chest. As I stared at my father, I saw his bloody left hand slowly fall loosely toward the white floor. At that moment I couldn’t feel my body, like I couldn’t move at all. Suddenly, I couldn’t feel my heart thump against my chest. I couldn’t hear anyone or anything. I felt paralyzed. I felt like all of my insides disappeared. I was a bowl that was filled with nothingness. I was disconnected to the whole world and everyone in it. I couldn’t breathe until a sharp gasp shot into my lungs.

Before I could look at him again, someone covered the window with a blue sheet so that I couldn’t see. I didn’t understand why they would make it so that I couldn’t even look at him. They didn’t even know him! I remember shaking my head as I tried to make sense of what was going on.

A girl’s scream pierced into my ears. She sounded like she just got stabbed in the knee by a steak knife. I soon found that the girl screaming... was me. I banged on the window for them to let me see again. Each bang shot a numbing vibration through my fists and arms. As they ignored my plea, I slowly dropped my hand from the window with hopelessness. As the cold hand sank to my side, I could hear it making a squeaky sound from the window. Tears of confusion and sorrow streamed down my face. I could feel them fall down my neck until they soaked into my blue shirt. I felt a pain in my head that made me dizzy.

A doctor stepped out of the room. As she opened the door, I could smell blood. I knew it belonged to my father. It was so distinct I could have smelled it from anywhere. It had the taste of iron or a magnet.

The women had her blond hair in a tight bun and her white mask was loose so that it laid free on her chest. She wore a blue shirt and pants that gave her room to move freely. Her hands were placed on the inside of her white jacket.

“The injury from the car crash was too deep. He didn’t make it... I’m sorry” I stared at her incredulously. What did she mean he didn’t make it? She was lying! She had to be. He couldn’t have just not made it. He was stronger than that! He was supposed to be here... And then I understood: He. was. gone. Everything that had to do with him was gone. There was no more future with him, only memories. We couldn’t ever take our vacation to Florida like we planned. We couldn’t ever go sky diving. He wouldn’t ever give me a ride to school just to be nice ever again. He was dead. He didn’t think anymore, he didn’t love or hate anymore. He couldn’t smell or make his own choices anymore. Soon he would be forgotten and no one would even think about him.


At that moment, half of my heart broke off. I could hear it snap in half like an icicle falling off a roof. It sent a sharp pain to my chest. He took half of my heart and I could never get it back. I couldn’t ever put a Band-Aid on it, or glue it or even stitch it back together. It was gone. He was gone... Forever.

As I finally understood what was happening, I felt my nose burn. Tears leaked out of my eyes unwillingly. My breathing sped up in irregular beats. I looked everywhere, but I didn’t know what I was looking for. It was if my darting eyes were looking for something invisible. Everything that I glanced at was blurry from my salty tears. I didn’t want to be here. I had already lost my mother, I couldn’t lose him too! I didn’t understand. Why didn’t they save him?

I stumbled toward the wall. I shifted the right side of my weight to the window. I slid down slowly toward the floor and stuffed my head in my arms that laid on my knees as I rocked back and forth. I pressed my sweaty hand against the left side of my chest. The air felt thick and condensed, like a hundred pounds. It was as if I was breathing from a small garbage bag while running. I could feel my heart thumping fast against my chest again. I started gasping for air as I examined my shaking hands.


“Stop that,” barked my stepmother. She was still very serious. Her hands were clenched on her legs that crossed. Her eyes were solid and slightly squeezed. Her red lips were almost in a pucker.

I stared at her with my watery eyes. My mouth was slightly opened and my brows met at the middle. I felt my heart stop as I tried to understand what she had just said.
Baby! She’s going to make a fool of me.

As I finally understood what she was thinking, I clenched my teeth. Even for her it was a surprise to see her being so cruel and conceited at a time like this. Couldn’t she understand that I just lost my father?
I quickly scrambled to my feet from the floor. As I stared at her in horror, I slowly started to stumble until I broke out into a sprint, out of the hospital doors. I didn’t know what I was doing. I couldn’t be there, not with my stepmother I was acting on confusion and anger. I did know one thing though; I was never going back.